Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

Major Barbara 133
have you ever saved a maker of cannons?” Undershaft has clearly recognized
something in his daughter that impels him to claim her, for if the
audience suspects at this point that he is considering becoming one of
Barbara’s converts, they will be disabused in the next act.
The coda that resolves this scene is a counterpoint of religious attitudes.
Barbara asks for “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” Lomax volunteers “Thou’rt
Passing Hence, My Brother,” and Lady Britomart calls for prayers. The
lines are drawn. Forced to choose, both Undershaft and Cusins declare their
allegiance to Barbara’s position rather than those of Lomax and Lady Brit,
but there are differences. As usual, Undershaft is not explicit; he merely
says that he has “conscientious scruples,” but Cusins is diplomatically honest:
he objects to the ritual confession of sin as unjust and untrue. He
has worked for his moral rectitude, he has earned it and is proud of it, and
he will not have it denied. His position is different from that of Lomax,
Stephen, and Lady Britomart, or of Barbara and her father. He avoids the
hypocrisy and confusion of the one by courage and honesty but lacks
Barbara’s cheerful rejection of moral stereotypes. Cusins does believe in
scoundrels, or he would not work so hard to avoid becoming one.
Undershaft is, if anything, even more puzzling when we see him at the
Salvation Army shelter. He is astonished that Barbara would suggest that
he is a secularist, protesting that he is a “confirmed mystic,” but pressed to
identify his religion more specifically, he declares merely that he is a millionaire
(3:110–11). When Cusins asks the same question, he explains that
he believes that there are two things necessary to salvation: money and
gunpowder. He does not explain the “mystical” nature of money, gunpowder,
or his millions. Nor does he provide a metaphysical or spiritual basis
for this “religion,” other than to imply that it is the foundation on which
ethical and spiritual values must necessarily rest (3:116). But his attraction
to Barbara emerges more powerfully than ever. If there is doubt about the
nature of his religion, there is none about his purpose here at the shelter: it
is to win his daughter away from the Salvation Army to become apostle
and missionary of the Undershaft religion. This is the exchange between
Undershaft and Cusins:
undershaft. . . . We have to win her; and we are neither of us Methodists.
cusins. That doesnt matter. The power Barbara wields here—the
power that wields Barbara herself—is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism,
not Methodism—