The Monsters We Become

We have just closed out a month that we often associate with monsters.  Halloween, together with October, is behind us and we are moving on to turkeys and pilgrims.  Not so fast!  Monsters are still with us – and I am not referring to recent and current politicians of your choice.  I am talking about you and me.

Over the past three years I have been revisiting the great canon of Western literature – rereading books I haven’t read since my school years and visiting some classics for the first time.  The latter was the case with Mary Shelley’s provocative Frankenstein.  Upon finishing the book, several thoughts occurred to me, but none more forcefully than the biblical truth that “He who builds a high tower invites destruction.”  (Proverbs 17:19).  Billed as a modern day Prometheus, Shelley’s Frankenstein serves as a warning against striving for such an elevated greatness that destruction is the outcome.

Having only been familiar with the film versions of the Frankenstein story, I was surprised to discover that the book is really a story within a story.  In much the same was as the Princess Bride is a story about Grandpa telling Max a story about Wesley and Buttercup, Shelley’s classic is about Victor Frankenstein telling Captain Walton a story about himself and his monstrous creation.  And the broader story – the story of Victor and the ship captain, demonstrates the dominant theme of the book and serves as an apt illustration of our biblical principle. 

Upon rescuing Victor from an iceberg in the North Sea, Walton relates his burning desire to be the first to sail to the north pole.  Walton writes to his sister that he told Victor “how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise.  One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race.”

Hearing this, Frankenstein is overcome with a deep gloom and begins to weep.  With a broken voice he says to Walton, “Unhappy man!  Do you share my madness?  Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught?  Hear me: let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”

And so Frankenstein tells the tale of how, driven by a desire to advance beyond all others and to increase humanity’s dominion over nature, he created a life – the monster we today popularly refer to as Frankenstein.  The tale grows dark, and although Victor succeeded in his undertaking, one by one, his monster claims the lives of all who are close to Victor.

Like many pastors, I have been listening to Christianity Today’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.  The ten episodes of that podcast tell the sad tale of a pastor (together with a church leadership and culture), who pursued success at all costs.  Likening his ministry to a bus, that pastor even boasted that there was a trail of bodies behind his ministry.  People run over, people burnt out, people cast aside….

Many, many good things were undoubtedly accomplished at Mars Hill.  But the single-minded quest for success ended up destroying the entire enterprise.  And what happened in Seattle is not uncommon. A well intended quest for great success turns monstrous all too often.

In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the story ends with Walton’s ship becoming ice-bound and in very real danger of being crushed with the loss of all hands.  Tragically, Victor urges Walton to press on regardless of the cost.  Walton decides to forego his quest and preserve the lives of his crew and sets his sails for England.

Victor Frankenstein appears not to have learned the lesson of his own tale.  He is all for building towers as high as they can be built – regardless of the risk, trauma, and even death his activities impose on others.  And so the reader is compelled to wonder which is the worst monster, Victor Frankenstein, or the zombie he created.

And what about us?  Is it possible that we value success and accomplishment so much that we treat others monstrously?  Is it possible that we expose our families, friends, and colleagues to miseries that are acceptable to us because our goals and values are being pursued?

Choose to build carefully.  Know that you can build too high and bring about a destruction that will touch more souls than your own.

Your Pastor,

Bob Bjerkaas

N.B. The picture is a headshot of the statue of Frankenstein on display in Geneva at Plainpalais, the site of the monster’s first murder. Photo credit could not be l0cated in the CNN article that ran this image.