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

134 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
undershaft. Not Greek Paganism either, eh?
cusins. I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion.
undershaft. Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her inspiration
comes from within herself.
cusins. How do you suppose it got there?
undershaft [in towering excitement] It is the Undershaft inheritance.
I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my
converts and preach my gospel—
cusins. What? Money and gunpowder!
undershaft. Yes, money and gunpowder. Freedom and power. Command
of life and command of death. (3:119–20)
This is a notable bit of dialogue. Undershaft sees more in Barbara than an
intelligent and determined young woman deluded by religion. He is not
like Peter Shirley, who thinks she would have been a “very taking lecturer
on Secularism” if she had only learned to use her reason (3:111). Barbara’s
religion is her own; it is not something she has taken from the Salvation
Army but something she has given it. Her father thinks it is his bequest.
The unavoidable but amazing conclusion is that he sees his own religion in
his daughter. He insists that the gospel she must preach is salvation by
money and gunpowder.
The Undershaft Inheritance
What is the nature of Barbara’s religion? Cusins sees that the power she
uses is a power that uses her, just as later Undershaft speaks of being
driven by a “will of which I am a part” (3:169). Is there a deeper reason for
Undershaft to see himself in Barbara, or is he, as Cusins believes, simply
mad? We see Barbara’s religion at work in her treatment of Bill Walker. To
understand Barbara—and her relation to her father—we must look carefully
at the way she handles Bill, but there is another clue to Barbara’s
spiritual power that is often overlooked.
In many ways Barbara’s unique and individual religion is in harmony
with that of the Salvation Army; this is why she could so easily find a
home there. Cusins describes the Salvation Army as “the army of joy, of
love, of courage,” and we have many opportunities to see those qualities in
Barbara personally (3:116). There is certainly no striking difference between
Barbara and the Salvation Army with respect to what Shaw sees as
the two opposing camps of Christianity: what he calls “Crosstianity” and
(confusingly) Christianity. Crosstianity preaches salvation through the