The pearl of great price

'The Pearl of Great Price' is a short story that explores the ways faith can go wrong. The central character, Janet, a single mom in a dead end job, is drawn into a multi-level marketing scheme, Benevite, by an unscrupulous salesman. She is encouraged to believe in herself and her dream an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal for philosophy of religion
Main Author: Howard-Snyder, Frances (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2017
In: International journal for philosophy of religion
Further subjects:B Belief
B Bible. Matthew
B BELIEF & doubt
B RESILIENCE (Personality trait)
B Faith
B Religious Aspects
B PEARL of Great Price (Parable)
B Bad faith
B BAD faith (Law)
B Trust
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:'The Pearl of Great Price' is a short story that explores the ways faith can go wrong. The central character, Janet, a single mom in a dead end job, is drawn into a multi-level marketing scheme, Benevite, by an unscrupulous salesman. She is encouraged to believe in herself and her dream and to give everything she has to it. She is fed the standard clichés to the effect that you can achieve whatever you want if you try hard enough. In the end her faith in her dream leads to the loss of her relationship with her child and other losses. Her pursuit exhibits many of the standard features of faith, belief, desire, resilience, tenacity, passion, and yet she does not save herself. The story is not meant as an indictment of faith in general, but as an acknowledgement of the fact that faith can be a vice and an exploration of when this might be so.
ISSN:1572-8684
Contains:Enthalten in: International journal for philosophy of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s11153-016-9605-y