2023-11-01T07:36:02-04:00

Halloween inaugurates a whole slew of holidays, one after the other in quick succession:  Halloween, closely followed by Thanksgiving, closely followed by Christmas, closely followed by New Year’s.

It’s interesting that so many of our holidays are crowded into the cold days, when nature dies.  That’s when we celebrate, rather than when one might expect, when the physical world flourishes with fertility and growth.  We do have Easter, of course, in the Spring, but that is particularly tied to the new life that rises out of death–in Christ’s resurrection, heralded by the rebirth of nature, signifying the new life we have through Christ.

Religion looms behind holidays–a word that means “holy days”–even the ones that have become secularized or even paganized.  Halloween was the eve before All Hallows, that is to say All Saints’ Day, a time to honor the blessed dead.  (More death, but Christians can celebrate in the face of death.)  What’s left of Halloween today resonates with the pagan fear of evil spirits and ghosts, but the sense of the supernatural and the uncanny–both of which which comes from religion–is preserved in people’s strange attraction for what is scary.

As for America’s national secular holidays, they either acquire a religious flavor–Thanksgiving requires a God to thank–or are celebrated in a religious way, with feasting (see that word’s etymology) as in the “festivals” of the church year that did not require fasting.  So the main way we celebrate Labor Day is with a cookout.  The same with Independence Day, though we add fireworks.  New Year’s has a memory of the religious concern for new beginnings and is celebrated mainly with partying and staying up all night, the remnant of a vigil.

All of this came to mind when I came across an account of how a holiday was celebrated by someone resolved to purge Christianity from the culture as part of a new humanistic, rationalistic order.

After the success of the French Revolution, a ceremony was held in Notre Dame Cathedral–after the altar, the crosses, the Christian symbols, the art, and everything else that made its interior beautiful were removed–in which a woman who symbolized Reason was installed and crowned.  Reason would be the new deity.  The revolutionaries developed what they called a “Cult of Reason,” complete with holidays such as “Virtue Day,” “Talent Day,” and “Opinion Day.”

The Cult of Reason was atheistic, which pleased neither the people nor the Deists, who also rejected Christianity but held that reason demanded the existence of a Supreme Being.   So when Robespierre came to power, he sent the advocates of the Cult of Reason to the guillotine.  He replaced it with the Cult of the Supreme Being and planned a major nationwide festival in its honor to be held on June 8, 1794.

Here are his instructions for how the Festival of the Supreme Being was to be conducted:

At exactly five in the morning, a general recall shall be sounded in Paris.

This call shall invite every citizen, men and women alike, to immediately adorn their houses with the beloved colors of liberty, either by rehanging their flags, or by embellishing their houses with garlands of flowers and greenery.

They shall then go to the assembly areas of their respective sections to await the departure signal.

No men shall be armed, except for fourteen- to eighteen-year-old boys, who shall be armed with sabers and guns or pikes.

In each section, these boys shall form a square battalion marching twelve across, in the middle of which the banners and flags of the armed force of each section shall be placed, carried by those who are ordinarily entrusted with them.

Every male citizen and young boy shall hold an oak branch in his hand.

All female citizens, mothers and daughters, shall be dressed in the colors of liberty. Mothers shall hold bouquets of roses in their hands, and the young girls shall carry baskets filled with flowers.

Each section shall choose ten older men, ten mothers, ten girls from fifteen to twenty years of age, ten adolescents from fifteen to eighteen years of age, and ten male children below the age of eight to stand on the raised mountain in the Champ de la Reunion.

The ten mothers chosen by each section shall be in white and wear a tricolored sash from right to left.

The ten girls shall also be in white and shall wear the sash like the mothers. The girls shall have flowers braided into their hair. . . .

At exactly eight in the morning an artillery salvo, fired from the Pont Neuf, shall signal the time to proceed to the National Garden.

Male and female citizens shall leave from their respective sections in two columns, each six abreast. The men and boys shall be on the right, while the women, girls, and children below the age of eight will be to the left.

The square battalion of young boys shall be placed in the center between the two columns.

The sections shall be called upon to arrange themselves in such a way that the column of women is not longer than the column of men, in order to avoid disturbing the order which is necessary in a national festival. . . .

The National Convention shall arrive by way of the balcony of the Pavilion of Unity to the adjoining amphitheater.

They shall be preceded by a large body of musicians, who shall be located on each side of the steps to the entrance.

The president, speaking from the rostrum, shall explain to the people the reasons behind this solemn festival, and invite them to honor Nature’s Creator.

It goes on and on like this.  So cold, so controlled, so regulated, so government-centered.  Everybody forms up in tightly-organized battalions, marches through town, and listens to politicians.

In the former Soviet Union, Communist holidays were much like this.

Compare this kind of “festival” to the Christian holidays that were holy-days, as well as the secular celebrations modeled after them.

There is no sense of celebration, no letting go, no . . .fun.  The word “feast,” as in the Feast of Christmas, connotes a special and abundant meal, but it ultimately derives from a word for “joy.”  That’s what’s missing in secularist holidays and in secularism in general.  It’s perhaps what we have to look forward to as Christianity fades from the culture.  But joy is at the heart of Christian holy-days and Christianity in general.

 

Illustration:  “Festival of the Supreme Being” by Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1794), via  https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/musee-carnavalet/oeuvres/la-fete-de-l-etre-supreme-au-champ-de-mars, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=591304 

2023-04-03T18:45:20-04:00

Easter, it has been said, is the Christian holiday that Christians have mostly to themselves.  Unlike Christmas, Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day, the secular world hasn’t co-opted it so much.

Contrary to what we keep being told, Easter did NOT derive from a pagan fertility festival.   But even if it did, fertility is the LAST thing today’s secularists want to celebrate.  Fertility has to do with engendering new life.  Today’s secularists want sex, but they do not generally want babies, going to the extraordinary lengths of preventing birth and when that fails aborting their own children.  That is to say, they want sterility, not fertility.  So it’s up to Christians to celebrate fertility.

The Easter Bunny, Easter Eggs, Easter lilies, and the coming of Spring are all symbols of new life.  That is to say, Christ’s new life after His crucifixion, and our new life due to His crucifixion and resurrection.

So our discussion topic for this weekend is simply “Easter.”  Say whatever you want to say about it–memories, insights, thoughts, questions, testimonials, prayers, thanksgivings, recipes, family customs, experiences, etc., etc.   All things Easter.

2022-12-18T18:23:12-05:00

When we meditate on the End Times, which we are supposed to do during Advent, we think of the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and Judgment Day.  But there is another aspect of Christ’s return–indeed, of the Christian faith–that we often forget about.

When this world comes to an end, God will create the world again.  There will be a new creation.  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1).

The Fall will be undone; Paradise will be regained.  Everything will be restored to what God initially intended it to be.  Including us.

Yes, meditating on the End Times can be daunting, especially as we reflect on the horrors described in the Book of Revelation that seemingly must come first, and, what is even more terrifying, as we reflect on the Last Judgment, knowing ourselves as we do.  But the prospect of the New Creation should fill us with joy.  This is certainly the mood when Christians of the past anticipated Christ’s return and what that will mean.

Jonathan Warren Pagán has written an article for Christianity Today entitled Come Thou Long Expected Judgment.  He says that Christians should welcome the Last Judgment.  The church fathers and other Christians of the past certain did.  They saw the connection between that judgment–along with salvation itself–and God’s new work of creation.  Here are some of the quotations he cites:

In a homily on the 96th psalm, [St. Augustine] writes that Adam fell and broke into a thousand pieces that filled the earth with dissensions, wars, and hatred, “but the Divine Mercy gathered up the fragments from every side, forged them in the fire of love and welded into one what had been broken. That was a work which this Artist knew how to do. … He who remade was himself the Maker; he who refashioned was himself the Fashioner.”. . .

“Just as a bronze vessel that has become old and useless becomes new again when a metalworker melts it in the fire and recasts it,” wrote St. Symeon the New Theologian in the tenth century, “in the same way also the creation, having become old and useless because of our sins, … will appear new, incomparably brighter than it is now. Do you see how all creatures are to be renewed by fire?”. . . .

In a famous sermon, John Wesley declared that “the whole brute creation will, then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigor, strength and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed. They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it as much higher than that, as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm.”

In this new creation, we ourselves will be created again.  God created each of us and sustained us ever moment of our lives.  He knows us completely.  Though we die and return to the dust, we still exist, both in our souls and in the mind of God.  And in the New Creation, He will re-create us all, as we were, out of dust as he did originally, but with a new body.  That is to say, the dead will be resurrected.
But then comes the judgment!  This is the frightening part.  And yet, the final judgment, Pagán writes, is not just about consigning sinners to hell.  “It was primarily a final victory over the three cosmic enemies of Christ—sin, death, and the Devil, according to Martin Luther.”
Every time we are frustrated when the world seems to be going wrong; every time we wish people would do what is right for a change; every time we are repelled by evil and yearn for what is good–we are craving Christ’s judgement, in which he will eradicate evil and make everything right.
Part of ridding the universe of evil will involve ridding the world of evildoers.  And if we are honest, we realize that we are included among those evildoers who have wreaked such harm on others.  This is why the prospect of the Last Judgment is terrifying.
But the Adam of the old creation, who brought death into the world and all our woe  and whose nature we share, gives way to the New Adam of the new creation, namely, Jesus Christ.  “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).  And, as St. Paul says again, in the context of the final resurrection of the dead, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Indeed, we learn that the New Creation has already begun:  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

If we are “in Christ”–by faith, by baptism (see Romans 6:3-5)–we need not fear the Last Judgment.  Our verdict has already been announced:  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

In the meantime, we can say with St. Peter, in his reflections on the Second Coming of Christ, “according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).

So much for Advent!  Starting tomorrow, this blog will shift its attention to Christmas!

 

Illustration:  “All Things New” by Sharon Tate Soberon, via Flickr, CC 2.0

2021-08-09T16:03:09-04:00

In my opinion, informed by decades of literary study, one of the greatest stories in literature is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  It has inspired a contemporary film, The Green Knight, which–though well-done in many respects–completely reverses the medieval tale’s original meaning, perhaps suggesting where our post-Christian mentality is heading.

The anonymous narrative poem of the 14th century, written in an obscure English dialect, is full of twists and surprises, with a brilliant structure, both comedy and thrills, and profound themes of both culture and faith.

I urge you to read it in J. R. R. Tolkien’s translation, collected in his book Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.  This is one of Tolkien’s greatest works, bringing together his vocations as a medieval scholar, a linguist, a literary artist, and a master of imaginative fantasy.  Tolkien was, like C. S. Lewis, an academic in his day job; and both Tolkien and Lewis are still highly respected in their fields of literary history to this very day, and by fellow-scholars who would never read The Lord of the Rings or Christian apologetics.  Tolkien not only understands this chivalric romance and emulates its power as a fantasy, he also brings into modern English the poem’s rhythm, alliteration, and rhyme scheme–something almost never even attempted, let alone brought off successfully, in translations.

Let me briefly tell you the main elements of the tale.  And then I’ll tell you what the movie does with it.

Spoiler alert!

The Original

The story begins on New Year’s Eve in the early days of Camelot.  Still celebrating the 12 days of Christmas with a feast, the young, energetic King Arthur, the beautiful Guinevere by his side, proclaims that he will not eat until he has witnessed some adventure.

Whereupon a giant green knight rides into the hall on his green horse, carrying an axe.  Despite this breach of etiquette (horses are to be left outside), King Arthur welcomes him.  The Green Knight proposes a game of trading blows.  A knight may give him his best shot with the axe.  And then, in a year and a day, it will be the Green Knight’s turn to strike the knight.

Young King Arthur wants to do it, but his court restrains him, so the young but already accomplished Sir Gawain takes up the challenge.  (In the Arthurian tales of Celtic Britain, Sir Gawain becomes the greatest of the knights.  Later, in the French versions, bringing in the theme of courtly love, the greatest knight is a Frenchman, Sir Lancelot.  In Sir Thomas Malory’s synthesis of the traditions, this will later lead to the civil war that destroys the civilization King Arthur has built.)

Sir Gawain, agreeing with the terms, goes up to the intruder, who bares his neck, and with one blow of the axe cuts off his head.  That would seem to be that.  But then the decapitated body of the Green Knight stands up and picks up his bloody head, which speaks:  I will see you in a year and a day at the Green Chapel.

The Green Knight is a vegetation deity, representing the old nature-based paganism that Christianity was supplanting in Britain.  Of course, if you cut off the head of a plant, it just grows back, something we are well aware of every time we mow the lawn.  Not so with human beings.  The story depicts a test for the new religion and for the new cultural values that Camelot represents:  Will this new order of knights, supposedly so superior to the old pagan warriors, keep their promises?

The year passes, with vivid and suspense-building descriptions, as Gawain gets closer and closer to the date of his certain doom.  When the time comes, he does as he promises, setting off on a quest to find the Green Knight and this mysterious Green Chapel, not having a clue where they might be.  But he sets forth anyway.  Unlike conventional quests to find a glorious treasure, this one, as far as Gawain is concerned, is a quest for his death.

After many hard adventures, Gawain, starving and in ice-encased armor, comes to a castle.  Here he is warmly received.  A friendly, hearty knight named Bertilak is delighted to entertain a knight from Camelot who has come all this way into the hinterlands.  And he says that he knows where the Green Chapel is, which is quite nearby.  He invites Gawain to rest up and to sleep in, while he himself goes hunting.  He proposes a friendly exchange:  He will give Gawain whatever he gets on his hunt, and Gawain will give him whatever he receives while back at the castle.  (Again:  Will a knight keep his promises?)

The next morning, while Gawain is luxuriating in bed, Bertilak’s beautiful wife comes into his bedchamber.  Gawain is aghast at this impropriety, but because of his courtesy and his chivalrous concern for women, both hallmarks of Camelot, he does not want to berate her or embarrass her.  As she asks about the fashions at court, though, she becomes more and more flirtatious.  Gawain pretends not to notice, and at the end of the morning, she leaves, but gives him a chaste kiss on the cheek.  When her husband gets back, he gives Gawain the deer he has slain, and Gawain honors their agreement by kissing him on the cheek.  (Note the moral test:  Will this Christian follow the sexual morality he says he believes in, and resist committing adultery?)

The next day goes much the same, with Bertilak’s hunt being much more difficult, going after a wild bore that attacks him, and his wife’s “hunt” also intensifying, as she becomes more and more aggressive.  Again, Sir Gawain fends off her and his own passions, and settles for another chaste kiss, which he returns to her husband.

On the third day, though, the wife just comes out with her desire to have sex with Gawaine, and he forthrightly–but with chivalrous consideration for her–refuses.  She says that she understands and, to show that there are no hard feelings, she gives him the gift of a magic green belt.  Wear it, she says, and no harm can come to you.

Suddenly, we readers, along with Gawain, are reminded of the main plot:  The rendezvous with the Green Knight!  This can protect him!  Gawain gladly takes the belt.  But when Bertilak comes back, giving him the only fruit of a bad hunt, a mangy fox, Gawain gives him a kiss, but keeps the belt for himself, thus violating their agreement.

He goes to the Green Chapel and meets the Green Knight.  “Now bare your neck like I did!”  Gawain does, but as the axe is raised to strike and starts to come down, he flinches.  “I didn’t flinch when you did that to me!”  “Well, I won’t be able to pick up my head and ride off like you did!”  Again, he prepares himself for the blow, but he flinches again.  The third time, the axe misses, merely scratching his neck!  Gawain jumps up, draws his sword, says you’ve had your blow, and is ready to fight.  Whereupon the Green Knight starts to laugh.

“You have passed the test, or at least done well enough.”  The Green Knight turns out to be Bertilak.  The real test was not in the Green Chapel but in the bedroom.  Chivalry and Christian morality were proven.  “You only failed once, in desiring to protect your own life, but that is understandable.”

Gawain is abashed, though, at how he depended on a pagan talisman to protect him, instead of Jesus and His Mother, who were painted on the inside of his shield.  He goes back to Camelot, which rejoices to see him, and confesses to all his failure and dishonor.  Whereupon the King and the court laugh.  They all resolve to wear a green belt in his honor, to remind them all of that crucial chivalrous and Christian virtue of humility.

The Movie

The movie is well-made, with strong acting and gorgeous cinematography.  It even picked up on some of the original story’s themes, giving me high hopes.  Even material it added seemed to be in line with the original (such as the bit it added with Gawain’s mother  Morgause, the sister of both Arthur and Morgan le Fay, whom the book credits for orchestrating the test.)  But then the movie switched the themes around.

Whereas the original tale was set at the beginning of King Arthur’s reign, the movie presents it at the end.   Arthur is old, weak, and decrepit, still noble, but approaching his end.  The book, as it were, dramatized the beginning of Christendom to a recently and probably not completely converted Celtic audience.  The movie depicts Christianity and the Western Civilization it created as being essentially over.

Instead of the way the book shows paganism giving way to Christianity, the movie shows Christianity giving way to paganism.  For example, Bertilak’s castle is full of books, which Gawain marvels at to the wife, who says she has read or written them all.  Christianity is presented as backwards, while paganism is presented as a well-spring of learning and education.  Which violates history completely!  In reality, Christianity in the middle and the previous dark ages was responsible for books and learning, while paganism, as depicted in the book, is about instincts, passion, and irrationalism.

The movie includes the original’s riff on the number 5 as symbolizing the five fingers, the five senses, the five knightly virtues, the five wounds of Christ, the five joys of Mary, etc., but presents it as a magical incantation rather than a confession of how his faith must impact his life.  It shows the inside of Gawain’s shield, with its icon of Mary and Jesus, only to have robbers throw it on the ground and cut it in two.

In the movie, Gawain is not even a knight, even though the title of the source book specifies “Sir Gawain. . . ”  Rather, he is presented as a clueless youth–though portrayed by a mature man–who wants to be a knight, something he associates with “honor,” with little reference to what that entailed back then.

And the movie doesn’t even consider the virtue of chastity.  Gawain is shown at the beginning frequenting brothels.  He has a sexual relationship with a lower-class Essel, but he is oblivious to her love for him and treats her despicably, unlike the way actual chivalry would demand.

And Gawain immediately gives in sexually to Bertilak’s wife so that she will give him the magic belt.  Here the movie comes off the tracks completely, in leaving out the best and most important part of the original story.  The three days of temptation and resistance, paralleling Bertilak’s three hunts, is eliminated completely, crunched into one day with a sex scene, ending with a shot of semen on the green belt.

The old paganism was at least a fertility religion.  This newly emergent paganism wants sex, but not fertility, which entails having children and generating new life.  Reflecting our new pornographic view of sex, this one is more of a masturbatory religion.

As for the ending, Gawain does flinch from the Green Knight blow and seems to run away, whereas, in a long and confusing sequence, we see his unhappy life unfold.  But that turns out be only a vision, from which he wakes up and says he is ready for the blow.  The Green Knight speaks kindly to him, but then says, “Now, off with your head!”  Fade to credits.

That abrupt, non-conclusive ending prevents any kind of happy ending, which is a necessity in every fairy tale.  Nature brings death, the film seems to say, but that is better than the pointless life you would have lived.

The problems of the film are not just the thematic inversions from the original.  They are also artistic, as elements are thrown in without being accounted for (such as the naked female giants that parade through) and loose ends are never tied together (such as Bertilak not being revealed as the Green Knight).

There was another more subtle problem that grated on me.  The movie is full of “thee’s” and “thou’s,” which I appreciate as being an attempt to evoke medieval language (though it is actually Early Modern).  But if you are going to use those pronouns, use them correctly!  In the movie, King Arthur gives a wimpy speech to his knights, in which he gives credit for all of his accomplishments “to thee.”

“Thee” is a singular!  “Thou” is the subject form, “thee” is the object form, and “thy/thine” are the possessives.  “Ye” is the plural subject form (as in “go ye into all the world and preach the gospel), and “you” is the plural object form, with “your/yours” being the possessive.

These distinctions acquired a social distinction, with the singular forms (“thou, thee, thy”) becoming an intimate address reserved for family and close friends.  (It was also used to address God, our most intimate friend of all.)  The plural forms (ye, you, your) were used to address social superiors.  But it was also still used as a plural, when addressing more than one person.

Eventually, we lost all distinctions and use “you” for everyone.  But no one in the Middle Ages or the early modern period would address a group as “thee”!

Read this for the grammar and this for the difference it makes in reading Shakespeare.

What this tells me is that the filmmakers of The Green Knight do not understand medieval history, language, or religion.  Unlike J. R. R. Tolkien.

 

 

Illustration:  From the original manuscript of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (14th century) by Unknown author – http://gawain.ucalgary.ca, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=621711

2021-03-12T19:26:12-05:00

We often think of missionaries as emissaries from the West to non-Western lands such as Africa or Asia.  But the Western lands also came to faith through the work of missionaries.  All nations did, with the exception of the Jews.

The most famous of the missionaries to European countries is St. Patrick, who brought the Gospel to Ireland and whose day it is today.

But there were many others who are also worth remembering, but who don’t currently rate being honored with by parades, corn-beef and cabbage, green beer, and wearing green-colored clothing.

Another Englishman who went to evangelize European pagans was St. Boniface, who brought the gospel to Germany.  Here is an account of his most famous exploit, from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

To show the heathens how utterly powerless were the gods in whom they placed their confidence, Boniface felled the oak sacred to the thunder-god Thor, at Geismar, near Fritzlar. He had a chapel built out of the wood and dedicated it to the prince of the Apostles. The heathens were astonished that no thunderbolt from the hand of Thor destroyed the offender, and many were converted. The fall of this oak marked the fall of heathenism.

Here is a fuller account of the tree-cutting, which some relate to the German-originated custom of the Christmas tree, from Willibald’s Life of St. Boniface, written shortly after it happened (and Latinizing the name of the thunder god to “Jupiter”):

Now at that time many of the Hessians, brought under the Catholic faith and confirmed by the grace of the sevenfold spirit, received the laying on of hands; others indeed, not yet strengthened in soul, refused to accept in their entirety the lessons of the inviolate faith. Moreover some were wont secretly, some openly to sacrifice to trees and springs; some in secret, others openly practiced inspections of victims and divinations, legerdemain and incantations; some turned their attention to auguries and auspices and various sacrificial rites; while others, with sounder minds, abandoned all the profanations of heathenism, and committed none of these things.

With the advice and counsel of these last, the saint attempted, in the place called Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by his side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary size, which is called, by an old name of the pagans, the Oak of Jupiter. And when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods. But when the fore side of the tree was notched only a little, suddenly the oak’s vast bulk, driven by a blast from above, crashed to the ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell; and, as if by the gracious compensation of the Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by.

At this sight the pagans who before had cursed now, on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord, and put away their former reviling. Then moreover the most holy bishop, after taking counsel with the brethren, built from the timber of the tree wooden oratory, and dedicated it in honor of Saint Peter the apostle.

St. Boniface, like many of those other missionaries to the Europeans, was martyred, killed, along with 52 of his travelling companions, by a band of Frisian bandits.  Boniface was said to have held a book of the Gospels over his head, using it as a shield against the axes and swords of his murderers.

The bandits broke into the chests that were in the wagons and were flabbergasted to find not gold or silver, but just manuscripts and more books.  The bandits destroyed most of them, but some survived, including the Ragyndrudis Codex, a collection of religious writings that can still be seen in Fulda, Germany, whose pages have deep cuts, as if by an axe.

St. Boniface’s day of commemoration is June 5, but St. Patrick’s Day is a good time to think of him.  We Lutherans, some of whom are descendants of those tree-worshiping Hessians, should honor him this summer, not with the trappings of German nationalism, but maybe by drinking regular-colored beer made according to the German purity law.  Or maybe cutting down some trees.

 

Illustration:  “Saint Boniface Felling Donar’s Oak,” photographed by Bernhard Rode – Self-photographed, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5780989

2020-12-26T12:05:40-05:00

Here is a good idea for spending the Amazon gift cards that you got for Christmas:  Pick out some of the winners of this year’s Christianity Today Book Awards.

The quarantines, shut-downs, and lockdowns of 2020 were miserable, but at least they made time for reading.  I’m told that book  publishing was one of the industries that more or less held its own during the year’s economic woes.

Every year, Christianity Today comes out with its awards for what its panel–I used to be a member–considers to be the top Christian books in multiple categories:  Apologetics/Evangelism, Biblical Studies, Children & Youth, Christian Living/Discipleship, the Church/Pastoral Leadership, Women, Culture & the Arts, Fiction, History/Biography, Missions/Global Church, Politics and Public Life, Spiritual Formation, Theology/Ethics, and “Beautiful Orthodoxy.”  A “Book of the Year” and an “Award of Merit” are given in each category.

Browse the list, but I want to highlight two titles.  (Note: If you buy any of these books from the links to Amazon, I’ll get a small commission.)

Bezalel’s Body:  The Death of God and the Birth of Art, by Seattle Pacific art historian Katie Kresser, took the Award of Merit for the Culture & the Arts category.  My first book, The Gift of Art (expanded into State of the Arts) focused on Bezalel, the artist called and equipped by God to craft the art of the Tabernacle.  I’m glad to see that this long-neglected Biblical figure has since then been getting his due.  This book approaches Bezalel and the Bible’s legacy for the arts with great sophistication.

She argues that the art of Bezalel is different from the graven images of the pagans.  Whereas the latter made it possible for worshippers to identify with and manipulate their gods, the sacred art of the Tabernacle–which could not even be touched– required and created distance.  Similarly, Christianity emphasizes a personal relationship with God, which requires that He be “other” than ourselves.  This is manifested in Christ’s crucifixion–what she means by the “death of God” in her subtitle–and His ascension.  Conceptually, these mindsets made what we consider art today to be possible. She says that the value of art is that it makes us encounter and treasure “otherness,” as opposed to fixating on ourselves.  This is contrary to the views of art that focus on “self-expression” and the inwardness of the self, and strikes me as a very salutary and exciting approach, which Prof. Kresser develops with theoretical and scholarly expertise.  I haven’t read it yet, but the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon is tantalizing, and it’s first on my list.  (It is illustrated with pictures of works of art, which I have found are hard to page back and forth to on Kindle, so I’ll be getting a hard copy.)

I was also thrilled to see that my long-time friend Harold Senkbeil has a book on this honors list for the second year in a row.  Last year his The Care of Souls took the top prize for The Church/Pastoral Leadership.  This year the Award of Merit for “Beautiful Orthodoxy” went to his Christ and Calamity:  Grace and Gratitude in the Darkest Valley.

I was sort of in on the beginnings of that book.  Lexham Press wanted him to toss off a quick book in response to the Coronavirus Rev. Senkbeil agreed to give it a try, but, in doing so, put together the makings of a spiritual classic.  He sent me the manuscript and asked for a rushed endorsement.  Here is what I wrote:

As we face sickness, death, economic disaster, uncertainty, fear, and every other kind of suffering, we need consolation. In this little book, in just a few pages, Pastor Senkbeil gives us the consolation of Christ.

This is not just good advice or positive thinking or abstract theology that tries to explain why God allows suffering.  Rather, this is the cure of souls.  Pastor Senkbeil takes us into the depths of spiritual reality.  Here, in the midst of our actual tribulations, we encounter God, not as a being far above us looking down, but with us, in His cross.

This is a book to read and to read again whenever we need it, a book to give away to people who are hurting.  This book will be a classic.

Rev. Senkbeil–former seminary professor, founder of the ministry to pastors Doxology, and, above all, a pastor–has written a masterpiece.

This is a small book, only 168 pages.  Pastors should buy it in bulk to give away to people they are ministering to.

Check out too the Gospel Coalition Book Awards.  I’m especially interested in Carl Trueman’s analysis of the huge worldview shift entailed in the phenomenon of transgenderism and the notion of sexual identity:  The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution Hardcover.  

 Other suggestions for spending your gift cards:  the eye-opening Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
by British historian Tom Holland, a 2019 title that completely upends the criticisms of the New Atheists.
 What other books from last year would you recommend?

 

Illustration:  award book by Flatart from the Noun Project

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