Goodbye+Christ

“Goodbye Christ”  Listen, Christ, You did alright in your day, I reckon— But that day’s gone now. They ghosted you up a swell story, too, Called it Bible— But it’s dead now. The popes and the preachers’ve Made too much money from it. They’ve sold you to too many  Kings, generals, robbers, and killers— Even to the Czar and the Cossacks, Even to Rockefeller’s Church, Even to THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">You ain’t no good no more. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">They’ve pawned you <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Till you’ve done wore out. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Goodbye, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Beat it on away from here now. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Make way for a new guy with no religion at all— <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">A real guy named <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME— <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">I said, ME! <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Go ahead on now, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">You’re getting in the way of things, Lord. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And please take Saint Gandhi with you when you go, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And Saint Pope Pius, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And Saint Aimee McPherson, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And big black Saint Becton <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Of the Consecrated Dime. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And step on the gas, Christ! <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Move! <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Don’t be so slow about movin’. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The world is mine from now on— <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">And nobody’s gonna sell ME <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">To a king, or a general, <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Or a millionaire. <span style="color: #1f1f1f; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Written by Langston Hughes (as you should already know) in 1931 while he was on a trip to the Soviet Union to film a movie on the Jim Crow laws that was never fully finished. Hughes was socialist at this time; so being in a socialist country was a major event, the kind that spawns poetry. Keep in mind that the atmosphere was taken into account when he wrote this poem · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">First published in // The Negro Worker // (“a liberal publication”) in 1932. · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The poem was used as evidence against Hughes in his 1953 Un-American Activities Trial because it seems (for obvious reasons) to be anti-relgious, a trait commonly found amongst communists and hated by Christian-Americans. (Background: the red scare was rampant in these days.) However, in his Un-American Activities trial, Hughes was comfortable with saying that he meant nothing of the sort when he wrote the poem, that it was “the speaker” speaking, not necessarily him, and that he was outlining a popular movement he was not actually involved with. (Background: Karl Marx once called religion “the opium of the masses,” which influenced many Communists to be anti-religion and feel that religion made people unequal.) · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Some, such as the esteemed Dr. Donald Falls, believe the poem to actually be religious because it shows the what wrongs the church has done so that the church may fix them; it outlines how religion (specifically Christianity) has become a business, hypocritical, et alii and by doing so gives people an idea of why so many have chosen to denounce it. Just to show this view is shared, here is another, un-cited person’s opinion: “Hughes is, in no way, repudiating Jesus Christ and true religion. He is, however, excoriating those whom he considers charlatans, who have profited only financially without highlighting the true meaning of Christ’s (or other religion’s) words.” <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -0.25in;"> · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">The selfishness in the poem’s tone is a bit overdone and may be considered satirical. It is possible that Hughes is pointing out that the socialists are anti-religion for their own gain, ironic, since they are pushing out religion for being exactly the same way. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">From the info sheet given us by Mrs. Sisemore: (more background) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> · <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">George Wilson Becton was leader of the Harlem-based sect called The World’s Gospel Feast. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Becton is criticized as a charlatan in Hughes’ autobiography // The Big Sea. //The Riverside Church, an interdenominational (American Baptist and United Church of Christ) congregation in New York City, built with major financial support by John D. Rockefeller. Theologically, it shunned fundamentalism, dedicating itself instead to becoming actively involved in the world following Jesus’ example as a social revolutionary. · <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Hughes was upset with the reluctance of the editors of // The Saturday Evening Post //to publish works by African-American authors and who had rejected publication of “Good Morning revolution in 1932. The // POST //retaliated to Hughes’ negative reference by publishing “Goodbye Christ” without Hughes permission in its Dec. 21, 1940 issue. · <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Pope Pius XII: Supporter of Franco’s anti-union fascist government during the Spanish Civil War. During his 39-year regime, Franco destroyed every aspect of workers’ organizations, imprisoning, torturing, and executing hundreds of thousands of labor activists and supporters. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> · <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Aimee Semple McPherson: Evangelist, founder, and head of the Church of the Four-Square Gospel, a 5,300-seat church in Echo Park, California. In response to the poem, McPherson’s publicity man sent picketers to protest his reading at a Book and Author luncheon on Nov. 15, 1940 at the Vista Del Arroyo Hotel in Pasadena, CA. A sound truck played “God Bless America.” <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Courtesy of Pavel Komarov