The Cross and the Switchblade

Content Warning: The source material contains descriptions of drug abuse and addiction, sexual and physical violence against minors, and animal cruelty. Additionally, the source material endorses dated ideas about sex workers, sexually active women, and persons with substance use disorders. The source text also shows anti-gay bias and is prejudiced against Black and Hispanic people.

In The Cross and the Switchblade, David Wilkerson’s mission to open the Teen Challenge Center is bookended by descriptions of wheat in its natural and harvested states. In these scenes, wheat emerges as a symbol of God’s active presence in Wilkerson’s work. The wheat symbol appears for the first time when Wilkerson is dissatisfied with his life in Philipsburg and wants to reconnect with the boys he met in New York the previous year. As he ruminates on this, he sees that the moon “bathe[s] the sleeping town in its cold and mysterious light […] [and] one spot in particular seem[s] illuminated” (125): a four-acre wheat field behind the church. This reminds Wilkerson of a Bible passage (John 4:35-38) in which Jesus tells his followers, “I sent you to reap a crop for which you have not toiled” (125). Wilkerson imagines “each of the blades of wheat as a youngster on the streets of the city” (125), and he then hears a clear