<\/p>
As I\u2019ve thought more about the issues of comedy and tragedy, it has become clear that Christianity not only brings \u201cdeep comedy,\u201d but also produces a deepening of tragic sensibility. In one sense, Christianity is utterly opposed to tragedy and its outlook: the religious world of much tragedy with its fickle gods or its irrevocable fate, is diametrically opposed to Christian faith; tragedy\u2019s claim that death reigns is a contradiction of the gospel; Christianity tells the story of history as a divine comedy not a human tragedy; and so on. <\/p>\n
But in an important sense, precisely because Christianity brings boundless hope into the world, it also intensifies the sense of loss for those who do not achieve that hope (this is a point David Hart makes). If everyone\u2019s life necessarily and in the nature of things moves toward death, if the world is designed for tragic outcomes, or if history is a perpetual slide toward oblivion, then tragedy is not a surprise or even particularly poignant. It\u2019s just the way things are; get used to it. <\/p>\n
In a world where resurrection has already begun, and where resurrection power is already operative, disastrous outcomes are no longer just in the nature of things, and this means disaster comes as an avoidable surprise. Lear\u2019s demise, as Hart points out, is sad beyond Oedipus\u2019s precisely because we have had a glimpse of the real possibility of resurrection. <\/p>\n
For people who know no light, darkness is not seen as darkness; it\u2019s just the medium in which vision works (or doesn\u2019t). Once the light has come, darkness is shown to be utterly dark. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I\u2019ve thought more about the issues of comedy and tragedy, it has become clear that Christianity not only brings \u201cdeep comedy,\u201d but also produces a deepening of tragic sensibility. In one sense, Christianity is utterly opposed to tragedy and its outlook: the religious world of much tragedy with its fickle gods or its irrevocable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"\n