The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Graham Greene's 1951 novel The End of the Affair tells the story of Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Mills. Bendrix is searching for love, but only finds an unresolved love/hate with Sarah, a married woman whom he can never have because she will not leave her husband Henry. Sarah is also searching for love, and finds her way back to Christianity and the Roman Catholic faith of her mother and her own childhood.

The book turns when Sarah is shocked back into belief by the miracle of answered prayer. Bendrix lies lifeless under the wreckage of an exploded German V1 bomb. In book III, chapter II, her diary records her prayer when she sees his body, "Dear God, I said - why dear, why dear? - make be believe. I can't believe. Make me. I said, I'm a bitch and a fake and I hate myself. I can't do anything of myself. Make me believe" and then "Let him be alive, and I will believe." Moments later Bendrix gets up and she knows that she must leave him and return to God.

Her faith is simple but fierce. She is vulnerable to superstition, but is also able to resist Bendrix's pursuit of her. Her death is hastened by exposing herself to the cold rain in a desperate attempt to pray in church.

In the last chapter, Richard Smythe, an outspoken atheist whom Sarah meets following her affair with Bendrix, experiences a type of conversion through the miraculous healing of his disfigured cheek. Sarah's belief was indirectly strengthened by listening to his arguments against God, and this foreshadows what is about to happen with Bendrix on the next page.

Bendrix realizes his hatred of Sarah reveals his hatred of God. He hates or rather fears the fact that anyone, even Sarah, can leap from immorality and unbelief directly to sainthood. In the final chapter he rants, "What I chiefly felt was less hate than fear. For if this God exists, I thought, and if even you - with your lusts and your adulteries and the timid lies you used to tell - can change like this, we could all be saints by leaping as you leapt, by shutting the eyes and leaping once and for all: if you are a saint, then it's not so difficult to be a saint." Bendrix is rejecting grace: that God loves and saves sinners, that a Christian does not stand before God in his own righteous but only in the righteousness of Christ, purchased on the cross, received by faith alone and not by works.

Yet even his hatred of God reveals a nascent belief. He concludes his rant with, "I hate You, God, I hate You as though You existed." And the book ends with utter loneliness: "O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever."

But like Richard Smythe, Bendrix indirectly argues for belief. One cannot finish the story, after being captivated by Greene's characters and plot, and side with Bendrix. He have to hope that we don't end up like him, which means we have to hope in God.

How do we get justice?

In the wake of George Floyd's tragic killing and the unfolding protests and riots, I'm told that "White Silence is White Violence". There's some truth in that - that I have an obligation to speak when I see injustice and that not speaking is a form of complicity.

I could speak about pragmatic or incremental ways to improve things, and I believe there's lots of common ground across the political spectrum on those, but no one wants that. The cry is for justice - to finally and forever put things right. No more half measures that don't solve anything.

So I feel compelled to speak about how we find justice. This is what I believe.

First, I believe all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. These are Christian ideas that come from God's Word and are the surest rejection of racism. All people are created by God, bear the image of God, and have equal dignity and value. You can't reject the Creator and still have a solid claim that all men are equal.

Second, although people are created in the image of God, we are all sinful. Ever since our first father and mother fell, all human hearts are full of hatred, greed, pride and selfishness. It spews out in every direction. In general, any accusation you can make about the wickedness of white people is true. It is also true of black people, people from China or India or wherever. The human race is fallen. This is the deepest explanation of the violence of a white cop on a black man and the mobs torching their cities in response.

Third, God is still ruling and will one day bring perfect justice. At the Last Judgment, God will make everything right and punish all wickedness. The problem is that I won't be able to stand in that judgment. There is much wickedness outside of me, but also much wickedness inside me. I have hatred, greed, pride and selfishness and it comes out in every direction in my life.

Fourth, the only way I can stand in that judgment is by the sacrificial death of Jesus my Savior on my behalf. While God is just, he is also loving, and he showed his love and justice by sending his own Son to die in the place of sinners like me. Jesus was an innocent man killed by the Roman police of his day. God satisfied all justice, leaving no wickedness unpunished, yet made a way for sinners like me to know his love. He reconciles individuals to himself, and he reconciles groups of people who are hostile to each other, Jew and Gentile, black and white. If you want to see perfect justice in the world today, powerful enough to heal all division, the only place you can look is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Finally, for those who have been forgiven and know his love, we are given changed hearts to love our enemies as Christ loved us and to sacrifice our lives and he sacrificed his life for us. Christian do not do this perfectly. It is easy to label us as hypocrites because we are sinners saved by grace. Our prayer is that God will work out his love and justice, bought and paid for at the cross, through sinners like us.

This is the Christian faith. It is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed. It is what many African Americans believe, in a greater percentage than white Americans. It was believed before America was founded and the scourge of American slavery was started, and it will be believed after America is dead and gone. By God's grace that won't happen soon.