per speculum in aenigmate

c.s. lewis' ethic of reading

2010-09-02T13:49:00.002-05:00

In Experiment in Criticism, Lewis sets out a system for judging and interpreting literature based upon how real-world readers “use” or “receive” it. Books that compel readers to “conceive, imagine, and feel as the words invite” are true works of art; they “guide [readers] into every cranny of a character’s mind or make palpable and individual” the worlds that they inhabit. Books that encourage readers to “use” the works for “castle building” and “assistance to [their] own activities” belong to “the many” and are not art (88). Rather, they form a spectrum of common diversions ranging from the harmless to the less-than-innocent. These kinds of works encourage readers to indulge in fantasies of various types, the most damnable of which Lewis calls “egoistic castle-building,” in which “the day-dreamer himself is always the hero. . . . It is he who makes the witty retorts, captivates the beautiful women, owns the ocean-going yacht, or is acclaimed as the greatest living poet” (52).

Lewis’ readers may notice that the system he sets out is in many ways a moral one. The very word “egoistic,” by which he describes the worst kind of reading, is a powerful moral judgment, especially from a Christian like Lewis, whose vision of hell in The Screwtape Letters is one in which the soul is so consumed with itself that the self becomes utterly lost forever. Indeed, the readers who merit Lewis’ most damning verdict are those who read stories about “the high life” for the vicarious pleasure they receive from them. The books they consume and dispose of depend entirely on “egoistic castle-building,” and Lewis’ description of these consumers on the lowest stratum of readers is charged with moral language:

"These are the favourite reading of readers in the lowest class; lowest, because reading takes them least out of themselves, confirms in them an indulgence which they already use too much, and turns them away from most of what is most worth having both in books and in life. . . . The woman reader does not believe that all eyes follow her, as they follow the heroine of the book; but she wants to feel that . . . they might." (55)

“Lowest,” “indulgence,” “too much,” “worth having”—this language charges Lewis’ system with a moral value in reading nearly unheard of in contemporary critical theory and practice. The egoistic castle-builder is lowest because his reading turns entirely on his self, his reading indulgent because it consists entirely in the vices of self concern and pride. It deprives him of the most important benefits of both reading and interaction with other people: the chance to experience the lives, feelings, thoughts, and perspectives of persons other than ourselves. In our best selves, we “seek an enlargement of our being. . . . We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts” (137). Reading only in order to seek oneself is a kind of self-love, then—the spiritual equivalent of masturbation.

Lewis’ thoroughly Christian ethic of reading could perhaps provide the perfect antidote to the often desolate and uninspired field of critical studies today. In abandoning the pursuit of authorial intent, modern criticism has made the conversation entirely one-sided and turned what should be a window into a mirror. By the standards of many modern critic, then, The Odyssey, Hamlet, and Anna Karenina can only tell us of ourselves—they are mirrors, not windows. Lewis, who condemns reading to see only oneself, acknowledges that modern works of literature—especially poetry—often encourage readers to treat them as “raw material for whatever each reader’s sensibility make of them, and there [is] no intention that one reader’s experience should have anything in common with another’s or with the [writer’s]” (102). Such a reading, Lewis grudgingly admits, is entirely “proper” for those works, then. But the admission itself contains a note of condemnation. Reading a work that is so vague and superficially spiritual that any reader can see himself in it does not satisfy the desire in our nature which draws our eyes from mirrors to pictures and stories: the desire “to be more than ourselves.” Without poiema each of us “sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself” (137). Good literature succeeds where egoistic castle-building fails: it gives us the opportunity to see through a glass—not darkly, but clearly—and to know as we as we are known and know ourselves.

students and new ideas

2009-09-15T12:59:00.011-05:00

In "Teachers as Students," Douglas Hesse argues that new students have trouble dealing with information that creates intellectual or moral dissonance. Rather than engage unfamiliar and potentially offensive writing, students usually dismiss the material as “stupid” or “poorly written.” This often has little or nothing to do with the actual quality of the work, but rather with the students’ lack of “prior knowledge” of the material presented. Hesse believes that in order for students to be able to enter into the academic "discourse community" to which they aspire, they must be able to process and respond intelligently to theories with which they might initially (or finally) disagree.

Hesse's article is fairly old (it was published in 1993), but his main point remains well accepted and is, indeed, commonsensical. College ought to be a place where students are asked to grapple with things unfamiliar or things that may contradict their assumptions. We are all aware of the human tendency to seek out and consume information that supports our own positions and to ignore or reject things that complicate or contradict them. College ought to help break that habit. But the issue is more complicated than simply that students reject ideas that are contrary from their own preconceived ones without engaging them.

As an example, Hesse quotes a Compostion teacher who laments that when she gave her students an article called "Gods, Goddesses, and Bibles," a "sophisticated argument explaining the transition from pre-Biblical matriarchal cultures to ones which promoted Paul's misogynistic epistles," the students rejected it as "blasphemous" without appearing to have read it. This example reminds me of an experience I had my first year as a university student. In my introduction to philosophy class, the professor discussed how to test a position or argument by reductio ad absurdum. He used the pro-life position as his example, saying, “If abortion is murder because it destroys a potential human life, then masturbation is murder because it kills sperm.” This professor probably thought of himself as challenging deeply rooted prejudices and forcing us to think critically. Indeed, he might have said that even if we remained pro-life after thinking critically about the subject, at least we had been forced to base our positions on more solid evidence than blind faith. What several of us in the class realized, however, was that this professor either didn’t understand the pro-life argument, or that he had deliberately misrepresented it in order to belittle those of us who were opposed to the legality of abortion. No thoughtful pro-lifer argues that abortion destroys a “potential human life.” [1]

The point of this story is that soon after they enter college, those students whose beliefs might be challenged by "Gods, Goddesses, and Bible" will probably begin to expect their professors to only give them one-sided information chosen specifically to rid students of their convictions and values. Whether or not those students are justified in their suspicions, the belief is often there and it certainly complicates Hesse’s argument. Getting students to think critically is certainly a worthwhile pursuit, but if students don’t trust their professors to be fair-minded, no amount of exhortation to critical thinking and engagement is going to have the desired effect.

[1] In the case of the class which had to read “Gods, Godesses, and Bibles,” I would ask the teacher why, if she was prepared to offer students an article which questions the traditional reading of the Bible, was she not also prepared to offer them at least a summary explanation of counter-arguments put forth by Biblical scholars (I am too cynical to believe that she actually did). It is unlikely that any of her students were trained in textual criticism or Biblical scholarship, so she could reasonably expect one of two outcomes: either the students who were religious would reject the article as blasphemous, or they would accept it and reject their beliefs (or at least, reject traditional understandings of them). This is hardly conducive to “critical thinking.”

whose morality?

2009-09-10T10:32:00.013-05:00

As an aspiring fiction writer, student of literature, and a teacher, I hear often enough that morality should have no part in what artists, students, and teachers do in their work. When they say "morality" in serious conversation, students and teachers alike deepen their voices into a mock-authoritative tone and use those ridiculous and reprehensible Quote Fingers lest someone take them to actually entertain the idea of universal moral principles. Critical articles and essays on literature examine their subjects from the standpoint of theory and if they treat of a work's morality at all, more often than not that morality is explained away as a quaint relic or an insidious attempt on the writer's part (either consciously or unconsciously) to control the distribution of power. One friend of mine summarized literary studies as finding out "who has power, who gets power, who loses power, and who surrenders power." Articles on writing pedagogy repudiate any notion of foundational truths lest they encroach on someone else's right to his or her beliefs.

But no one--not even those who say such things--believes a word of it.

Recently, some students and I read and discussed an article by Gerald Graff and Andrew Hoberek ("Hiding It From the Kids," College English, November 1999) in which the authors suggest that the only way literature programs can justify their existence to outsiders is theory (cultural, feminist, queer, postcolonial, etc.), since theory can use literary works to engage ongoing cultural discussions (such as those about race, gender, and sexuality). One of my fellow students forgot to read the article for class and so I explained briefly to her this central thesis. I also mentioned that I thought morality was a more important way of justifying literary studies, my fellow student looked surprised but interested.

"I know when I say 'morality' you think I mean, 'Men should wear pants and women should wear dresses,' right?" I said. My friend nodded.

I explained to her that for me, one of the most important functions of great literature (another word some people seem positively terrified to use without insulating it in Quote Fingers) is to give us a safe playing field in which to learn how to live. It is not so much that literature didactically shows us what to do and what not to do, but that it allows us a safe place in which to learn the physical and spiritual consequences of actions. Once I explained it that way, my friend warmed up to what I was saying.

"I would say that's something like . . . showing me how to exist and operate in the world," she said. "I'm not sure I would call it morality."

In other words, our understandings of what good literature can do for a thoughtful reader (show him how to live or how not to live) were roughly equivalent, mostly compatible, but we were using different words to express our ideas. I was happy to use "morality" to describe what I was talking about, but she preferred to avoid that loaded term.

But is the issue--the academic dread or loathing of that word "morality"--just about semantics? Is it really just a problem of terms? I think my fellow classmate would have said so had I articulated the question in that way, but I think it's more complicated than preferences about words.

Graff and Hoberek justify the existence of literature departments by pointing to the ability of literary theories to speak to the issues that concern society. So, for example, I can make Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew relevant to modern culture by interpreting it from the standpoint of feminist theory. I might use Petruccio's treatment of Kate and her eventual succumbing to his power over her to explain or elaborate on historical patriarchy, to discover something about male dominance over women. (That is not my reading of the play, of course, but I believe it could be the nutshell version of one feminist reading). The practical societal use of such a reading would be to inform the conversation over women's rights, marriage, and gender roles.

When I explain the use of my "feminist" reading of The Taming of the Shrew in this way, it sounds innocuous, safe from any didactic underpinnings of morality. But the underlying assumption of feminism is a moral imperative to respect the rights of all persons, regardless of gender. Indeed, to assert a "right" to anything is to say to everyone else, "You must not, should not, may not deny me this," which is the very language of morality.

I can imagine that a theorist who wanted to deny the moral dimension of feminist theory (or any other type of theory) saying that, "Yes, we use the language of 'should' and 'ought,' but what is really going on is that those whose autonomy and rights have been violated have stood and demanded equal treatment. It's not about what someone 'ought' or 'ought not' do. People are saying, 'I will no longer accept this treatment.' It's about the power to throw off oppression." But this is at best disingenuous. It denies the ubiquitous language of movements like the women's movement and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. If movements in which oppressed peoples rise against their oppressors are really about power, then we must dispense of all this talk about "rights." There is no such thing as a right if there is no "should" and "should not."

It seems to me that even those of us who are most eager to remove 'morality' from the vocabulary of literary studies realize that there is a moral dimension even to the theories which are so dear to them (even if they refuse to describe it as "morality"). The question is not, "Why are those in literary studies so afraid or intolerant of a morally-informed study of their subject?" The real question is, "Whose morality are we talking about?" Or to put an even finer point on it, "Who are we rejecting when we repudiate the word 'morality' from our vocabulary?"

At the end of the day, all of our talk about expelling didacticism and values from literary studies (and from society in general) is sheer hypocrisy. The real project of the theoretical model (either consciously or unconsciously) is the replacement of one morality with another. If nothing else changed than that academics admitted to each other and the world that this is what they have been doing, the academy would be far more respectable.

are you a spiritual fruit? (a poorly organized, mostly uninformed rant)

2008-05-10T06:34:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I saw two things that bothered me more than they probably should have. First, I was driving home from work yesterday and saw a bumper sticker that read GOD DESIRES SPIRITUAL FRUITS, NOT RELIGIOUS NUTS. I had seen this same bumper sticker before and didn't think much of it at the time, but yesterday it caught my attention and made me think for a long time about that word, "religion." Then last night I took my wife out to eat for Mother's Day and saw a guy in a black tee that made me look twice. The only word on the front was RELIGION, which had a circle around it and a line through it. The letters were white; the circle was red. On the black background I suppose it was intended to be an attention-grabber, and indeed it was. I watched the guy for a while, thinking he was probably a Richard Dawkins minion announcing his enlightened-ness to the world, but then he turned around and I saw written on the back of his shirt EMBRACE JESUS. "Oh," I said to my wife. "I see."

We've done a bad thing with this word "religion." There was a time when if you said "I am a religious person," everyone knew what you meant; they understood you to mean that you embraced and practiced a particular system of belief about the world and about God that imposed on you a certain quality of character and action. There were certainly varying degrees of assent to religion and varying degrees of hypocrisy; there were always people who believed and practiced wholeheartedly and people who were less than sincere about it. But everyone knew what "religion" meant.

Lately, though, the use of "religion" has become muddied. There are certain brands of Christianity - particularly Pentecostal denominations and the "non-denominational" denominations - in which this misuse of the word "religion" is very common. They often say things like, "I'm not religious. I'm spiritual." The difference? By "religion," they mean "empty religion" (which to them means liturgical and ritualistic traditions like Catholicism, liturgical Methodism, Lutheranism, etc.). By "spiritual," they mean "true religion," which must not be restricted by structure or ritual. If it isn't random, it isn't open to the Spirit. And so some find themselves saying things like, "Christianity isn't a religion; it's spirituality."

What this ignores or forgets is that the Bible itself refers to Christianity as "religion" and differentiates between empty religion and true religion: "If anyone thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives in his heart, this man's religion is vain. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (James 1:26-27). For Christianity to be "true religion," it must make a difference in your life and how you behave. If it does not, it is empty.

And there is another reason some are giving up "religion." In the current political and social arena, religion is the great whipping boy on which all the world's problems are blamed. War, racism, slavery, the oppression of women, child abuse, rape, people growing up to have all sorts of psychological problems, and that most heinous and yet hard-to-define crime, "intolerance," are all said to be caused by religion. If we were only rid of religion, we'd be rid of these problems. And so, many Christians have repudiated the word in favor of the chimeric and all-inclusive "spiritual."

They have plucked this word out of the tree of pop-culture, in which it means a vague belief in supernatural forces or beings, a belief in what is called "karma" (which has little to do with the Buddhist and Hindu understanding of karma), and a general sense of "different strokes for different folks." The danger is that the accompanying meaning is going to bleed through into Christianity. Christianity, for "spiritual" people, becomes less and less something that imposes definite responsibilities upon individuals, giving them all the benefits of a spiritual (in the proper sense) life without all the inconvenient requirements religion involves.

The irony is that this is exactly what the secularists who decry the evils of "religion" want. They will have won the battle if they can turn all religion into a vague "spiritualism" that makes no exclusive claims and requires nothing of its adherents except for them to be nice to people. In the effort to shield themselves from the attacks of religion's critics, they essentially raise the white flag and admit defeat.

"it's worth it all . . ."

2008-05-09T06:02:00.002-05:00

Here's something we all used to know, then some folks came along and told us that this is a job only for the dull, the dimwitted, and those who don't want to live the life of a liberated woman.

Happy Mother's Day, all you moms. And thank you.

just shut 'em up

2008-05-07T16:33:00.003-05:00

One of the first freedoms to go when a totalitarian regime rises is the freedom of speech and of ideas. The University of Toledo and Smith College are leading the way. How ironic that those who would otherwise tout intellectual freedom and "tolerance" are so intolerant of ideas they are unwilling (unable?) to engage and refute.

this guy says it better than I did

2008-05-03T19:55:00.003-05:00

On the First Things blog, Spengler says what I've been trying to say here all along (only he says it more lucidly and concisely):

"It is right and proper for the Jews to desire that all the world should worship YHWH in their own way, and inconsistent of them to object to the same desire on the part of Christians. But the critical point is that the dispute over the Easter prayer is a quarrel within Israel. Jews should worry only if and when Christians cease to pray for them, for that would signify that Christians had forgotten the root onto which the wild olive branches are grafted."

Here is the entire post. It is well worth reading.

sigh . . .

2008-04-29T21:13:00.001-05:00

Good thing those Swiss have their priorities straight.

liberation

2008-04-28T20:37:00.002-05:00

A certain man teaches a child to write the alphabet. He gives him a piece of paper and a pencil and patiently teaches the boy each letter one by one, capital and lower case.

Then one day, the boy has learned not only to write the whole alphabet, but also words and sentences. He remarks to the teacher how stifling it is to be restricted to the piece of paper. Why can't he write anywhere else? The desk? The dictionary which sits on the desk?

After thought, the man takes the pencil and piece of paper away from the boy and says, Now you are no longer restricted to writing only on the piece of paper.

the eternal demolition?

2008-04-27T12:01:00.018-05:00

Picture this: You're taking a little time between two loads of laundry to read "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." It's a Saturday off, the kids are down for a nap, and you're enjoying some quiet time with Wordsworth. Then comes a knock. Through the obscure glass oval window in the door, you see a man in a suit waiting patiently. Thinking it's a Witness ready to hand you a copy of Awake! or The Watchtower, you open and the visitor holds out a book of philosophy and says in a French accent, "Here is a very complicated theory of language and meaning that has no consequences or practical application. Want to learn it?"

In his April 6th blog post "French Theory in America," Stanley Fish writes about deconstruction theory and its influence and effects in the American academy. One of his main points is that, despite the fact that deconstruction has been used for and against political, religious and social agendas, deconstruction theory as articulated by its originators (Derrida, et al) does not have any necessary practical consequences. Fish writes

"It doesn't take anything away from us. We can still do all the things we have always done; we can still say that some things are true and others false, and believe it; we can still use words like better and worse and offer justifications for doing so. All we lose (if we have been persuaded by the deconstructive critique, that is) is a certain rationalist faith that there will someday be a final word, a last description that takes the accurate measure of everything. All that will have happened is that one account of what we know and how we know it - one epistemology - has been replaced by another, which means only that in the unlikely event you are asked "What's your epistemology?" you'll give a different answer than you would have given before. The world, and you, will go on pretty much in the same old way."

There are three problems with Fish's argument:

- To say that there exists an unbridgeable separation between sign and signified, between language and the things that language describes, does have great consequences if it is really "true" (notice that Fish talks about whether or not deconstruction theory is valid while desperately avoiding the use of the words "true" or "false" to refer to it). As one friend of mine observed after reading Fish's article, reading the Constitution in light of deconstruction theory would have catastrophic practical consequences.

- If Fish is right, if deconstructionism in itself has no practical consequences and life will simply go on as long as people don't pervert deconstructionism for use in furthering their particular agendas, then why should anyone care about the theory?

- If deconstruction is indeed "true" or "right," then by its very nature it has an internal contradiction. Stated crudely, deconstruction theory says that there is no ultimate meaning in language, that there is an inevitable separation between words and the things words signify, that there is no such thing as truth or falsity outside of language; but we must use language itself to articulate the theory. As many critics of deconstruction have said before, isn't deconstruction theory invalidated by its own principles?

In philosophy there is a concept called the liar paradox. It involves statements like "This sentence is false," which swings like a pendulum between truth and falsity. If the sentence is true, then it is false; if it is false, then it is true. Deconstructionism seems to suffer from the same problem. And what can be made of a theory that tumbles in upon itself to infinity?

expelled, the nazis and the jews

2008-04-21T07:47:00.004-05:00

One of the most controversial things about Expelled is its claim of a connection between the Nazis and Darwinism. The film asserts that, while Darwin himself wouldn't have supported the Nazis, much of the Nazi philosophy and policy towards the Jews and other "inferior" races came straight out of Darwinism. Darwinism, the film says, wasn't "sufficient" for the beliefs of the Nazis, but it was "necessary." (For more about the connection between National Socialism and Darwinism, see this article by David Klinghoffer).

It occurred to me while I was watching the film that this might be a dangerous tactic, amounting to almost an ad hominem attack. After all, don't many of religion's foes say things along the lines of, "All the major wars have been fought because of religion" and "All terrorists are religious," etc.? They righteously cite the Inquisition, the Crusades and the Salem Witch Trials in their attacks, assuring us that we'll all be nicer to each other if we rid ourselves of religion.

But then I realized that what Expelled does is actually a brilliant tactic. Before the section of the film about the Nazis, we see scenes of protesters with picket signs protesting "religion" (i.e., intelligent design) being taught in schools, many using words like "terrorist," and then we see Bill Mahr saying that it is not drugs or alcohol that should be regulated, but religion, since religion is the source of most wars and terrorism. Soon after, Ben Stein visits Aushwitz.

The point? We often do horrible things in God's name, but we don't need religion to be able to treat people like animals. The Nazis only needed the philosophy of Nietzsche and Darwinism. Stalin and Pol Pot only needed Communism (an anti-religion philosophy) and a certain obsession with power. History has a list of horrors committed in the name of religion, but it has an equally long list that has nothing to do with religion.

Evil parading under the guise of religion doesn't say something about religion; it says something about humanity. We'll use whatever is available to justify our wrongs, large or small.

and these are christians?

2008-04-20T18:53:00.001-05:00

Yep, this makes a lot of sense.

went and saw expelled this evening . . .

2008-04-18T22:01:00.006-05:00

. . . and it was well worth the sixteen bucks. I won't detail the whole film, but there are a few things I'd like to say about it.

- I read some reviews of Expelled ahead of time that complained of the film's lack of a specific definition of "evolution" and "intelligent design." While I did miss a detailed explanation of intelligent design, one of the interviewed scientists (his name escapes me now) did give a rough definition - namely, that ID posits that there is design in nature, and where we see design, one infers a designer. ID does not specify whether the designer is the Judeo-Christian God, Allah, Isis, or any other deity. A deist, a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian can all equally accept the tenets of ID.

- Another of the interviewed scientists provided a helpful and often overlooked distinction. He said that when discussing "evolution" one must specify what is being talked about. "Evolution" might refer to simply change within given species over time, or it can refer to Darwinism itself, which posits that all the plethora of species came from one single-celled organism billions of years ago. Failure to make this distinction renders much discussion about evolution meaningless.

- The film is worth seeing, if for no other reason than being able to see Richard Dawkins make a fool of himself - as indeed he does towards the end of the documentary. It staggers the mind to think that such dumb words can escape the mouth of even a mildly educated person. I won't ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen the film. I will only say that I always thought he was a moron (I mean, I am a Christian theist, and he did write a book called The God Delusion), but now I know that he is. As Richard John Neuhaus says in the current issue of First Things, there used to be atheists one could respect intellectually (Marx, Neitzche, etc.). Now we have Dawkins. What a shame. If he keeps up, he'll probably drive some fence riders into being theists. Maybe even Christians.

BTW - for a good primer on intelligent design theory, see this article at Salvo Magazine.

i hope obama heard these words . . .

2008-04-17T07:42:00.003-05:00

. . . from Pope Benedict in his arrival ceremony:

"As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more human and free society."

irony

2008-04-17T07:26:00.004-05:00

In a speech given with the Pope at his arrival ceremony, President Bush had this to say:

"Here in America you'll find a nation of compassion. Americans believe that the measure of a free society is how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. So each day citizens across america answer the universal call to feed the hungry and comfort the sick and care for the infirm. Each day across the world to eradicate disease, alleviate poverty, promote peace and bring the light of hope to places still mired in the darkness of tyranny and despair."

And yet America does not live up to its own standards, since the help and protection we offer to those who are strong enough to stand up for their own rights are not extended to those who cannot defend themselves, the weakest of the weak.

In defense of the President, though, his administration has done more to help the pro-life cause than any President in a long time.

Also, it may be that the President was cleverly reminding his fellow Americans that, in fact, we treat our "weakest and most vulnerable" citizens in the same way Hitler treated Jews (an unpopular comparison, I know, but perhaps unpopular because it's true?).

the church of global warming

2008-04-16T09:48:00.021-05:00

Let me begin this post with a cowardly disclaimer/confession: I consider myself a closet tree-hugger. Or perhaps a wannabe closet tree hugger. I grew up in a gorgeous area in central Alabama with lots of hills and beautiful forests. Now, when I go home to visit family I am grieved to see that more trees have been cut down. In place of a luscious mixture of pines and hardwoods have been planted perfectly uniform rows of young pines. The replanting makes me almost as mad as the clear cutting. The logging companies don't replace the hardwoods, just the pines, and they make the forest look like gated communities with clone houses and yards better manicured than my mother's fingernails. (BTW, on an unrelated subject, go here to see some hilarious ridicule of gated communities - just for giggles).

Just so you know.

On the First Things web site, R. R. Reno writes:

"The 1930s was a decade when many intellectuals were convinced that revolution, either fascist or communist, was the only answer to the social crisis of the times. It was during this era of political fervor that Simone Weil penned a rebuttal: 'It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the masses.' Like so much of what Weil wrote, it's an arresting thought. And it's also one that is true on many levels" (full article here).

It seems that the new revolutionary battle cry is coming from the environmentalists. The current political landscape can almost be divided along the lines of how people feel about global warming. If you stand by Al Gore et al, you are automatically associated with a particular set of values, which more often than not includes a secular view of things. If you question global warming, you are usually associated with a different set of values, and usually with religion. Up until recently, Christians have been relatively uninterested in the current fashionable environmentalism. This seems strange to me because the God of Christianity has redeemed the whole creation and has placed man as lord of the earth.

What also strikes me is the fervor with which many environmentalists espouse their thought and practice. They speak of nature with the eloquence of mystics and rage with the fury of Christ turning over the moneychangers' tables at anyone who actively opposes their conclusions about the global weather trends. Indeed, some people's enthusiasm and devotion to the cause of saving the environment can only be described as religious. At the end of a class recently, I threw away some papers that I wouldn't need anymore and one of my classmates solemnly crouched by the garbage can and removed them. The scene was very strange - surreal even - and I am using no hyperbole when saying he did it "solemnly." I found out later that he was taking the papers out to put them in a recycling bin.

I think this is significant because of the lines along which the debate over global warming are drawn. The less religious people are, the more likely they are to believe in global warming. I have no hard statistics to defend that statement, but I think that most anyone who has looked very long at the cultural landscape would agree with me. The point that this proves is that people need some kind of religion. The 19th and 20th centuries saw a great rise in secularism, but accompanying these were new orthodoxies. It has been eugenics, feminism, Scientology has vied for the position, but I believe that environmentalism has nearly usurped the others as the religion of the secular. As Nigel Lawson says, "The new religion of global warming . . . resembles a Da Vinci Code of environmentalism" (quote lifted from a piece in First Things, originally from Lawson's book An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming).

---------------------

UPDATE: Apparently, the extreme fervor of some environmentalists is having negative psychological effects. See the diagnosis.

you go, ben!

2008-04-16T09:16:00.004-05:00

Ben Stein goes to school. BTW - here is a primer on ID over at Salvo.

it's about time somebody did this

2008-04-15T19:04:00.004-05:00

This ought to rehabilitate 'em. Now if somebody will decide to replace capital punishment with caning, the crime rate will come down.

david koresh? wasn't he a shriner?

2008-04-13T21:27:00.007-05:00

I felt very old today.

My family and I might be moving to the Waco area sometime this year, and my nephew's girlfriend asked me about it today at church. I joked with her that we were planning to join the Branch Davidians (an easy joke, and one I use too much, I admit). With an earnest interest she said, "That'll be nice."

the great orator "didn't say it as well" as he "could have"

2008-04-13T16:36:00.016-05:00

It has been plastered all over the news that Senator Obama has offended a great deal of Americans with words he delivered at a rally in California. Referring to people from small towns, he said, "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

In an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, Obama attempted damage control, offering up this non-apology: "Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that. The underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so. And I hear it all the time when I visit these communities."

I find the clarification almost as insulting as the original remarks, which betray a deep resentment of a very large portion of America. This is quite clear in such language as "antipathy to people who aren't like them." Obama accused small town Americans of being gun-toting, racist religious fundamentalists. What is there about this to clarify? In fact, the clarification doesn't clarify. It says something completely different. He speaks of small town people "rightly" being "frustrated," yet his original remarks showed no empathy for these people. Who sympathizes with people who cling to "antipathy toward people who aren't like them"?
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Also, notice that Obama does not apologize (after all, it's a clarification, not an apology) for his remarks. He only "regrets" that his words "made some people offended." I'm sure I'm only imagining the veiled contempt hidden in those words "some people."

some thoughts on wilders' anti-islam film

2008-04-08T08:41:00.013-05:00

I watched Geert Wilders' controversial film this morning and, needless to say, it sparked a few thoughts.

I won't link to the film itself, but you can easily find it on You Tube. The film, aptly entitled Fitna (the Arabic word for "division among people"), intersperses quotes from the Qur'an (Koran), graphic footage of terrorist attacks, and speeches delivered by muslims calling for violence against non-muslims. If it is possible, the film is made all the more disturbing by the soundtrack, which features portions of The Nutcracker Suite.

Tolerance

I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that this film and the West's struggle with radical Islam has challenged my assumptions about tolerance, about which I have already posted (here, here and here). To summarize my opinion about tolerance (that is, tolerance about beliefs and ideas, specifically those related to religion), I think that the best scenario is one in which the multiple world-views and religions coexist and lay open their cases for the rest to see. I believe that the evidence will single out the true religion, if indeed there is one. I welcome Jews praying for my conversion and even dialoguing with me about the validity of their claims as long as they extend the same courtesy to me.

But this perfect world of my imaginings begins to break down in the face of honest Islam. I say honest Islam because it seems to me that (given that what I know of Islam I understand correctly), people who talk about Islam as a "peaceful" or "tolerant" religion are either mistaken or being dishonest. In a speech given after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush said, "Islam is peace." There is no lack of people who would like to make the President more well-informed about a number of issues, but I would point out to him that Islam is "submission," not "peace." Specifically, Islam is submission to the will of Allah, who may, among other things, require muslims to make those who "disbelieve . . . to enter fire" (Sura 4.56).

As I said in " . . . all Israel will be saved," I hope that believing Jews pray for my conversion, because they believe that they have the true revelation of God. I expect Jews to be good Jews, Christians to be good Christians, Buddhists to be good Buddhists, etc. I hold to that principle when it comes to muslims, but I say so with trepidation. If Wilder's (or Osama Bin Laden's) interpretation of what the Qur'an says in the verse I quoted above is right, then a good muslim should kill me for being a disbeliever.

Does the film quote the Qur'an out of context?

I have only taken the time to read two of the quotes used in the film in their context. One of them is Sura 8.60. Here it is in its wider context (I have bolded the part that Wilder quotes in his film):

"Surely the vilest of animals in Allah's sight are those who disbelieve, then they would not believe. Those with whom you make an agreement, then they break their agreement every time and they do not guard (against punishment). Therefore if you overtake them in fighting, then scatter by (making an example of) them those who are in their rear, that they may be mindful. And if you fear treachery on the part of a people, then throw back to them on terms of equality; surely Allah does not love the treacherous. And let not those who disbelieve think that they shall come in first; surely they will not escape. And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others beside them, whom you did not know (but) Allah knows them; and whatever thing you will spend in Allah's way, it will be paid back to you fully and you shall not be dealt with unjustly. And if they incline to peace, then incline to it and trust in Allah; surely he is the Hearing, the Knowing."

- Sura 8.56-61

(I'm not sure if the awkwardness of the language in the above passage is due to difficulty in translation from Arabic to English or if this kind of syntax is present in the original).

Notice that, taken alone, the quote used in Fitna sounds quite frightening, but taken in its context, it loses much of the force that it has when quoted in isolation. I wonder if Wilder read the following two lines when preparing the quotes for his film.

Fitna also quotes Sura 4.56, which I quoted above. Here is the full passage (again, with the part used in the film in bold type):

"(As for) those who disbelieve in Our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; surely Allah is Might, Wise. And (as for) those who believe and do good deeds, We will make them enter gardens beneath which rivers flow, to abide in them for ever; they shall have therein pure mates, and We shall make them enter dense shade."

- Sura 4.56-57

At first this seems fairly plain - burn the unbelievers, reward the believers. Not being well-versed in the Qur'an, I am hesitant to make any speculations, but I will venture to say that here it is Allah speaking about what he will do, not what he wants his followers to do (this latter is the way Fitna leads viewers to read it). It is difficult to say for sure, since the entire text seems to jump back and forth in POV from Allah's and Muhammad's, but since the personal pronouns are all capitalized ("We," "Our"), it seems to me reasonable to assume Allah is speaking. If this is the correct reading, then perhaps we Christians should remember Our Lord's words: "Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth" (Matthew 25:30).

Does it matter?

Wilder misinterpreting the Qur'an is one thing, but muslims misinterpreting it is a different problem. And if the Qur'an does not call for the killing of non-muslims, then there are, apparently, a lot of muslims who misinterpret it. One video in Fitna shows Sheikh Bakr Al-Samarai telling a cheering crowd, "If Allah permits us, oh nation of Muhammed, even the stone will say 'Oh, Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me, come and cut off his head.' And we shall cut off his head! By Allah, we shall cut it off!" Not an ounce of nuance there; Al-Samarai means exactly what he is saying. And the video footage of beheadings and murder speak for themselves.

Being a good muslim

So I am left with my original policy. For now, I (perhaps naively) continue to believe in my perfect world of coexistence and debate between the world's religions and world-views. I'm not convinced either way on whether Islam is a violent and intolerant religion or not (here I am speaking of Islam in itself, rather than Islam as it is actually practiced). If the Qur'an does not, in fact, call for the torture and killing of the "unbelievers," then I say to all muslims: If you believe that the Qur'an is the true revelation of God, then follow it more faithfully. If it does, then I (fearfully) stand by my convictions: I think that a muslim should be a good muslim. I say to him: God will vindicate those who follow His Truth, and that the rest of us will not lie down and let you sift us like wheat. In the meantime, I will pray that God will enlighten all muslims and lead them into the truth of Christ, and that all peaceful peoples will triumph over violence.

On philosophizing about violence and Islam from my armchair

I realize how easy it is for me, a citizen of the United States protected by America's geographical location, democratic government and military might, to say that I think muslims should be good muslims. Having a good imagination, I can picture various scenarios (assisted by the disturbing images shown in Fitna) in which that conviction would be challenged. I also think of the victims of terrorism in other countries (and in my own) and how they would feel about what I have just said. All I can say is that I am not unaware of the difficulties with my position. I am still wrestling with the implications of Islam's presence in the world arena, as is everyone else.

calling priests "father"

2008-04-07T19:25:00.004-05:00

JimmyAkin.org has a good post on the practice of calling Catholic priests "Father."

remembring mlk

2008-04-04T08:08:00.004-05:00

Richard John Neuhaus, who worked with Dr. King during his lifetime, has a good article on FirstThings.com about the late civil rights leader.

david mills on the prayer for the jews

2008-04-03T21:24:00.010-05:00

I wrote in two earlier posts (here and here) about the response of some Jewish leaders (particularly Rabbi Walter Homolka's) to the prayer for the Jews in the Good Friday liturgy. I argued that what Homolka is asking of Catholics ends up being a negation of both Catholicism (and Christianity in general) and Judaism. As long as Christians believe that Jesus is the "way, truth, and the life," the "living one" who was dead but is now alive and has "the keys of death and Hades" they are obliged to pray that all the world find faith in him. For believing Jews to ask that Christians (who worship Jesus as God) continue to practice their own faith (instead of converting to Judaism) but not pray for the conversion of Jews is to render hollow perhaps the fundamental teaching of Judaism, which is that "you shall no other gods before Me," since Judaism does not teach that Jesus was God or the Messiah.

The new issue of Touchstone Magazine has an article on this subject by David Mills. Mills makes an incisive argument for the point I have been making:

"We would want gently to note that in demanding that Christians do not pray for the conversion of the Jews, the Jewish leaders are demanding the conversion of Christians - not to Judaism, of course, but to a different version of Christianity, one defined not by our Scriptures and tradition but by the desires of another faith. This is no less offensive to Christians than the prayer is to Jews. It is an assault on the integrity of the Christian religion.

Whatever his view of other faiths, the Christian by definition believes that it is better to know, love, and follow Jesus in this world than not to, and that is true for every single person on earth. This is, indeed, the basis not only for evangelization but for all preaching, all pastoral work, all spiritual direction, because while St. Paul tells us that the veil has been removed from those who are in Christ, he also reminds us that we see through a glass darkly. We only ask for our Jewish friends what we ask, in a different sense, for ourselves."

I would say that Mills does not quite go far enough. Homolka's demand of Christians does not require them to convert to a new version of Christianity, but to another religion altogether. Christianity is that religion which teaches that Jesus of Nazareth is the only way to salvation. We can quibble about the particulars, such as how God will deal with those who are ignorant of the Gospel or who through extraordinary life circumstances beyond their control do not believe in it; but even if such people can be saved, it will only be by the grace that Christ bought with his own life. And even if it is possible, it is by no means certain, and as Mills says, "it is better to know, love, and follow" him. Therefore it is our responsibility to pray for and reach out in love to others. To teach and believe otherwise is to teach and believe something other than Christianity.

the definitions of tolerance

2008-04-03T18:30:00.007-05:00

My post ". . . all Israel will be saved" skirts an idea that often comes up in conversation, blogs, television, the news, church and everywhere else one might think of - that of tolerance. It is a word that gets used a lot, but I think that most people who use it don't think about what it actually means. Or, more to the point, I think that they mean something other than "tolerance" when they talk about it. A quick reference to the handy dictionary on the dashboard of my Mac (don't tell me that you walk across the room to get your copy of Webster's when you've got resources at your fingertips) tells me that there are, roughly speaking, three definitions of the word.

1. The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. I think that when most people speak of "tolerance," they want others (and themselves) to believe that this is what they mean by it. People talk about religious tolerance, by which they mean, "The Christians ought to be tolerant of the beliefs of Wiccans" or "Muslims ought to be tolerant of the beliefs of Jews," etc. The thing that often gets missed is that this definition presupposes that there is some disagreement about something. A person can have a moral objection to homosexual acts and remain tolerant of homosexual people themselves. He may have no problems working with homosexuals, going to school with them, serving them at a restaurant, or being served by them. If his moral objection becomes public knowledge, however, he is usually accused of intolerance.

2. The allowable amount of variation in a specified quantity, especially in the dimensions of a machine or part. Engine builders sometimes make the choice between building a motor with loose tolerances or with close tolerances. Loose tolerance allows the engine rev faster and thus make more power. In this sense, the analogy between engineering tolerance and social tolerance works. When people who disagree don't live in very close proximity, there is usually minimal friction. On the other hand, an engine that has very loose tolerance is not going to be as reliable or long-lived as an engine with tighter tolerances. The application of this definition for our purposes is thus limited.

3. Resistance to the effects of a substance, especially a drug, after repeated exposure. This definition is the one in which I am most interested. A person who repeatedly uses a certain drug, such as cocaine, will often begin to show a diminished reaction to it. I think that this definition is the one that best explains the way modern people use the word "tolerance."

Notice that when someone decries intolerance, often what they are decrying not the intolerance of a different opinion, but the difference itself. In the case of Rabbi Walter Homolka's response to the prayer for the Jews during the Good Friday liturgy, what he's asking for is not for Catholics to tolerate the Jews, who disagree with Catholics about the person of Jesus Christ. What the Rabbi is demanding is that Catholics no longer have a certain reaction to Judaism - namely, disagreement. Notice that he does not stop at requiring that Catholics and other Christians not persecute Jews or blame them for the murder of Christ (I think it's understandable that he worries about that), but he goes on to require them to not voice their disagreement with Jews at all. Basically, he's telling the Pope, "Do what you do, but don't disagree with us about Jesus. Tell us that Judaism is right for us and Catholicism is right for you" (which is what the current English form of the Good Friday prayer does) The result is a complete negation of both Judaism and Catholicism.

"ethical difficulties involved in collecting human eggs for research"

2008-04-02T05:27:00.003-05:00

Well, it's a good thing those Brits are making sure they follow all the appropriate ethical guidelines in creating human-animal hybrids.

chesterton on human goodness

2008-04-01T20:52:00.006-05:00

(an addendum to "on dogs")

No matter what the subject, Chesterton always says it best:

"Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink."

"his religious expression infringed on other students' rights"

2008-04-01T20:34:00.002-05:00

Tomah High School stands up for your freedom of expression . . . unless you're Christian.

john donne on human goodness

2008-04-01T15:43:00.007-05:00

A few posts ago I wrote about the differences in the goodness/evil of which humans are capable and the goodness/evil of which animals (dogs, specifically) are capable. I argued that the difference is not only a matter of degree, but of kind. I think that this question provides a convenient introduction to part of the answer to the problem of evil. Why are the humans God has created to do good capable of such horrors? In Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne offers an answer:

"Enlarge this Meditation upon this great world, Man, so far as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born Giants; that reach from East to West, from Earth to Heaven, that do not only bestride all the Sea, and land, but span the Sun and Firmament at once; My thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their Creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, anywhere, and any one of my Creatures, my thoughts, is with the Sun, and beyond the Sun, overtakes the Sun, and overgoes the Sun in one pace, one step, everywhere. And then as the other world produces Serpents, and Vipers, malignant, and venomous creatures, and Worms, and Caterpillars, that endeavor to devour that world which produces them, and Monsters compiled and complicated of divers parents, and kinds, so this world, ourselves produces all these in us, in producing diseases, and sickness, of all those sorts; venomous, and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, and manifold and entangled diseases, made up of many several ones. And can the other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so many monstrous creatures, as we can diseases, of all these kinds? O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!"

You can find the entire Devotions here.

". . . all Israel will be saved"

2008-03-31T14:30:00.002-05:00

There has been much discussion lately about the prayer for the Jews during the Good Friday intercessions. Jews have long found the original formula

Let us pray also for the faithless Jews, that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

insulting (understandably, although I will quibble with the particulars); now some Jewish leaders have rejected the revision released by Pope Benedict in February, calling it "insulting" and saying that Pope Benedict has "lost his sensitivity." The revision reads

Let us also pray for the Jews: That God and our Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fulness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Rabbi Walter Homolka complains that it is insulting to Jews for Catholics to believe that in order for them to be saved, they must accept Jesus Christ as the Savior. In an interview with Spiegel.com, Homolka says, "[Pope Benedict] indicates that he believes that the path to salvation, even for Jews, can only go through Jesus, the savior. This opens the floodgates for the conversion of the Jews."

Just imagine - the Pope believes that salvation is through Jesus. In all seriousness, I find it almost dumbfounding that someone, especially a learned someone, would complain that on Good Friday Catholics pray for the conversion of others. If the Rabbi is offended that on Good Friday, the Pope wants us to pray for the conversion of the Jews, then he ought to go ahead and condemn the whole of Christianity. Every book of the New Testament proclaims that Jesus is the salvation of the world - the only salvation. This has been the constant teaching of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years.

My answer to the Rabbi's objections is, Won't you please pray for my conversion also? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament, and therefore I hope that all peoples will find faith in Him. I believe that God desires that all be saved, including (perhaps especially) the Jews. Therefore I will pray that all people, Jews or otherwise, will become followers of Christ. I believe that the evidence supports my position. On the other hand, I hope that, as a good Jew, you believe that your religion is the true revelation of the One True God. I also hope that you pray for my conversion. I would find it insulting if you didn't.

obama on race, abortion, and a hil bumper sticker

2008-03-29T05:47:00.001-05:00

Richard John Neuhaus of First Things has written a piece on Obama's speech on the Reverend Wright. Here are a couple of standout passages:

On Obama's giving in to racial stereotyping, there is this:

"The senator lends his prestige to the claim promoted by sundry race hustlers that Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, and Bill Cosby, along with millions of other black Americans, are not black enough to be part of 'the black community.' One can understand why a Harvard law-school graduate born in Hawaii with a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas would, for political and perhaps personal reasons, seek the street credential of having 'roots' in a militantly black sector of the intensely race-conscious city of Chicago. But complicity in the explicit slander of America and the implicit slander of most blacks in America is a very high price to pay for a ticket of admission to 'the black community.'"

And on Obama's abortion stance, he has this to say:

"In this speech, he did not mention abortion, the single most polarizing question in our public life, but his promise is to move us beyond our divisions by taking a position so extreme that he refuses to support even the “born alive” legislation that would protect the lives of infants who survive the abortion procedure. Not for nothing is he rated the most liberal member of the Senate. His call for national reconciliation, however rhetorically appealing, is more believably a call for capitulation by those who disagree."

You can view the entire essay here.

And yesterday I saw a very amusing bumper sticker which read "Monica Lewinski's ex-boyfriend's wife for President." This is one of the little things that make the day brighter.

chesterton, von balthasar, jehovah's witnesses and the shape of the stauros

2008-03-28T09:07:00.002-05:00

It seems to me that Jehovah's Witnesses lose much in insisting that Christ died on a single upright beam rather than a cross.

The confusion is understandable, since the Greek word that most Bibles render as "cross" (stauros) has as its original meaning "stake" or "beam." But of course, stauros does not always mean "stake" just as the Latin crux does not always mean "cross." The position of the JWs ignores the witness of the early Christian writers, including Justin Martyr, who attest to the two-beam shape of the stauros. Justin sees the cross prefigured by Moses holding out his hands during the battle with Amalek, as does the author of the Epistle of Barnabas. There is also the Alexamenos graffito, which mockingly depicts the crucifixion by portraying Christ as a donkey on a tau cross (a cross shaped like an uppercase "T"). Clearly the earliest Christians and other witnesses understood stauros to mean "cross" in the New Testament.

G.K. Chesterton wrote about the cross as a symbol of reason, health, and eternity in his spiritual autobiography, Orthodoxy:

"The Christian . . . puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health. As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds."

The cross provides not only a more perfect symbol of eternity than a circle, but it also, as Chesterton hints above, provides the means of redemption precisely because of its paradox - the "collision" and "contradiction" inherent in a vertical and a horizontal line intersecting at a single point. Hans Urs von Balthasar also points out this feature of the symbolism of the cross in Mysterium Paschale. He writes, "The point where all the dimensions of the world intersect is also the point of indifference between all contraries, and so the point of redemption."

I wonder if, in lacking the symbolism of the cross as the means of the reconciliation between God and man, Jehovah's Witnesses also lack something in their theology. It may be better to say that their lack of the symbol of the cross evidences a deficiency in their theology.

In historic Christian theology, Christ is able to reconcile God and man precisely because he is a paradox in the same way that the cross is a paradox. He can be the eternal High Priest precisely because he is at once God and Man. The cross is the perfect symbol of this contradiction: it has a vertical beam that, like the column of fire that accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt, represents the power of God and His coming down from heaven in order to save His people; the horizontal beam represents Christ's humanity, and thus humanity itself.

But Jehovah's Witnesses deny one part of this paradox, perhaps the most important part. In JW theology, Jesus, like his fellow humans, is a created being. As such, there is no saving "contradiction," no "collision" between God and creature in the person of Christ, and thus no real atonement (which is literally "at one -ment," the making of two different things one).

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Addendum

Another passage from the early church of relevance comes from Cyril of Jerusalem's Catecheses:

"God has opened wide his arms on the Cross in order to span the limits of the earth's orb."

ruminate magazine

2008-03-27T21:49:00.002-05:00

For those of you who are interested in fiction, art, literary magazines or all three, there are very good things happening in Ruminate: Faith In Literature and Art, a literary magazine that features great writing and art from a Christian perspective. You can read a review I wrote of the 6th issue here. While you are there, you might check out the great work my friend and classmate Travis is orchestrating at Luna Park.

(By the way, I realized after the review was published that had I screwed up royally about the original meaning of the word dogma. Latin experts beware. You will cringe at the last line.)

on dogs

2008-03-26T14:59:00.000-05:00

I hear a lot of folks say lately that they don't like people but they love animals. One friend tells me she loves her animals because "they don't treat you like crap like people do." She tells me that she stayed up an entire night with her dachshund because he had a virus, and then admitted that she would not do the same thing for her kids. One of my teachers tells me that "animals are better than we are." The same teacher tells me that the marine who threw a puppy off a cliff in a youtube video should be killed. I didn't ask how he feels about puncturing the back of a mostly-born baby's skull and suctioning its brain out. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I think I know the answer to that one.

(By the way, I think the marine should be severly punished, too, but I wouldn't go as far as killing him. I think caning might be appropriate.)

I think Lewis says somewhere that a dog can be neither very good nor very bad (morally speaking). Dogs can be wonderful companions, as was the case of the german shepherd my family used to have. Dogs can also be very violent and dangerous (as in this case and this one). But whether they are friendly or vicious, dogs are incapable of being either good or bad in the way that humans can be. A jack russel might rescue a woman from freezing, but the same dog would not spend years of its life working for the emancipation of slaves, or give up its dream of becoming an accomplished musician in order to ensure that his daughter grows up with a caring father. A pit bull might attack a man on a morning walk, but the same pit bull is not capable of conceiving and carrying out a plan to exterminate an entire ethnic group, or of falsely accusing a coworker of sexual harrassment in order to get even with her over a personal offense.

The difference is not in degree only, but also in kind. An emotionally abusive husband might be a hero in an emergency situation. A cruel woman might spring into action to save a drowning man she has never met. The same is true for dogs. But heroics brought on by instinct are not the same as the kind of patient, all-suffering good of which humans are capable, and violent acts brought on by natural tendencies and traumatic external stimuli are not the same as the conniving of an ambitious, backstabbing coworker.

I think people who feel the way my friend and my teacher feel simply don't want to bother with the effort of loving other people. They prefer animals because with animals there's no risk. But it is a terrible loss to throw out the good that people do because we cannot forgive the bad. Most people to whom I have been close have offended me or wronged me in some way (some more grievously than others), and I have done the same to them. I would have no one if I chose not to forgive others' wrongs, and certainly no one would have anything to do with me if people were incapable of forgiving mine. And what an impoverished life we would live if that were the case.

per speculum in aenigmate

2008-03-26T05:44:00.001-05:00

John Donne, perhaps most well known for his poetry, was also a brilliant prose writer, and his sermons are among the most profound and literary ever written. The following is an excerpt from a sermon he delivered on Easter Sunday in 1628. I shamelessly stole the title of this blog from this golden sermon:

"God made light first, and three days after that light became a sun, a more glorious light. God gave me the light of nature when I quickened in my mother's womb by receiving a reasonable soul; and God gave me the light of faith when I quickened in my second mother's womb, the church, by receiving my baptism; but in my third day, when my mortality shall put on immortality, he shall give me the light of glory by which I shall see himself. To this light of glory the light of honor is but a glow-worm; and majesty itself but a twilight; the cherubims and seraphims are but candles; and the Gospel itself, which the apostle calls the glorious Gospel, but a star of the least magnitude. And if I cannot tell what to call this light by which I shall see it, what shall I call that which I shall see by it, the essence of God himself! And yet there is something else than this sight of God intended in that which remains; I shall not only see God face to face, but I shall know him - which, as you have seen all the way, is above sight - and know him even also as I am known."

2008-03-25T21:28:00.002-05:00

So I'm new to this blogging business, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to post yet. You're likely to find a lot of John Donne, G.K. Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis here, along with a few musings of my own. But I've been convinced for a long time that there is nothing worth saying that hasn't already been said, so mostly you'll get the words of people who have said greater things than I can say, along with a few musings of my own.

I'm a graduate student in southern Mississippi with an interest in writing, literature, religion and philosophy, and a Catholic view of things. I'm sure it seems strange for an aspiring writer to say that there isn't anything worth saying that hasn't been said. I don't have any illusions (or at least, I hope I don't) about my chosen occupation. I think it's the job of any writer to say what he or she believes to be true in a new way. New audiences often require new presentations of things. But as a writer, I know that I can and should always return to those who have said greater things than I will ever say, and have said those things with more skill and mastery of the language than I will ever possess.

Hence this blog, which will probably not be very unique. I only hope to provide some bits of wisdom that might have been forgotten, and perhaps a few of my own humble insights along the way.