ry Southern Methodism" (Bell 224), is what he as head deacon feels perfectly comfortable imposing, even through corporal punishment of hischildren. John Grimes is overwhelmed by violence: his father's, white society's, and thestreet's. For him, like his father, the church "juxtaposes the wonder of Christianity ... with its terror and in some cases tyranny" (Porter 102). Christianity adds a patina of hope to the despair that engulfs John's family, but as an institution that has both encouraged and stymied black aspirations, the church also serves as a kind of holding pen for his longings and anger. Itis not surprising, then, that John looks elsewhere for resolution to the dark tyranny of his father's house, to the agony of his mother's gentle helplessness, to the racism of white society stalking the borders of his young life, and to his own burgeoning sexuality that he regards as sinful. Thesecular books of school beckon to him. His intelligence brings him the special attention of white teachers, which despite Gabriel's vociferous protests he relishes. When he goes against his father's commands and spends his birthday money on a movie about a sexually promiscuous woman, it is his way of attempting to understand the world at large, especially its "wickedness." His own feelings of lust, which he cannot help but interpret as evil, haunt him. John attempts to look everywhere but where his father directs his gaze. And, while the drama of the book seems to lead him in one direction, John's conversion on his fourteenth birthday is not wholly unexpected: "Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like hisfather" (11). When it occurs, though, no one is really prepared. Both father and son are jolted out of their passively hostile stances toward one another and must stake out new claims to the territory they are now destined to share. John Grimes's fourteenth birthday, then, is also his first. "He got two bir...
