The God Seeker, by Sinclair Lewis

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Sinclair Lewis is the greatest little-known American novelist.  Steinbeck, Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, all seem to more widely read and better known than Lewis, but Lewis is at least their equal.  In fact, I find Lewis to be more readable and to tell richer, more satisfying stories with enduring themes.  The Nobel committee agreed; they gave him their prize for literature in 1930, the first U.S. writer to receive the honor.  (In spite of the Nobel committee's tradition of assinine choices for the Peace Prize, the honorees for the Literature prize seem to be legitimately deserving.) 

The God Seeker, the last Lewis novel published before his death, returns to the state of his birth, Minnesota.  The story follows Aaron Gadd, through his debauched teen years, rebelling against his stern father, his conversion and decision to become a missionary, his adventures as a missionary and craftsman in pre-statehood Minnesota.  Among the strengths of the novel is the portrayal of this period in Minnesota's history.  Lewis weaves actual events and individuals through the story.  The interactions of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries, the various Indian tribes, the traders, and the pioneering farmers and townspeople alone make The God Seeker an interesting book from a historical perspective.

For the Christian reader, Aaron's struggles as a young, passionate, if a bit theologically confused, Christian on the mission field provide plenty of moments of personal reflection.  Additionally, The God Seeker raises serious questions about the nature of cross-cultural ministry.  Other than a couple of very short-term mission trips, I have not served on the mission field, but I know enough and have read enough to appreciate the depth and insight of the issues Lewis addresses here.

Converted at a gospel camp meeting headlined by revivalist Charles Finney, and swept up in a passion to serve, Aaron brashly commits to return to Minnesota with one of the preachers who serves as a missionary there.  In the days leading up to his departure, he devours the scriptures but struggles with his carnality.  After he meets Selene, who would later become his wife, he can't stop thinking about her: "I've been thinking more about Selene than about experimental religion.  I'm not good enough nor pure enough to go."  Anyone who's been a young man in love can relate to his struggle.  "Whenever he thought of Selene's lips, of her breast, he writhed with the effort to convert it to prayer for the elevation of her soul."  Oh, the turmoil!

His struggles continued in a different vein once he arrived in Minnesota.  He quickly began to observe the injustices he sees visited on the Indians.  At Fort Snelling, he observes that the fort reminds the Indians that the territory, which had long belonged to the Indians, was now the white man's.  The fort was there "in case the Indians got a notion that they might have a right to their own land, and treacherously try to drive out the whites who had taken it over on the constitutional grounds of being white."  Besides the white privilege of taking over the land, he also struggles with their right to convert the Indians to Christianity.  Mr. Hopkins, a missionary with unorthodox ideas, tells Aaron, "I believe that if an Indian has never had any chance whatever to hear the True Word and yet has always been God-hungry and unselfish, maybe he might be elect and go to Heaven!"  Aaron didn't know what to think of that, but "was again convinced--perhaps a quarter-convinced--that the white invaders had been only a blessing to the Indians.  Why, of course!  They were white, weren't they?"

He even comes to consider that the Indians may have a superior culture.  Selene's father, the fur trader Lanarck, challenges him.  "You substitute an unventilated chapel for the open woods which were the Dakotah's tabernacle and a dreary staff of paid text-parrots for the Indian grandparents whose delight it was, in the old days, to instruct children in the duties of tribal morality and in the delightful myths about their demigods."  And given the communal nature of much of the tribal culture, Aaron wonders if they aren't better Christians than Christians are, providing for one another in need and living together as brothers.

Ultimately, Aaron leaves the mission and makes a name for himself as a builder.  I'm not sure he ever reconciled his love and admiration for tribal culture with the perceived superiority of his culture and religion.  Aaron's personal struggles and adventures on the American frontier make The God Seeker  a great read.  Lewis's sense of humor, vivid characterizations, and incorporation of historical events and settings add up to a novel worth a second look and place Sinclair Lewis high on the list of great American writers.