It was a sneaky thing that Victor Hugo did, publishing this book 150 years ago. We can’t have Bibles in schools anymore, but still we have “Les Miserables,” which puts forth the essence of the Christian faith as well as John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke — and with a much better soundtrack, it must be noted.

The Professional atheists, mighty in their quest to drive religion from the public square, have been flattened by a filthy French waif.

Such a subversive, that little Cosette.

But little people know that to fight a powerful enemy, you must go underground — to alleys, to sewers, to cineplexes in the suburbs. There, in the cover of darkness, you hammer a revolutionary message home.

It is the ancient, hoary sentiment of redemption and sin. The dangerous idea that light and darkness are more than metaphor. The utterly ridiculous notion that God exists, and that behind the barricade of our increasingly secular culture, there blooms a people of faith. Their new Bible is “Les Miserables.”

It was a sneaky thing that Victor Hugo did, publishing this book 150 years ago. We can’t have Bibles in schools anymore, but still we have “Les Miserables,” which puts forth the essence of the Christian faith as well as John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke — and with a much better soundtrack, it must be noted.

Until a month ago, I was one of the wretched ones who had never experienced the power of the musical “Les Mis.” But then I went to the production put on by the Hopkinton High School drama department, and emerged a “Les Mis” junkie, ravenous for my next fix. I went three times. And each time, I wondered, Who’s the slacker who let God in the building? How did he slip past the security camera?

The deeply spiritual nature of “Les Miserables” may come as a shock to moviegoers who know only traces of the plot: the man imprisoned for 19 years for stealing bread who adopts the orphaned Cosette, his pursuit by the inspector obsessed with the law, the messily entwined lives and loves in a time of revolution in early 19th-century France.

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