To be an ontological existentialist, one must "participate in a situation, especially a cognitive situation, with the whole of one's existence", according to Paul Tillich, German philosopher, theologian, and author of Courage to Be (124). Operating within this definition, Smith would be obligated t

Sanford Sternlicht, professor at Syracuse University and author of Stevie Smith, noted, "She was progressively disillusioned by Christianity. She saw dishonesty in the churches, and disagreed with the conventional construct of God as demeaning, vain, jealous, revengeful, (or) eager to sacrifice the innocent" (Sternlicht 106). This slowly developed distaste for Christianity did not come out of her disbelief in God, only in the God who was presented to her by those involved in a particular religion. Smith was not an atheist, and she even once mentioned to a friend, "how very imperfect an agnostic I am" (Barbera 214). However, as an imperfect agnostic and a non-atheist, one is only left the option that she is a Christian, which is also a term she chose not to associate herself with very often at all.

Sternlicht, Sanford. Stevie Smith. Boston : Twayne Publishers, 1990.

Stevie Smith responds to this type of worship in a poem she wrote entitled, "Our Bog is Dood". Within this poem, the speaker tells a story of encountering a group of natives who believe blindly there Bog is dood "because we wish it so / That is enough, they cried . . . And if you do not think it so / You shall be crucified" (Smith, 58). She questions their allegiance to this deity and leaves them confused in their definitions of goodness and their god, upon which they never agreed. The speaker slyly retorts, "Oh sweet it was to leave them then / And sweeter not to see / And sweetest of all to walk alone / Beside the encroaching sea / The sea that soon should drown them all / That never yet drowned me" (59). Without any attempt to aide these individuals in coming to some sort of conclusion or realization about their god, the speaker leisurely exits the scenario to walk by the side of the impending swell of the sea that has proved to do nothing more than envelope those who are ignorant of the secret the speaker implies to possess.

In the same way Stevie Smith took some time to get to know herself and have the courage to be herself, it is similarly that way with those who are coming to the Lord. Smith struggles with concepts of the Lord because she does not know the Lord and it is virtually impossible to hold one on one conversation with Him so as to get to know who He is and what His plan for us is. Smith must rely on the teachings of the priests and clergymen in the churches she disagrees with due to the material and quite non-existential attitude hosted by the churches during her lifetime.

Historically, Smith was quite involved both cognitively and physically with the Christian realm of the world from her baptism as an infant straight through to her funeral in the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity. She did not appear to have scurried away from the Christian world and theologies that surrounded this religion's persona. Smith was aware of the presence of the Christian tradition and even the existence of a holy omnipotent somewhere beyond where mortal eyes can see. She had knowledge of that presence. Tillich stated, "An existential knowledge is a knowledge in which these elements, and therefore the whole existence of him who knows, participate" (124). Smith had knowledge of her surroundings within a Christian society and was gaining courage to be as herself within that environment.

As a matter of fact, Smith was so abhorred by the confusing ideas adopted and supported by Christianity that she created a poem, for which she has become known, entitled "Oh Christianity Christianity". This poem features multiple questions posed to God that He does not answer. Smith ponders, "How could he take our sins upon Him? / . . . Was he horrible? Did he feel guilty? / (because if he was) Man without sin? Perfect Man without sin is not what we are" (Smith 102). These questions Smith brought up deal heavily with sin and death and the wages thereof and how Jesus, the perfect son of God and Son of Man, was able to take on mortal sins and live as a morta

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