Langston Hughes Salvation Analysis

Salvation, by Langston Hughes, is a story about a boy who is forced to conform to a religious belief and “see Jesus.” Many cultures and religions today impact young children by pushing them to accept and believe is something that is far greater than what they are ready for. I personally, have had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with this firsthand, having someone push “good Christian ideals” and values down my throat since a young age, an age where I was not necessarily ready to comprehend everything that was being thrown at me.

I come from a long line of Southern Baptists. Everything revolved around God and family, and if one had both, they were golden. I was always encouraged to attend church, and while I’m not sure I really had no choice, that was what was expected of me. It’s not like I ever really paid attention though. Our church had these little sermon notes that I would draw on. That and my

brain wasn't big enough to grasp what our pastor was talking about. Every so often we’d have someone get baptized. When you get baptized, ultimately you accept Jesus into your heart, and he forgives you of your sins. While I understood that they were being “saved”, I never really felt like it was for me. Sure I thought about it, and even after I watched my younger brother get baptized, I told my parents I wanted to do it, but that fell through when I realized that I didn’t really have an interest in being “saved” or even in religion.

The realization that I didn't enjoy being a Christian really irked me, but it really didn't surprise me.

In our Sunday school classes, I was always the odd man out, the one who didn't really contribute anything to the group discussion on different Bible verses and stories. It seemed like we were always being forced to think a certain way about a certain event or person, and if you didn't agree, you were basically an outcast. That outcast was usually me, nine times out of ten. I found myself always disagreeing with something someone had said, things such as “Drinking is unholy” or “Glee is a bad show because there are gay people and they kiss.” My parents were never super strict about us reading the Bible or watching “Christian movies”, but these kids had parents just like that, and I was determined not to end up like them. Still, I was too scared to tell my parents that I hated church and didn't believe in God out of fear that they would shun me and make me go to Christian youth retreats. While I can accept some find that fun, I personally would not enjoy

that.

I hid this from my parents for a very long time, actually until my senior year of high school. We hadn't gone to church in a really long time, and even though they kept telling my brother and I that they were looking into going to a few, we never made any moves to actually go. I had never intended to tell them, it just kind of happened one day when I was watching television with my mom. She was mad at first, and she didn't talk to me for a while, but eventually it just became a big joke, like everything else in our family. They slowly accepted that I identified with being Agnostic, and they dropped the topic of going to church.

It felt so good to be out of living in a lie. I no longer had to worry about slipping up and saying something incriminating. Even now, I still feel like I’m a disappointment to my family because religion played a big part in their childhoods, and they wanted their own kids, my brother and I, to be involved with it as well. All in all, I’m glad I no longer have to act like someone I’m not. I wish I had had a choice when I was younger, and that is not a mistake I will make with my own children.