‘Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone’ – Charles Dickens, in his novel, Barnaby Rudge
The past few days I have been thinking of Leland Gaunt. For those who don’t recognize the name, Mr. Gaunt is the proprietor of the shop ‘Needful Things’ in the Stephen King novel of the same name. The shop offers a curious inventory of items, and for each individual customer who comes through the door, there is a particular item that inevitably overwhelms their discretion and self-restraint. It is an item they simply must possess, no matter the cost. Mr. Gaunt, eager to please, offers each enthralled customer the item of their desire for two prices, both of which they must agree to pay.
The first price is always a bargain, leaving each customer with the distinct impression that Mr. Gaunt desires to give his stock away. The second price isn’t specified up front. Mr. Gaunt simply advises that he will come to collect later. If this makes you suspicious you are right to be, but the shoppers at Needful Things, seeing the item of their heart’s desire before their eyes, never take time to be so themselves. All they can contemplate is that they need the item, and so they pay the initial price without consideration of the second. They simply can’t resist, for, as Leland Gaunt himself says, ‘Everybody loves something for nothing…even if it costs them everything.’
And that, of course, is the catch. It will cost them everything. For, as it turns out, Leland Gaunt is no ordinary shopkeeper. He is the devil himself come to Castle Rock, Maine to wreak havoc. He lets his customers enjoy their items for a time, and then, when he has them where he wants them, comes to collect the second price, which, wouldn’t you know it, is destructively, even lethally, high. In the end, each item fails to deliver on its original promise, and ends up costing the buyer, as Mr. Gaunt himself had intimated, everything.
This past week, as most of you know (unless you’ve been living under a rock), a draft opinion by the United States Supreme Court leaked to the press. The opinion, if adopted, would overrule Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that made abortion legal throughout the United States. The whole country has been in an uproar ever since. The draft decision is being seen as vindication for the many Christians who, despite reservations, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and/or 2020. Sure, he was an odious character, a womanizer, a racist, a bully, and possessed more than a few authoritarian tendencies, but heck, he promised to appoint conservative, originalist Justices who would overrule Roe, and that was something for which those same Christians had been praying for decades. The protection of unborn life was the worthiest of causes, and the bargain Mr. Trump proposed was simply too enticing to pass up. And so, they held their noses, pulled the proverbial lever, and waited for the promised victory.
Now, that victory seems imminent. And so, in the minds of many, the Faustian bargain struck with Mr. Trump seems to have been worth it.
But was it?
You see, just as was the case in Mr. Gaunt’s shop, a devil’s bargain always comes with a second price, and the promise given always fails. Now, I understand that we are talking about the lives of unborn children. I am myself pro-life. I believe all life to be sacred, from womb to tomb. But one must ask whether this bargain is even going to hold; whether the promised gain will be fully realized. Whether, for starters, the draft opinion will even become law. Whether, in a society where the majority simply doesn’t see things as I and other pro-life persons do, such a decision will be allowed to stand for long, or even have the desired effect (one of the ironies of overruling Roe may well be that in the states where the vast majority of abortions are performed, abortion access, and hence the number of abortions, including late-term abortions, will likely increase, rather than decrease). One must ask whether, in fact, there may have been other means, other ways, to save the lives of unborn children, say, by providing financial, emotional, and other support to birthmothers, birthfathers, and families facing unplanned or crisis pregnancies, as many Christians and agencies have been, and still are, doing. Or by ensuring that health care and other benefits remain available to those same mothers and families. Or by coming alongside families and helping them raise their children by providing childcare and other support services. Or, in situations where birth families are not able to care for their children, by adopting their children and raising them to cherish their birthmothers and fathers and their choice for life. Or by simply engaging in the patient industry of gentle persuasion and the modeling of a better way. There are many ways to be pro-life with respect to abortion, with or without the reversal of Roe.
And then there is the matter of the second cost. In backing Trump, Christians partnered with a man who has threatened democracy, damaged race relations, denigrated public decency, and caused countless other social harms. The consequent injury to the Church’s witness has been incalculable. In the minds of many both within and without the Church, Christianity has become associated with Trumpism. Christians (even those of us who didn’t make the bargain) are now widely thought of as the people who support racism and white supremacy, who separate children from their families, who approve of the use of violence against peaceful protestors, who look the other way as women are demeaned and abused, who, well, we could go on for a while here. It seems no exaggeration to say that both the message and messengers of Christianity have been tarnished severely by this association with Mr. Trump, and that this tarnishing, on top of the aforementioned damage to society, may well result in millions, even tens of millions, turning away from Jesus forever.
Talk about a high second price.
So it is with the devil’s bargains. They seem to offer an effective means to a certain end. But in the end, the promise is never fulfilled, and the price proves to be too high. Which is why, for example, when Jesus was offered a similar bargain by Satan in the wilderness, in that case control of all the kingdoms of the world, he refused (see, Luke 4:5-8). Sure, he might have gained control over the world’s kingdoms (and been able to pack their courts!), he may even have been able to do much good, but he would have done so by rejecting the way of the Cross, the one thing necessary for the salvation of the world and the establishment of the one Kingdom that truly matters. He would have missed the proverbial forest for the proverbial trees. For Jesus, the means by which he saved the world was as important as the end, for only by following the right means could the proper end be truly achieved.
It may seem like a bargain to give power to a despot in order to win one’s favorite cause, especially a cause as important as the preservation of human life. I can understand the temptation. But folks, it is always a mistake to accept the devil’s bargain. It is always better to follow the path of Jesus, the path of service and sacrifice, as long, hard, and frustrating as it may be, than it is to accept the cheap and easy way out offered by, if not Satan himself, those who seek to wield his power.
Esau McCauley has said, ‘the way you get something is just as important as the fact that you get it…so as a Christian, I am never allowed to put aside means to get to an end.’[1] He’s right. As Dickens noted, good ends can always be worked out by good means, those that cannot are bad, and should be counted so at once, and left alone.
And so I say to those who voted for Trump because of their pro-life convictions, this week may seem like vindication, but beware. The second, hidden cost of your bargain is already playing out before our eyes. In the end, it may very well cost everything.
Far better, I believe, to reject the devil’s bargain in all its guises, and, like Jesus, pursue another way.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent
[1] See, interview with Esau McCauley in Holy Post Number 425.
