My dream, my favorite way to spend a day is to hang out in a nice cafe all day reading good books at sipping fine espresso.
I grab fleeting hours of this arrangement when I can throughout a regular week, usually in the early hours of the morning.
It was with much delight that I spent the whole of today (work was cancelled due to Presiden’t Day) in such a state. Marvelous! I read much of the biography on the Inklings (which was quite interesting) and will be posting my notes here over the next couple of days. This one here is fitting for today:
[After the war] the company made plans to celebrate peace. ‘The Inklings have already agreed’, Tolkien told his son Christopher, ‘that their victory celebration, if they are spared to have one, will be to take a whole inn in the countryside for at least a week, and spend it entirely in beer and talk, without reference to any clock!’
Several biographer’s and critics claim that C.S. Lewis’s very best book was Till We Have Faces.
He himself throught so, preferring it even to his earlier favourite, Perelandra. Ironically it had a poorer reception than any other story he had written.
-Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings, p.245
Beethoven was in a similar situation. His seventh symphony was very popular, but his eighth was not so warmly received. When asked why that was, he replied, “Because it’s better!”
One always finds it a bit refreshing when they observe some of their own failings in one they admire or consider accomplished. It makes our hero’s seem more human and also stirs in us the thought that maybe we could do something great and noteworthy too someday, despite our failings. That was my feelings when reading this passage about Charles Williams, prolific author and lose friend of C.S. Lewis:
He [Williams] was writing fast now, partly in office hours at the Press. War in Heaven [his first published novel] actually brought him some modest royalties, and the prospect of making money by writing encouraged him to continue in the same vein. Not that he had any absurd dream of riches, but there was a constant stream of household bills to be settled. His salary at the Press was not unreasobably low, but he was bat at managing money – he was always buying cups of coffee and glasses of sherry and meals for his friends – and in any case his memories of financial anxiety in his childhood left him in a contant state of worry about his bank-balance. So he went on writing novels specifically for the purpose of making money, and indeed he believed strongly that this was an excellent motive. He declared that it was the stimulus of potential poverty that had produced so many great writers from the ranks of the financially unstable lower middle classes. “I saw Shakespeare”, he wrote in a poem,
In a Tube station on the Central London:
He was smoking a pipe:
He had Sax Rohmer’s best novel under his arm
(In a cheap edition)
And the Evening News.
He was reading in the half-detached way one does.
He had just come away from an office
And the notes for The Merchant
Were in his pocket,
Beginning (it was the first line he thought of)
“Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins”,
But his chief wish was to be earning more money.
Lately, I’ve seen James Joyce’s name come up as one of those must-read authors. The recent documentary video I watched on Ireland declared him THE master of the English language. If that is so, how come I have barely heard his writing mentioned by any of the well-read friends and bloggers I know? Perhaps this introductory passage to Finnegans Wake from critic John Bishop provides some insight:
There is no agreement as to what Finnegans Wake is about, whether or not it is “about” anything, or even whether it is, in any ordinary sense of the word, “readable.”
It’s admirers see in it a comprehensive summa of twentieth-centruy culture and letters; its detractors, an arrogant compilation of arcane materials eccentrically patched together for the amusement of a literary elite.
Ah, so it’s either an amazing piece of brilliance or and pile of crap. I decided to hit up the library and investigate. I was stunned to find the better part of an entire shelf, at least 100+ volumes of literary criticism on Finnegans Wake. They had titles like:
Finnegans Wake: A Plot Summary (302 pages)
Lexicon of German in Finnegans Wake
Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
Decentered Universe of Finnegans Wake
Scandinavian Elements of Finnegans Wake
Scribbledehobble: The Ur-workbook for Finnegans Wake
The Riddles of Finnegans Wake
Alchemy and Finnegans Wake
On the void of to be: Incoherence and trope in Finnegans Wake
Mummeries of Resurrection: The Cycle of Osiris in Finnegans Wake
Writing [Music] through Finnegans Wake (by John Cage!)
Ye gads. It appears this book is a deep well for English grad students looking for a thesis topic.
I’m reading a biography/history right now on the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, Tokien, and Charles Williams primarily). I decided to hit the index to see if my literary heros had anything to say about Joyce:
Lewis read much more widely than Tolkien among modern writers and disliked much of what he saw…Predictably, he disliked D.H. Lawrence’s novels for their attitude to sex; he dismissed such writers as James Joyce as “steam of consciousness’, and categorised Virginia Woolf as one of ‘the clevers’. E.M. Forster was almost the only serious novelist of the period whose work he admired.
Humphry Carpenter, The Inklings, p.158
Note that’s “steam” not “stream” in the quote above.
Well, I’m still quite curious. I’m sure I’ll get around to Joyce eventually, but the fact that Lewis didn’t think him worth the time has effectively moved him farther down the list…
The poem that Charles Hodgin’s (of Podictionary fame) quoted the other day is appropriate.
Take Heart, Illiterates
by Justin Richardson
For years a secret shame destroyed my peace,
I’d not read Eliot, Auden or MacNeice.
But then I had a thought that brought me hope,
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
It seems every Christian tradition has tried to claim C.S. Lewis as their own, even the Catholics. His apologetics Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters were some of the primary literature recommended in my baptist upbringing. He was respected by the charismatics. The reformed quote from him all the time, even though he was nowhere near being reformed.
In short, nearly everyone loves Lewis, and seems to give him a pass whenever he says something that might not jive with their own theology or tradition. “Mere Christianity” (the concept, not just the book) has been a significant unifying force throughout Christendom in the past 50 years.
I believe part of the reason for his success was his intentionally fresh approach. This describes it well:
He [Lewis] was in fact not a theologian in any true sense of the word, bfor he did not set about an investigation of doctrine, but rather made hinmself an apologist, a defender of the faith in its full orthodoxy. He was largely ignorant of the work of modern theologians, and was proud of this ignorance, because he thought it helped him to avoid taking sides in any faction fights. ‘A great deal of my utility’, he wrote in 1963, ‘has depended on my having kept out of all dog-fights between professing schools of Christian thought’
Many of the members of the Inklings wrote regular book reviews for publishing and literary journals. They frequently wrote glowing reviews for each others works to help them along. C.S. Lewis praised Tolkien. Tolkien pulled strings for Lewis, and so forth. From Charles Williams though, he was sometimes more likely to find a review like this one for The Screwtape Letters:
My dearest Scorpuscle: It is a dangerous book, heavenly-dangerous. I hate it, this give-away of hell.’ He signed the review ‘Your sincere friend, Snigsozzle’, and added as a postscript: ‘You will send someone to see after Lewis? – some very clever fiend?’
-Charles Williams, Time & Time, 1942 no.12, (Inklings p.176)
A few weeks ago was the 250th birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Shame of me for letting the day pass without mention. I must say, my first exposure to Burns (besides the “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” routine) is the musical adaptation of Now Westlin Winds by Dick Gaughan. I just listened to this again yesterday and it’s excellent.
Now Westlin Winds
(Robert Burns)
Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns
Bring August’s pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather;
Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
The moon shines bright, as I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.
The Pairtrick lo’es the fruitfu’ fells;
The Plover lo’es the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lanely dells;
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Thro’ lofty groves, the Cushat roves,
The path o’man to shun it;
The hazel bush o’erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.
Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man’s dominion;
The Sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,
The flutt’ring, gorg pinion!
But Peggy dear, the ev’ning’s clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms o’ Nature:
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And ilka happy creature.
We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shines clearly;
I’ll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I lo’e thee dearly:
Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
Photo of Winchester Cathederal by Flickr User shemacgo. Used via Creative Commons License.
I want to make it clear up front this this is NOT a piece, (not even a little piece) of serious scholarship. I counted things by hand, eyeballed references, and often did not compare apples to oranges. This was nothing more than a fun exercise to satisfy my curiosity. If you were very interesting in biblical linguistics (I’m not), you might consider this a quick, informal, initial investigation into the subject to see if it might warrant further attention.
Anyway, after all my word counting and writing samples, here is what I came up with for the challenge:
Hair
Sweat
Entrails
Menstruation
Genitals
Barth
64
19
0
1
11
Origen
3
14
5
1
2
Niebuhr
7
10
1
0
0
Calvin
58
95
9
6
40
Borg
5
6
0
1
2
Kung
6
5
1
3
3
Augustine
68
25
13
4
45
The Bible
135
3
20
16
11
Now, using my secret and entirely unscientific analysis, I came up with the following “language similarity” scores, sorted in ascending order, including links to their original post:
Augustine really does score the highest, just as Leithart said he would.
Calvin’s writing is often an extension of further development of Augustine, so it winds up being remarkably similar.
Barth is off by himself, but the scope of his writing was grand. He didn’t pass over much.
Kung is mostly a popular theologian who likely didn’t feel it appropriate to spend much time on topics that included these words.
Borg is a gnostic who denies the bodily resurrection of Christ. It’s fitting he would see God as not particularly interested in anatomy.
Niebuhr wrote a lot on ethics, justice and war (in the abstract). Sex, blood, and guts wasn’t on his radar.
I was a little disappointed in Origen. I guess (having not read him before) I had assumed he would be a bit more like his closest historical peer, Augustine.
To finally restate Leithart’s challenge:
9. Theology is a “Victorian” enterprise, neoclassically bright and neat and clean, nothing out of place. Wheras the Bible talks about hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions.
10. Here’s an experiment you can do at any theological library. You even have my permission to try this at home.
Step 1: Check the indexes of any theologian you choose for any of the words mentioned in section 9 above. (Augustine does not count. Augustine’s theology is as big reality, or bigger.)
Step 2: Check the Bible concordance for the same words.
Step 3: Ponder these questions: Do theologians talk about the world the same way the Bible does? Do theologians talk about the same WORLD the Bible does?
So do these theologians talk about the world the same way the Bible does?
(My) Answer: Sometimes they do. Some more than others. Frequently though, theologians have chosen the language of philosophy, which the Bible rarely employs. By doing so, they have gained some powerful vocabulary and put it to good use. I believe they have also been inadvertently trapped by it – right where the world wants them. God’s special revelation of himself didn’t have much use for this language. It is more coarse, like God himself perhaps?
Do theologians talk about the same WORLD the Bible does?
(My) Answer: Well, most of the time, but they are frequently enough on another planet to warrant the accusation. Know what I’m talking about?
Methodologically the result of this shift in starting point from doctrine to data, from metaphysical system to narrative, is a reordering of trinitarian theology that points to a radical revision of the whole ordo doctrinae of Latin Catholic theology. Such a revision is arguably more appropriate to contemporary more empirically-oriented culture and sensibilities.
-Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery, Ch.6:Methodological Shifts and Their Meta-Methodological Significance
What’s ironic is that this article is actually advocating a shift AWAY from talking theology like this and appreciating the Bible more for it’s large-scale story.
As for out-of-the-world experiences, look no further:
Having styled ‘limited atonement’ as a key determinative doctrine in a subsequent ‘distortion’ of Calvin’s theology into the ‘rigid’ and ‘legalising’ system of the experimental predestinarians, we now find that te doctrine of universal redemption could be firmly embraced by one of Kendall’s own experimental predestinarian case studies without, it seems, any alteration to the doctrine of conversion and assurance in that tradition.
-Jonathan D. Moore, English Hypothetical Universalism, p.222
Nice, eh? I’m sure he THINKS he’s talking about Jesus, but really folks…
OK. OK. It’s easy to make fun of academics. “I is one” if you pick the right topic.
Back to the point. I think Leithart’s real point is found in this earlier passage:
All that remains within the realm of theology are (perhaps) ecstatic and “timeless” encounters of the soul with God, God with the soul. Theology keeps Christian teaching at the margins and ensures that other voices, other languages, other words shape the world of temporalities. Politics is left to politicians, economics to economists, sociology to sociologists, history to historians, and philosophy to madmen.
Theology ensures that Christians have nothing to say about nearly everything.
-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, Ch.2 Sec. 4
The “word challenge” I’ve been exploring here is to support this larger point. It’s a case of, “Here, you don’t believe me that Christians have been stuffed in the closet when it comes to talking about the real world? Well I’ll prove it. Take a look at this!” And of course it’s hyperbole, but it proves the point well.
I have a bit more to say about this, but it belongs in another post. It’s been fun!
Leithart says that the Bible speaks not only of spiritual things, but also hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation, and genital emissions. Theologians on the other hand (except for perhaps Augustine) rarely make any mention of these. It’s a blanket statement intended to shock, of course, but is it true nonetheless? Are theologians from another planet? Let’s find out…
In this round: The Canon of Scripture
According to the multi-version concordance on BibleTab.com, these words occur X number of times in the Bible:
hair – 135
sweat – 3
entrails – 20
menstruation – 16
genital emissions -11
All right, the whole basis of this challenge is we need something to compare the language of theologians to. The bible is the standard.
Much of the Bible is a narrative. In it, there are a surprising number of people with hair worth mentioning: Eusa, Sampson, David’s men who had their beards cut off, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, etc.
The word is also used abstractly quite a bit:
Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black.
Matthew 5:36
I was a little bit bummed that the theologians I studied mentioned sweat so rarely. However, it turns out the Bible almost never mentions it either. This oft-quoted passage is one of the few exceptions:
By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:19
Entrails show up a fair amount. For example, in this story illustrating why it was generally a bad idea to lie to the apostles:
Now this man obtained a field with the reward for his wickedness, and falling headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines gushed out.
Acts 1:18
Menstraution is usually mention in the OT Law, but occasionally is used to describle how valuable idols are:
Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.
Isaiah 30:22
Speaking of the law, in an OT fight, hitting below the belt was taken very seriously:
“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
