Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

ON TREATING PEOPLE AS INDIVIDUALS RATHER THAN AS MEMBERS OF A GROUP

Jay Nordlinger, in commenting on Mark Halperin's new book, Paris in the Present Tense, highlights this passage, which I think wise and estimable:

A man says to the main character, Jules, “What do you think of the Arabs?” Jules says, “I don’t.”  The man says, “What do you mean, you ‘don’t’?” Jules says, “I don’t think about Arabs, per se.”

The man presses on. And Jules says this:

“I’m a Jew. My parents were murdered by the Germans because they were Jews. The gravest, most persistent sin of mankind lies in not treating everyone as an individual. So, in short, I take Arabs as they come, just like everyone else.”

The man presses, “But as a group?”

Jules repeats, “As a group?” Then he says, “They have a very high incidence of killing innocents with whom they disagree. It’s part of the culture, part of Islam, part of their nomadic origins. But no individual is merely a reflection of a group. That’s the injustice that ruins the world. So, my answer is that for me an Arab is the same as a Jew, a Frenchman, a Norwegian, anything you’d like. If I were to judge people by their identity, I’d be like the people who killed my parents. Those were called Nazis. Do you think I could ever be one?”

Nordlinger likes to point to phrases he finds arresting:

Mark has a marvelous phrase: “militantly helpless.” At a neighborhood meeting, Jules is trying to rouse people to defend themselves, and others, against violent criminals in their midst. They will have none of it. In fact, they resent him, and contemn him. So, “he was ostracized forever by everyone present, an indignant crowd bravely determined to be militantly helpless.”

Nordlinger refers to a lovely quote on music - 

This is Jules, a composer and a teacher, talking to his students: “Music is not made by man. If you know this and surrender to it you’ll allow its deeper powers to run through you. It’s all a question of opening the gates. Of risking your disappearance and accepting it. If you arrive at that state you’ll be effortlessly propelled, seized, and possessed by the music. Paradoxically, your timing will be perfect as time ceases to exist.”

David Pryce Jones also reviews Mark Halperin's book but gives away a little too much of the plot.  I am glad to know of Mark Halperin's work.  His other novels include In Sunlight and in Shadow (what Nordlinger refers to as a hymn to New York), and Freddy and Fredericka, a hymn to Britain even as Paris in the Present Tense is a hymn to France.

JERRAM BARRS ON "HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HOLLOWS"

I have not yet read the Harry Potter books.  Jerram Barrs' exultation (below) at the excellence of the last book in the Harry Potter series has wet my  interest. Barrs serves as Professor of Christian Studies and Contemporary Culture at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis.  He met his wife, Vicki, at L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland and then served for 18 years at English L'Abri Fellowship before joining Covenant Seminary in 1989. 

Barrs has authored several books and articles.  Here is the opening paragraph of a paper titled, "Christianity True to the Way Things Are:" 

Christianity claims that the Bible explains the world in which we live, tells us of the origin and meaning of man's existence, gives us a basis for knowledge and for understanding the difference between good and evil, shows us how to live in this world, provides answers to the problems we face as humans, and offers us a hope for the future which lends a purpose to our life now. Before such claims can be examined, there is an important objection that must be considered. (More...)

JOEL ROSENBERG ON "RADICAL ISLAM" VS. "APOCALYPTIC ISLAM"

CBN's Pat Robertson interviewed Joel Rosenberg on his latest book, The First Hostage.  Rosenberg is famous for using novels to get across powerful perspectives that readers (including world political elites) need to know in order to understand what is going on in the Middle East and the Muslim world.   In the interview and resources below, Rosenberg distinguishes between "radical Islam" and "apocalyptic Islam," a distinction rarely noted.

 

• Read the first chapter of The First Hostage right now

• FACT SHEET: The Iranian leadership’s Apocalyptic Beliefs
• FACT SHEET: The Islamic State’s Apocalyptic Beliefs

Rosen published an important article in the Jerusalem Post a few days ago titled, "What the next U.S. president will need to know about Iran and Islamic State."   Rosenberg writes:

. . .  Above all, the next president of the United States must understand that the greatest challenge facing the Western alliance in the Middle East is not simply the threat of radical Islam, but that of apocalyptic Islam.

Unfortunately, most candidates and voters are still not adequately familiar with such distinctions. But they need to be.

Why? Because while adherents of radical Islam (such as al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hamas, etc.,) use violent acts hoping to drive the US, Israel and other “infidels” out of what they regard as their holy lands, adherents of apocalyptic Islam seek to use genocide to annihilate all infidels and establish a global Islamic kingdom known as the caliphate.

For the first time in human history, the leaders of two nation states are being driven by eschatology. The rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran are consumed by ancient Islamic prophecies that predict the end of the world as we know it. So are the rulers of Islamic State (IS). The former are Shi’ite. The latter are Sunni.

Yet both believe their messiah – known as the “Mahdi” (and to the Shi’tes as the “Twelfth Imam” or “Hidden Imam”) – will appear on Earth at any moment. Both believe he will usher in the End of Days.

Both are determined to hasten his coming. But each has very different strategies to get there.

ALISTER McGRATH - "WHAT CHRISTIANITY FEELS LIKE: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA AND THE POWER OF MYTH"

McGrath writes:   (HT: VirtueOnline)

Why are C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia" - especially their showcase opener, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" - so popular, fifty years after their author's death? Many answers might be given, from the obvious fact that they are stories well told, to the suggestion that they call us back to a lost childhood. But perhaps there is something deeper going on here.

To understand the deep appeal of Narnia, we need first to appreciate the place of stories in helping us to make sense of reality, and our own place within it. The "Chronicles of Narnia" resonate strongly with the basic human intuition that our own story is part of something greater and grander - something which, once we have grasped it, allows us to see our situation in a new and more meaningful way. A veil is lifted; a door is opened; a curtain is drawn aside; we are enabled to enter a new realm. Our own story is now seen to be part of a much bigger story, which both helps us understand how we fit into a greater scheme of things, and discover the difference we can make.   [more . . . ]  

* Me: This is a first rate article.  Read the whole thing.   

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ARTS

Justin Taylor spotlights a new book to be published next month that looks particularly good, Jerram Barrs' Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature, and the Arts,  Taylor quotes Tim Keller's endorsement:

Echoes of Eden is the most accessible, readable, and yet theologically robust work on Christianity and the arts that you will be able to find. It is biblical, theologically sound, filled with examples, and edifying. It anticipates and answers well all the most common questions that evangelical people ask about the arts. I highly recommend it.

Here is the table of contents:

1 God and Humans as Creative Artists
2 Imitation, the Heart of the Christian’s Approach to Creativity
3 Building a Christian Understanding of the Artist’s Calling
4 How Do We Judge the Arts?
5 Echoes of Eden: God’s Testimony to the Truth
6 The Conversion of C. S. Lewis and Echoes of Eden in His Life
7 Echoes of Eden in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings
8 Harry Potter and the Triumph of Self-Sacrificing Love
9 Shakespeare and a Christian Worldview
10 Jane Austen, Novelist of the Human Heart

Me:   I'm thinking this book will be pure delight.  

WHY PASTORS NEED TO READ NOVELS (EUGENE PETERSON ON ANNE TYLER)

Eugene Peterson, long-time pastor and writer of the popular Biblical paraphrase, The Message, offers in his book, Subversive Spirituality (1997) the following intriguing perspective:

[...] Reading a novel is among the more serious activities available to a pastor.  Pastors who neglect to read novels lack seriousness, or at least one aspect of it.  Read scripture, certainly; theology, of course; commentaries, diligently; and novels by all means. 

"Pastors who neglect to read novels lack seriousness."  Well that's an unexpected statement.  It whets our appetite for more. 

... Not all writers of fiction, of course, qualify as allies.  There are discernments to be exercised, but a considerable number take their stand with us against the pastor-debilitating world conditions. . .  

Agreed.  No doubt many novels would actually be quite destructive to a pastor and his imaginative life.  Peterson, though, offers a specific recommendation:

Anne Tyler provides me with eyes to see past the labels, ears to hear beneath sterotyping cliches.  She creates characters in her novels that are always just a little quirky, not quite fitting into society.  When I meet people like that in my parish, I am always a little impatient and try to fit them into categories that I am familiar with, so I won't have to take the extra time to get to know them.  I have, after all, a lot to do.  The church has programs for a variety of needs, and people are supposed to fit into the categories.  Most people are so used to fitting into categories supplied by them by hospitals, schools, shopping malls, and social services that they raise no objections when the church treats them similarly.  But insofar as they acquiesce, they lose capacity to realize what God is most interested in working in them:  sanctity, which means becoming more your created/redeemed self, not less, not being reduced to what will fit into a program, not being depersonalized in the cause of efficiency. 

Ooh, I find that really good  How often we are tempted to "fit people into categories."  Bad, bad, bad.  But so tempting. 

As I let Anne Tyler show me how character is formed, I learn to treat my parishoners with respect, with reverence even, and just as they are, not insofar as they fit into what is convenient for me and useful to the organization.  When I hesitate over details that make this man odd and somewhat of an embarrassment in the coffee hour after worship, Anne Tyler trains me to take in the oddness and love him not in spite of, but because of it. These irregularities that make this woman unsuitable as a role model in our youth ministry, Anne Tyler trains me to see as occasions for the grace of our Lord, not obstructions to it.

So honest!  Yes, some people do strike us as a potential embarrassment.  But, that's all the more occasion to celebrate "diversity"!  Ha.

All good novelists do this for us, develop characters in ways that show us this person unlike any other before or after, and that the human condition is capable of endless variations, and that each variation is a marvel.  But Anne Tyler, for me, is the contemporary master: her unforgettable characterizations of Morgan's Passing, of Macon in The Accidental Tourist, of Maggie in Breathing Lessons, have been a major source of energy and identifying, without condescension and without ridicule, characters that keep showing up in my congregation.  She gets me to know them by name and not by label.  She gets me to say their names in such a way that they realize they are precious, just as they are, in God's sight, and have a place in salvation that no one else will ever occupy.

Well said.  Peterson offers us a program and a strategy to correct our narrowness and lack of vision and imagination:

Whenever I find myself getting irritated and impatient with some sinner who doesn't fit in, I reach for another novel by Anne Tyler and sign up for retraining in character recognition and personal naming. 

When I first came across the Peterson piece noted above, it struck me as valuable and important.  Then just the other day a friend's email offered  a link to another article that likewise celebrates novels. I recommend reading Jonathan Gottschall, "Why fiction is good for you." (HT: JC)

QUICK TAKES

- - Reading Advice from Edmund Burke.  I found this post from Walter Russell Mead fascinating:

A wonderful appreciation of the British orator, parliamentarian and essayist Edmund Burke appears in "The American Scholar" this summer, written by Brian Doyle. Read the whole thing is our advice. One (of many) highlights in the essay: Doyle tells us what Burke read.

It’s a paragraph any aspiring writer, reader and orator should study: read like this, and whatever talent you have will shine more brightly than it does now.

What did he read, this wonderful writer? Dryden’s prose was Burke’s great favorite, reported his friend Charles Fox; Demosthenes was his favorite orator, according to Chauncey Goodrich; “he delighted in Plutarch … and was particularly fond of Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius, a large part of whose writings he committed to memory. … Shakespeare was his daily study. … But his highest reverence was reserved for Milton, whose ‘richness of language, boundless learning, and Scriptural grandeur of conception’ [said Burke], were the first and last themes of his applause.” He read Bacon’s essays again and again, and clearly had read Cicero closely; he read Gibbon and Sheridan, whom he knew from Parliament; Johnson, Goldsmith, and Boswell; and he either still regularly scoured, or had a ferocious memory for, the Bible—“the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the English language,” as Burke’s later editor Edward Payne remarked. Was this, too, how Burke expended his little time alone, in his root-house in Buckinghamshire, reading avidly, widely, hungrily, happily, delighted to swim in eloquence other than his own? I hear him laughing quietly at a wry and piercing passage from Plutarch, or reciting the swinging cadences of Cicero in sheer admiration of the music of the man, or chanting lines from Lear, or reading aloud, with a shiver of awe, the Lord declaiming to Job: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who laid the corner stone thereof, when the morning stars sang together? Who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? Declare, if thou hast understanding …

-- Scott Walker Prepares to Reform Higher Education in Wisconsin 

On June 19, Walker and officials from the University of Wisconsin announced a “revolutionary” flexible degree program. From the press release:

The unique self-paced, competency-based model will allow students to start classes anytime and earn credit for what they already know. Students will be able to demonstrate college-level competencies based on material they already learned in school, on the job, or on their own, as soon as they can prove that they know it. By taking advantage of this high quality, flexibility model, and by utilizing a variety of resources to help pay for their education, students will have new tools to accelerate their careers. Working together, the UW System, the State of Wisconsin, and other partners can make a high-quality UW college degree significantly more affordable and accessible to substantially more people. . .

DR. RALPH C. WOOD GUEST LECTURES AT GORDON COLLEGE ON FLANNERY O'CONNOR

I've had time to listen to only 34 minutes so far, but it's been very worthwhile.  Wood is the author of Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South.  (This Amazon review offers an excellent overview).  While at Gordon he also gave a lecture on Tolkien.

 
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Shakespearean Insults

I found the following amusing.  From an e-mail:

 Next time that you are at a loss for a good insult, use this handy table to construct a Shakespearean insult. 

Combine one word from each of the three columns below, and preface it with the word "Thou":

AUDIO RECORDING OF C.S. LEWIS (HIS ACTUAL VOICE) INTRODUCING THE NOVELS OF CHARLES WILLIAMS

The recording lasts just shy of two minutes, but if you've never heard C. S. Lewis's voice, here's your opportunity.

 

C.S. LEWIS HAD A WIFE . . . JOY DAVIDMAN

Here's an interesting article about Joy Davidman, the American woman C.S. Lewis married at age 56.

Lyle Dorsett's biography is titled,  And God Came In: The Extraordinary Story of Joy Davidman.  Don King edited the valuable, Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman.

See also Davidman's book dedicated to C.S. Lewis, Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments.

A list of C.S. Lewis's publications may be found here.

GOLD FROM JUSTIN TAYLOR'S "BETWEEN TWO WORLDS" BLOG

No doubt there are many fine Christian blogs "out there" in cyberspace, and I wish I had unlimited time to benefit from many more than I do.  But for my money, the one blog that requires frequent visiting is Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds.  Here's a sampling from recent posts:

- Free Audiobook: Tim Keller's Ministries of Mercy 

- Keith Getty on Writing Today's Modern Hymns  (I found this stunningly good)

- Thielman's New Testament Theology  (Seminary audio lectures with outline.  Amazing resource!) 

- Professor Peter Kreeft's audio lectures:

• 10 Uncommon Insights Into Evil from The Lord of the Rings
• Christianity in The Lord of the Rings
• The Language of Beauty

- D.A. Carson's "The God Who Is There" Video and Audio (MP3s for the 14 - part series here).

WHY IS C. S. LEWIS'S SCHOLARSHIP SO EXCEPTIONALLY READABLE?

Maybe it's because Lewis has no problem juxtaposing the likes of John Milton with Beatrix Potter.  I find enchanting the following paragraphs from Alan Jacobs' The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis:

You can see Lewis's love of children's stories in the oddest places and in the most charming ways.  In one of his most learned and scholarly books, A Preface to "Paradise Lost" -- and "Paradise Lost" is as sober and serious and adult a poem as one could imagine -- Lewis quotes his eighteenth-century predecessor at Magdalen College, Joseph Addison:  'The great moral which reigns in Milton is the most universal and most useful that can be imagined, that Obedience to the will of God makes men happy and that Disobedience makes them miserable." 

A few sentences later Lewis responds to a fellow literary critic, E. M. W. Tillyard, saying:

"It is, after all, the commonest of themes; even Peter Rabbit came to grief because he would go into Mr. McGregor's garden."

To which Alan Jacobs comments:

This is as delightful as it is wise: any literary critic who can, in the course of a few sentences, take us from the great Milton's account of the Fall of Humanity, in twelve books of stately and heroic blank verse, to Beatrix Potter's rather humbler account of Peter Rabbit's rather humbler troubles, is a critic of (to put it mildly) considerable range.  And the naturalness with which he achieves this! -- clearly it never occurs

WHY LITERATURE?

Good question.  My mother is no fan of fiction.  "Fiction isn't true," she says, and therefore has little interest.  Christina Bieber Lake, author of The Incarnational Art of Flannery O'Connor (and Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College), looks at literature differently.  She discusses questions faced by technologically advanced nations and says  (p. 46 of the pdf):

. . . While some might say that our rapidly changing biotech culture proves that the study of literature can be only an ivory tower indulgence, I believe that problems like these prove that we cannot not afford to study literature.  Literature trains the moral imagination--that faculty that is uniquely able to challenge culture's cherished assumptions. . .

For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birth-Mark" teaches us that behind the desire for beauty there may lurk a narcissism that is disdainful of real people.  Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" teaches us that

FLANNERY O'CONNOR REVISITED

Ralph C. Wood reminds us that O'Connor was born this day in 1925.  Though I blogged about her a month ago, Wood's article is so excellent that I need to blog about her once again.  Wood offers suggestions to first-time readers of O'Connor:

The best place to begin encountering O’Connor’s radically Christian work is not with her most famous story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Many people are left sleepless after reading it. I would recommend a later short story entitled “Revelation,” since it is perhaps the most redemptive of her works. One might then progress to other stories that don’t conclude with violent death, perhaps “The Enduring Chill” and “Parker’s Back.” Along the way, one would do well to take up O’Connor’s magnificent letters in The Habit of Being. Her lively correspondence with all sorts and conditions of letter-writers constitutes, by my reckoning, an

Flannery O'Connor: Southern Fiction Writer

Here's an interesting (audio) interview with Brad Gooch, author of the just-published Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor.  His interview, which isn't long, provides an excellent introduction to O'Connor (1925-1954) whose popularity seems to grow year by year.  Readers of O'Connor are well aware of her richly informative collected letters (The Habit of Being) mentioned by Gooch.  Gooch tells us that O'Connor wrote 3 hours each morning and generally wrote three to five letters a day, in addition to caring for 39 peacocks!  She died of Lupus at age 39.

Recently I stumbled upon two online (video) lectures given by Yale Professor Amy Hungerford on O'Connor's novel Wise Blood (available here and here).  They compose part of Hungerford's Yale class on "The American Novel Since 1945" which covers in addition to Flannery O'Connor, Richard Wright, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, J. D. Salinger, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth and Edward P. Jones.  All her lectures are online and free.