In reading Luck Worsley Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, I can’t tell if she’s a feminist, a Lutheran, neither, some, or both. Two things I don’t like about this book is that while Agatha Christie never said that any of her books, save for her autobiography, were autobiographical novels, the author repeatedly cites some as being so. Second, as Ron Chernow can apologize in the sense of apologia for Mark Twain’s racism in his recent biography on Twain, so Worsley tries to make her more of a feminist than she appears to be.
Why do I think she was not a feminist? Well, for one she never voted though women were granted the franchise in her lifetime. Two, because of this quote from the book: “If asked her profession, she’d have said she had none. When an official from required her to put down what she did, the woman who is estimated to have sold two billion copies always wrote ‘housewife’” (Worsley, Lucy, Agatha Christie – An Elusive Woman, 14).
This was from a woman who had more reason than most not to rely on men or follow them. Her father was dreamer who died leaving the family not in poverty but certainly in difficult conditions. Her brother in addition to also being a dreamer was a drug addict and she ended up taking care of him till he died. Her first husband left her for another woman ten years her junior. Yet, still she wrote “housewife.” I suppose the one indication of her feminism, or maybe just toward mothering, was that her second marriage at 40 was to a man 14 years her junior.
Why do I expect her living in a time of building anti-Germanic, well certainly anti-Prussian, feelings in England of being a Lutheran? This quote from Worsley, “Agatha’s autobiography implies that what brought her back from the brink [of suicide after he first husband abandoned her] was the remembered voice of a woman. A teacher had told her the essence of Christianity was the defeat of despair. ‘Those few words;, Agatha wrote, ‘remained with me…[T]hey were to come back to me and give me hope at a time when despair had me in its grip’” (203). Now that ought to pick up your Confessional Lutheran ears.
This is from the Treatise: “Thus they obscure the glory of Christ, and deprive consciences of firm consolation, and abolish true divine services, namely, the exercises of faith struggling with [unbelief and] despair [concerning the promise of the Gospel]” (Source: https://bookofconcord.org/power-and-primacy/ ). It’s much clearer in the Tappert edition which is why I prefer it, “Thus they [the Papists] obscure the glory of Christ, deprive consciences of a firm consolation, and abolish the true worship (that is, the exercise of faith struggling against despair)” (44).
And then we have our Small Catechism The Sixth Petition: “And lead us not into temptation. What does this mean? God tempts no one. We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.”
I prefer the translation I learned “deceive us or mislead us into misbelief, despair…” for it’s not usually an out and out false belief that trips us up. We are not led into despair because we don’t believe in the forgiveness of sins but of “that” sin. We don’t believe God is merciless just not merciful enough for how badly we failed. Despair is not listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but it should be.
In sum, I don’t think in essence Agatha was feminist, but she certainly was right about the essence of Christianity, Confessional Lutheranism in particular. And she was less of a feminist and more of a Lutheran than any contemporary worship Lutheran Church I’ve attended.
