Gleanings Quick Links

Arts-and-Culture

Items related to arts, literature, culture, and the media

Après Lewis: ‘As it turns out, Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” (2008), the book recommended by my friend, is the best of the “Mere Christianity” wannabes. Mr. Keller argues that the usual objections to Christianity—that it is a straitjacket, that there cannot be just one true religion—are themselves the product of a particular (secular Western) point of view. He then builds an affirmative case for Christianity, suggesting that the Big Bang and our appreciation of beauty are clues pointing to God and that Christ’s resurrection was so unlikely both to Greeks and Romans (who viewed the material world as weak and corrupt) and to Jews (who expected any resurrection to come at the end of time) that it cannot be dismissed as the clever marketing strategy of a new religion. If this sounds a little like N.T. Wright, it isn’t accidental: Mr. Keller draws liberally from him, as well as Lewis, Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga (a professor at Notre Dame) and others. “The Reason for God” is as sensible and winsome as one would expect from the pastor of a latticework of churches that draw more than 5,000 attendees in New York City every Sunday, most of them young, single, urban professionals. But it too is no “Mere Christianity.” It does not have the original arguments or the magical prose of Lewis’s classic.’ (David Skeel, Wall Street Journal )

Fri 15 Aug 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: the line within: ‘Solzhenitsyn was far from endorsing the thesis of the “banality of evil” as Hannah Arendt had expounded it. Nor did he see totalitarianism as the ultimate source of the evil that it promotes. Rather totalitarian government is the great mistake, made for whatever noble or ignoble purpose, of putting the final goal before the present dilemma. It is this which gives evil intentions the same chance as good ones, which enables the criminal and the psychopath to compete on a level with the saint and the hero. Yet even in totalitarianism the evil belongs to the human beings, and not to the system. This is the remarkable message that Solzhenitsyn, crawling from the death-machine, carried pressed to his heart.’ (Senior Fellow Roger Scruton, in openDemocracy )

Mon 11 Aug 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Christopher Nolan’s Achievement: The Dark Knight: “The title of the Nolan’s latest Batman film calls to mind medieval chivalry in a postmodern key. The dark knight embraces extraordinary tasks and fights against enormous odds; his quest is to restore what has been corrupted and to recover what has been lost. In so doing, he takes upon himself a suffering and loneliness that isolate him from his fellow citizens and inevitably court their misunderstanding and scorn. He is a dark knight, in part, because the world he inhabits is nearly void of hope and virtue, and, in part, because some of the darkness resides within him, in his internal conflicts between the good he aspires to restore and the means he deploys to fend off evil. Of the many filmmakers designing dark tales of quests for redemption, Christopher Nolan is currently making a serious claim to being the master craftsman.” (Thomas S. Hibbs, First Things: On the Square )

Tue 22 Jul 2008 • Responses: 0 • from Mark Meador • Link & Comments

What makes a supervillain?: “We’ve exposed all the stories we know as a culture to several peanut-butter-thick layers of ironic reimagining by now, parodying and re-parodying them until there’s nothing left to appreciate with any sincerity, but rather with a smirk and a knowing grin. So how, I wonder, does this culture manufacture more sincerity? How do we create something new that isn’t a parody of something we saw as kids?” (Brian Tiemann, Peeve Farm, on Joss Whedon’s excellent Internet-based musical, Dr. Horrible. )

Sat 19 Jul 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Hollywood’s Hero Deficit: “Though the antihero whose flowering we have seen in our own time was there in embryo, it still left open the possibility of goodness and decency, not just on the part of individuals but of a community. That’s what it took for Dan Evans in the 1957 version of “3:10 to Yuma” to be a hero: the idea that his courage was for the sake of a belief that “people should be able to live in peace and decency together.” Without this belief in a community where power is not antithetical to the good and the decent but the means of its advancement, neither the war films nor the Westerns of our own time will ever be able to give us any but a debased sort of heroism.” (James Bowman, The American )

Thu 17 Jul 2008 • Responses: 0 • from Mark Meador • Link & Comments

A Stirring Defense of the Conversation: “The humanities are supposed to “give young people the opportunity and encouragement to put themselves—their values and commitments—into a critical perspective,” yet if the notion that class, race, and gender are absolutely determinative becomes an article of faith, then the very possibility of transcending one’s prejudices is ruled out.” (James Seaton, reviewing Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T. Kronman, in The University Bookman )

Mon 30 Jun 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Why Me? The case against the sovereign self: “These are bold claims, and Elshtain has written a bold book, one meant to shake up the now-entrenched view that we are at center of the universe and the better for it. She argues that medieval theology offered anything but a blind worship of obedience. A long struggle between popes and kings ended with a standoff: a realm in which God was supreme and another ruled by the sword. As long as such a duality existed, absolutism could not; Christians could appeal to divine authority to protect themselves against the worldly dictates of a prince. From this point of view, the transfer of sovereignty from God to government was a giant step backward. Once the state takes over, the Christian right to resistance—and the sense of being responsible to God—atrophies.” Points to Wolfe for being honest at the end, though I do think he’s misreading the argument, and perhaps making Elstain’s point. (Alan Wolfe, Slate )

Wed 25 Jun 2008 from Peter Edman • Link & Comments

Cities for Living: “Krier conceived the town, still being built, as a single and continuous public space, organized around a town hall, each building contributing to the public vistas of which it is a part. Poundbury is a small settlement that will grow, in time, to 10,000 inhabitants—Krier argues that beyond that size, the need is not for further development around an existing center but for another center. And it is now a thriving community, in which people live, work, and shop, and where residents can walk to everything that they need. It has the feel of a medieval town, though with spaces more suited to our busy age, and a grocery store dealing in the environmentally friendly products for which the Prince of Wales is a tireless advocate. Poundbury contains factories, warehouses, offices, and civic buildings; the one thing it lacks is a church.” (Roger Scruton, City Journal )

Wed 25 Jun 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

The speculator: “A visiting speaker to a [science fiction] convention once pulled me aside and asked in a whisper, ‘Why are there so many overweight people here?’ Upon reflection, I thought the better question was, ‘How are overweight people systematically excluded from the venues your eye is used to?’ The real answer is, overweight folks show up at cons because they can be socially comfortable in this milieu, because they have found that those around them will be a lot more interested in what’s inside their heads than on their outsides.” (novelist Lois McMaster Bujold, interviewed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune )

Thu 22 May 2008 from Peter Edman • Link & Comments

Why Nippon Is Nuts About J.S. Bach: The Japanese yearn for hope. “Our language does not even possess an appropriate word for hope,” explained Suzuki. “We either use ‘ibo,’ meaning desire, or ‘nozomi,’ which describes something unattainable.” Yet hope is precisely what the Japanese are yearning for, he went on, given their desperate spiritual crisis which manifests itself in many ways. . . . So when Suzuki conducts the “Christmas Oratorio” or – on Good Fridays – Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion,” the audience studiously follows the Japanese translations of the German lyrics in their programs. “After each concert people crowd the podium wishing to talk to me about topics that are normally taboo in our society – death, for example. Then they inevitably ask me what ‘hope’ means to Christians,” said Suzuki, who is also an organist in a Reformed church. “I believe that Bach has already converted tens of thousands of Japanese to the Christian faith.” One famous convert is Masashi Masuda from Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Curiously, it wasn’t one of Bach’s religious compositions that led Masuda to have himself baptized. He became a Christian after hearing a recording of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” played by Glenn Gould, the Canadian pianist. (Uwe Siemon-Netto, The Atlantic Times (Germany) (also see here.) )

Thu 21 Feb 2008 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Harry Potter & the Art of Dying Well: “Our attitude toward death defines in many ways how we live. The medieval theme of memento mori, the virtuous cultivation of the memory of death, acts as a counter to modernity’s vacillation between unhealthy obsession and tragic forgetfulness. . . . Readers of the final book are left to puzzle over, not just the mysterious powers of mercy and self-sacrifice, but also explicit references to the New Testament, the one from Corinthians cited above and a passage from Matthew, ‘where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ Harry encounters these statements on tombstones and knows neither their source nor their precise import. In that respect, Harry is a stand-in for most modern readers. Although he never explicitly formulates it this way, Harry’s great quest in Deathly Hallows leads him toward an understanding of the meaning of these scriptural passages, an understanding not just theoretical but eminently practical.” (Thomas Hibbs, National Review )

Mon 23 Jul 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Where the Avatars Roam: “Libertarians hold to a theory of ‘spontaneous order’—that society should be the product of uncoordinated human choices instead of human design. Well, Second Life has plenty of spontaneity, and not much genuine order. This experiment suggests that a world that is only a market is not a utopia. It more closely resembles a seedy, derelict carnival—the triumph of amusement and distraction over meaning and purpose.” (Michael Gerson, The Washington Post )

Mon 09 Jul 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Past Tense: Favorite fictional tales rooted in history: Speaking of poetry as spiritual discipline, that will teach me not to skip the WSJ “Five Best” book recommendation column. Three other blogs called it fortunately to my attention. Novelist Anne Perry comes up with three to which I give hearty assent, and two I’ll now add to my own list. In particular, I too commend Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog to all and sundry for its well-grounded humor and wonderful exploration of divine providence. Perry also, somewhat surprisingly, recommends G. K. Chesterton’s epic poem, The Ballad of the White Horse. Ignatius has a good hardcover edition and there are plenty of paperback and online versions, including from Project Gutenberg. Perry says, “It is the meeting of history and myth, a song of undying hope and faith in mankind.” Indeed. Please seek it out.  (Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2007 )

Mon 23 Apr 2007 from Peter Edman • Link & Comments

Rome’s Good Because It’s Bad: “Rome, the hit series now in its second season on HBO, is a surprising affirmation of the Western tradition. While it is packed with sex and violence, its (probably unintended) message is that Rome was desperate for Christianity.” (Gerald J. Russello, National Review)

Mon 26 Mar 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Podcast on P. D. James: A December edition of Ken Myers’ podcast covers the work of mystery novelist P. D. James, the author behind this month's feature film, Children of Men. It's worth your time, particularly if you've never read James. One-half hour. (Mars Hill Audio)

Tue 12 Dec 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments