Free at last! Thank God! I'm free at last! Yesterday I got my editor's acknowledgement of receipt of my revised 2226-word ms for Touchstone's forum on Harry Potter to be published in November, the month the next Harry Potter movie comes out. As I understand the forum, my con article will be submitted to a couple of critics for their responses to it.
Over the past 8 years that I have been studying and writing about my bete noire, Harry, I have compiled a massive basis of observations for my criticism, including my notebook with detailed notes on my reading of each of the seven volumes of the series. And I have written thousands of words of detailed commentary. For all of that, I have published only four articles on Rowling's work, three in The American Spectator Online (July ?, 2005; Aug. 15, 17, 2007) and Celebrate Life (Nov/Dec 2007). The mainstream Christian journals have taken the Christianity Today line that these books are a "book of virtues." And even First Things and Touchstone have published favorable reviews on the little wizard.
I have distilled my 5000-word 2007 ms to meet an editorial requirement of about 2000 words. So, instead of my natural approach of building detail on detail, I have cut the details to fit and made my strongest argument on the basis of the contrast between Rowling's Post-Christian imagination and relativist morality and the profoundly Christian vision and transcendent (absolute) morality of Tolkein and Lewis. I think that the necessity of brevity will prove a virtue in this essay.
The lynchpin of my essay, then, is the following words of Aragorn to Eomer in the fields of Rohan when Eomer disputed his passage with Legolas and Gimli on their mission to rescue Pippin and Merry:
"Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house" (The Two Towers, Ballentine pb, 1965, 50, cited by Gene Edward Veith, “Still Ringing True,” World Magazine, 2001).
Do pray for Joanne Rowling and her many readers, that God may grant them his grace.
Showing posts with label J. R. R. Tolkein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J. R. R. Tolkein. Show all posts
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Moral Vision
In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr., said:
Allan Bloom traced the intellectual history of this relativism in post-WWII America to its German roots in his The Closing of the American Mind. But moral absolutes were alive and well in King's mind and in the black churches that formed the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. They well understood that in America, the surest basis for our knowledge of these absolutes was the Law of God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.
But in The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis outlined the "Way" or the "Tao," the universal moral insights of all the great civilizations in opposition to the Greenbook, which instructed British educators in how they should indoctrinate school children in relativism. And the Apostle Paul reveals to us that even in those nations that did not have the Law of Moses, "they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts" (Romans 2:15a).
The first thing I thought of this morning when I heard King's words was the passage from J. R. R. Tolkein's The Two Towers that I cited back in December:
A transcript of "Recovering Lost Values" is available at: http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrRediscoveringLostValues.htm
Some things are right and wrong, eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate; it always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It is wrong in America, and it is wrong in Germany, it is wrong Russia, and it’s wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 BC and it is wrong in 1954 AD.This morning when I heard this passage from King's "Recovering Lost Values" speech on NPR's Morning Edition, I was struck by his emphasis on moral absolutes. Indeed, in that speech he boldly attacked the moral relativism that he saw as a threat to the moral vision that underlay his dream of justice and peace for America.
Allan Bloom traced the intellectual history of this relativism in post-WWII America to its German roots in his The Closing of the American Mind. But moral absolutes were alive and well in King's mind and in the black churches that formed the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. They well understood that in America, the surest basis for our knowledge of these absolutes was the Law of God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.
But in The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis outlined the "Way" or the "Tao," the universal moral insights of all the great civilizations in opposition to the Greenbook, which instructed British educators in how they should indoctrinate school children in relativism. And the Apostle Paul reveals to us that even in those nations that did not have the Law of Moses, "they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts" (Romans 2:15a).
The first thing I thought of this morning when I heard King's words was the passage from J. R. R. Tolkein's The Two Towers that I cited back in December:
King's speech deserves study as an example of the power of moral absolutes to motivate the nonviolent battle for justice. And Tolkein's words are an example of the power of literature to cast a moral vision. Thus, J. R. R. Tolkein inculcates moral absolutes imaginatively as surely as does Martin Luther King discursively. And J. K. Rowling just as surely inculcates the moral relativism King abhorred. Literature resembles politics in that, for better or worse, it is always ultimately moralGood and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them,
as much in the GoldenWood as in his own house.
A transcript of "Recovering Lost Values" is available at: http://www.africanamericans.com/MLKjrRediscoveringLostValues.htm
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