Salvation Case by Langston Hughes

"Salvation"

"Salvation" by Langston Hughes is a short but powerful title to engage readers, especially those interested in religious themes. "Salvation" narrates the experience of a twelve year-old boy who attends church with his aunt and is persuaded to be saved and receive Jesus in his life. The people pressure him, including children his same age, but especially the minister. Dissapointed in himself for pretending to take Jesus into his life, his experience goes from being a routine trip to church to being an unpleasant anecdote to not get what he expected, "to see Jesus" (639). In the middle of his innocence and inmaturity he feels bad, not only for lying, but because he stopped believing in all that he had heard about Jesus from his aunt. "Salvation" shows how pressure affects and manipulates people's faith and minds, yet somehow brings conformity to their lives.

Langston Hughes's experience took place in 1914 when people had strong religious values and the fear of God was fundamental in society. In the second paragraph we can see how his aunt explains to him the process of being saved and to "see and hear and feel Jesus" (639), but in an spiritual way. His innocence and lack of understanding about spiritual things makes him feel confused since he was expecting to actually see Jesus in person.

Paragraph three shows how the preacher persuades the children to come to Jesus with the song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold and the little lamb left out in the cold. But in paragraph 10 the preacher stopped being persuasive to be adament with Hughes, since he was the only child left alone on the mourners' bench. It is in this paragraph where the pressure becomes so strong that by paragraph 12, Hughes finally gives up and joins the group of "young lambs," without having any spiritual experience. For sure, many of those children didn't have any spiritual experience but for their lack of understanding and immaturity, they yielded to the preacher's pressure and the many people praying around them; unfortunately, not realizing the importance of their decision.

Today, religious values are not strong as before, but pressure is stronger than ever not only in the religious field, but in marketing, politics, education, technology, media, and family. In the same way the preacher in "Salvation" convinces all those children to come to Jesus without understanding their decision, we bow down to the product that looks better, the candidate with better promises, cheaper and faster education, the latest technology, news bias, and sibling rivalry. Sometimes, without considering the consequences of what we choose or deciding when it is too late, we are actually the new young lambs of the new millenium.

However, pressure needs allies to be more powerful; for example, allies such

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