Thank God that the early church required orthopraxy as well as orthodoxy of its members. Now orthopraxy is not sinless perfection, but it does require us not to make provision for the flesh to satisfy its gross desires. Thus, the mockery professing Christians commonly make of marriage by living together before they make their vows in the presence of the covenant community of the church is not acceptable.
It's not enough for a Christian to vote "yes" on Proposition 8 that opposes the mockery of honoring same-sex relations. We must honor marriage by not engaging in the parody of "shacking up" before we marry. Moreover, we should use the older language that called a couple's living together without benefit of marriage "living in sin." For that is an exact description of what it is according to the Bible.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Why Do Christians Believe in the Trinity?
A Reasonable Answer to Unitarian Criticism of Trinitarian Doctrine
Trinity Defined
Muslims and Unitarians criticize the idea of the Trinity as illogical; they say it violates the logical Law of Non-contradiction: "A" cannot be "non-A" at the same time and in the same respect (or aspect). They claim that Christians say that three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. And if that were what the doctrine said, they would be correct in rejecting it as illogical.
Muslims misunderstand the doctrine, perhaps, because many Christians misunderstand it and are unable to correctly state it. Following Dr. Walter Martin, the doctrine can be stated thus: The one God eternally exists as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Thus, God is one as to his being, essence or nature, but three as to Persons.
Oneness in Diversity
Now in the Old Testament, God’s oneness is expressed in the word echod, which is a unity that contains diversity. For example, this word occurs in the Jewish affirmation of faith of Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, is one LORD.” Echod also occurs in Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
We often say that marriage is an image of the relationship of God and man, which is based on the biblical metaphor of Christ as the Bridegroom and the collective Body of Christ, the Church, as his Bride. (The individual believer, male or female, is not a “bride” of Christ, and “bridal mysticism” along this line has led to false doctrine and demonization.) But the profoundest symbolism of marriage is in its imaging of the loving unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.
Threeness
The threeness of God makes the Apostle John's statement in 1 John 4:8 and again in verse 16 that “God is love” possible. The three persons have been bound together in the unity of perfect love forever. God's love is the structural glue that unites the Trinity and forms the basis for God's fatherly love and of Christ’s husbandly love for the church. Love as I—Thou relationship is only possible among two or more persons. Thus for God to be love, the One God must have more than one Person within his unitary Being.
Consequences of Unitarianism
Muslims deny that God is Trinity and affirm that He is unitary. Logically enough, then, they deny that God deigns to call himself the Father of any human being. Their God is a monad, our Judge, exalted, utterly transcendent. And that explains why he is not seen as a loving father. Love as I—Thou relationship is not possible within a monistic God and therefore a fatherly relationship with his creatures is not to be expected. This is the logical result of any form of unitarianism and should be pointed out to Unitarian-Universalists and to Jews, who lack the logical rigor of Muslims in this respect.
Trinity Defined
Muslims and Unitarians criticize the idea of the Trinity as illogical; they say it violates the logical Law of Non-contradiction: "A" cannot be "non-A" at the same time and in the same respect (or aspect). They claim that Christians say that three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. And if that were what the doctrine said, they would be correct in rejecting it as illogical.
Muslims misunderstand the doctrine, perhaps, because many Christians misunderstand it and are unable to correctly state it. Following Dr. Walter Martin, the doctrine can be stated thus: The one God eternally exists as the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Thus, God is one as to his being, essence or nature, but three as to Persons.
Oneness in Diversity
Now in the Old Testament, God’s oneness is expressed in the word echod, which is a unity that contains diversity. For example, this word occurs in the Jewish affirmation of faith of Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, is one LORD.” Echod also occurs in Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
We often say that marriage is an image of the relationship of God and man, which is based on the biblical metaphor of Christ as the Bridegroom and the collective Body of Christ, the Church, as his Bride. (The individual believer, male or female, is not a “bride” of Christ, and “bridal mysticism” along this line has led to false doctrine and demonization.) But the profoundest symbolism of marriage is in its imaging of the loving unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.
Threeness
The threeness of God makes the Apostle John's statement in 1 John 4:8 and again in verse 16 that “God is love” possible. The three persons have been bound together in the unity of perfect love forever. God's love is the structural glue that unites the Trinity and forms the basis for God's fatherly love and of Christ’s husbandly love for the church. Love as I—Thou relationship is only possible among two or more persons. Thus for God to be love, the One God must have more than one Person within his unitary Being.
Consequences of Unitarianism
Muslims deny that God is Trinity and affirm that He is unitary. Logically enough, then, they deny that God deigns to call himself the Father of any human being. Their God is a monad, our Judge, exalted, utterly transcendent. And that explains why he is not seen as a loving father. Love as I—Thou relationship is not possible within a monistic God and therefore a fatherly relationship with his creatures is not to be expected. This is the logical result of any form of unitarianism and should be pointed out to Unitarian-Universalists and to Jews, who lack the logical rigor of Muslims in this respect.
Monday, September 8, 2008
C. S. Lewis on Relational Groups?
Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity
By C. S. Lewis, Ed Walter Hooper, © 1975 Fontana/Collins
I made some notes a while back on this little known book of Lewis's essays. They seem to relate to what we are trying to be in our focus groups at Trinity Alliance--David
Christianity is not solitary and individualistic, but neither is it collective in the world’s sense. The enemy tries to convince us that religion is a private matter and if, to defend it, we import the world’s collectivism into Christianity, we fall into his other stratagem.
The true hierarchy is 1) membership in the Body of Christ, 2) personal and private life, and 3) collective life of the secular community. (12-13). “The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude” (13).
“The Christian is called, not to individualism but to membership in the mystical body” (15). The differences between the secular collective and the mystical body show how Christianity can oppose collectivism without individualism. But the term “member” must be clarified to show how like a family the unity of membership is a unity of unlikes, not likes (16). The church “is not a collective but a Body” (17). “We are summoned from the outset to combine as creatures with our Creator, as mortals with immortal, as redeemed sinners with sinless Redeemer. His presence, the interaction between him and us, must always be the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the life we are to lead within the Body; and any conception of Christian fellowship which does not mean primarily fellowship with him is out of court.” (17)
“Unity is the road to personality” (18).
By C. S. Lewis, Ed Walter Hooper, © 1975 Fontana/Collins
I made some notes a while back on this little known book of Lewis's essays. They seem to relate to what we are trying to be in our focus groups at Trinity Alliance--David
Christianity is not solitary and individualistic, but neither is it collective in the world’s sense. The enemy tries to convince us that religion is a private matter and if, to defend it, we import the world’s collectivism into Christianity, we fall into his other stratagem.
The true hierarchy is 1) membership in the Body of Christ, 2) personal and private life, and 3) collective life of the secular community. (12-13). “The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude” (13).
“The Christian is called, not to individualism but to membership in the mystical body” (15). The differences between the secular collective and the mystical body show how Christianity can oppose collectivism without individualism. But the term “member” must be clarified to show how like a family the unity of membership is a unity of unlikes, not likes (16). The church “is not a collective but a Body” (17). “We are summoned from the outset to combine as creatures with our Creator, as mortals with immortal, as redeemed sinners with sinless Redeemer. His presence, the interaction between him and us, must always be the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the life we are to lead within the Body; and any conception of Christian fellowship which does not mean primarily fellowship with him is out of court.” (17)
“Unity is the road to personality” (18).
Friday, August 29, 2008
Now McCain Just Needs a Consistent Prolifer at the Top of the Ticket
McCain is nothing if not shrewd. After floating trial balloons for running mates such as Mitt Romney and Joe Liberman (!), candidates sure to alienate at least part of the party base, he comes up with a religious conservative with truly impeccable prolife credentials in the form of son Trig Palin.
In addition, he let the prolifers have their way on their plank in the platform, which is the strongest in the history of the party. The question now is, how do prolifers keep McCain's feet to the fire so that he will change his position from support of federal funding of unethical stem-cell research to opposition to it. Indeed, the need is for a ban on all human cloning
In addition, he let the prolifers have their way on their plank in the platform, which is the strongest in the history of the party. The question now is, how do prolifers keep McCain's feet to the fire so that he will change his position from support of federal funding of unethical stem-cell research to opposition to it. Indeed, the need is for a ban on all human cloning
Sunday, August 24, 2008
J. K. Rowling’s Books of Virtues: Sunny Stories Brighten Baby’s Bedtime Bigtime
Somebody said that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine." And unlike some of our prescription medicines, a laugh is very unlikely to kill you. So I think it's about time to repeat this humorous take on the very serious subject of childrens' fantasy literature. This original satire of J. K. Rowling's Harrry Potter books first appeared on my blog of December 12, 2007. This satire had been read-tested by one high school senior who loves Harry and has read all the books, some more than once. She liked the satire and didn't realize that I take a dim view of Harry until I told her after she read the satire. This piece is copyrighted so if you download it for your personal use, you may not use it for profit and you may not modify the text in any way. (c) 2007 David Haddon
Hermione Protects Her Muggle Parents
Do any of you uptight, anti-magical parents dare to deprive your young children of their Natural Right to a vicarious enrollment in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by not buying them the Harry Potter books? If so, just consider Hermione Granger’s touching solicitude for the welfare of her parents described in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Deathly Hallows).
At 17 an adult in the wizard world, she wants to join her pals Ron Weasley and Harry in the hazardous quest to destroy the magical objects or horcruxes that are Dark Lord Voldemort’s means to immortality. Deeply concerned that joining Harry and Ron in the battle against Voldemort might endanger her muggle (non-wizard and hence defenseless against magic) parents, Hermione thoughtfully induces in Mom and Pop Granger the magical equivalent of Alzheimers, then puts entirely new identities into their empty minds, and finally sends them off good as new to England’s old penal colony of Australia. With a daughter like that, you’d surely never need to worry about winding up in a nursing home prematurely!
Euthanasia Anyone?
Or about staying in one indefinitely! For incredible as it may seem, Mistress of Ceremonies Rowling obliges her world-weary senior readers by inserting the classic arguments for euthanasia into the closing pages of Deathly Hallows (pp 682-83). There Albus Dumbledore (the greatest of the good wizards) convinces Snape (the bravest of the good wizards according to Harry) to kill him by asking him “to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation. . . . because death is coming for me” with great certainty. Here and elsewhere Rowling marshals about half a dozen other arguments to justify this murder-suicide pact, but its execution certainly secures Rowling’s claim to having boldly gone where no man has gone before in a popular children’s fantasy, certainly not the likes of J. R. R. Tolkein or C. S. Lewis (her fantasy’s purported resemblance to theirs having been just a teeny bit exaggerated).
Rowling Lights Up Youngsters’ Lives
But the really great thing about Rowling’s Harry Potter books is their down-home cheeriness. As Hilda Ravensfoot described the series, “These books of virtues combine the atmosphere of the spellbook with the effulgence of a sunrise. They are a veritable festival of lights, growing in brilliance with each new volume” (Literate Witch Online, September 31, 2005). Since the ever growing cheerfulness of Rowling’s books is the only point on which all the reviewers and critics agree, it is surely the real reason why her series is so popular.
Kids just love to see Harry bubbling over with high spirits all the time—whenever he’s not being ostracized by the other students, desperately lying to Professor Severus Snape to keep from being kicked out of school for his rule breaking, or badly bummed out about his dark fate. And Hermione’s always so sweet—except when Rita Skeeter writes a new column about her and Harry, Ron puts his foot in it (which is pretty often) or Harry tries to patch things up between them.
Then there’s all those beautiful silver and white unicorns in the Enchanted Forest—dead —because one of the dark wizards liked to slurp up their blood every night as a health drink smoothie. But no one ever messes with those sweet, cuddly thestrals, the fanged and carnivorous, carrion eating, black skeletal horses with blank white eyes and batwings that only someone who has witnessed a death can even see.
Given the sky high rates of depression and suicide among American teenagers, a little inspiration and uplift like this surely can’t hurt. And isn’t that just what Rowling said she was going to do, show young people real goodness, how to live, love, laugh and be happy, all that joie de vivre. I mean who wants to read a dark fantasy about the same kind of thing you see every night on the evening news, especially since 9/11?
Speaking of joie de vivre, surely that’s what those black-hooded, light extinguishing dementors who clamp their jaws on your mouth— and suck out your soul—are all about. Just thinking about them’ll put the joy way down in your soul so deep you can hardly stand it. Just the ticket for the ’tweens!
And how about those happy campers called the Inferi: Corpses “that have been bewitched to do a dark wizard’s bidding.” Harry first gets to meet one when a slimy white hand comes out of the dark, icy water to grasp his wrist. Then he sees “an army of the dead rising from the black water.” A small group of them grab him from behind with their “thin, fleshless arms cold as death” to carry him into the water to share their fate . . .
To top things off, there’s good old Nagini, Voldemort’s big, black pet snake and alter ego. In the last book, she finally kills Severus Snape but first gets to eat poor Professor of Muggles Studies Charity Burbage for “dinner.” Charity’s magically suspended and still living body revolving over the Death-Eaters’ conference table is the image that dominates the first chapter of this book and sets just the right atmosphere for Rowling’s last wild romp with our kids.
Rowling Reels to a Rollicking, Shakespeherean Rhythm of Rigor Mortis
Medieval painter-moralist Hans Holbein’s Danse Macabre has absolutely nothing on Rowling’s, oh, so appropriately named Deathly Hallows! Wikipedia’s death count for the book includes 19 identified characters (excluding Harry’s owl Hedwig) plus about 50 unnamed witches and wizards, mostly Voldemort followers and loyal Hogwarts students killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. Thus, in Rowling’s last fantastic, fatal fantasia with Harry, she forges fatalities fit for a favorable face-off with Shakespeare’s fiercest feuds. “O O O O that Shakespeherean rag!”
Rowling also reveals that stunning Snape-Dumbledore murder-suicide pact previously concealed but already executed in the previous book. Only the “good” wizards make such death pacts in Harry Potter so don’t blame poor old Voldemort who, all on his own, had to suffer seven deaths not even counted as such by Wikipedia, one for each of his soul fragments. With a little help from Harry, Voldemort did finally kill himself, but—unlike the good wizards—he didn’t really mean to do it.
Well, you get the idea: “Lullaby and good night, And may baby sleep tight . . .
Hermione Protects Her Muggle Parents
Do any of you uptight, anti-magical parents dare to deprive your young children of their Natural Right to a vicarious enrollment in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by not buying them the Harry Potter books? If so, just consider Hermione Granger’s touching solicitude for the welfare of her parents described in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Deathly Hallows).
At 17 an adult in the wizard world, she wants to join her pals Ron Weasley and Harry in the hazardous quest to destroy the magical objects or horcruxes that are Dark Lord Voldemort’s means to immortality. Deeply concerned that joining Harry and Ron in the battle against Voldemort might endanger her muggle (non-wizard and hence defenseless against magic) parents, Hermione thoughtfully induces in Mom and Pop Granger the magical equivalent of Alzheimers, then puts entirely new identities into their empty minds, and finally sends them off good as new to England’s old penal colony of Australia. With a daughter like that, you’d surely never need to worry about winding up in a nursing home prematurely!
Euthanasia Anyone?
Or about staying in one indefinitely! For incredible as it may seem, Mistress of Ceremonies Rowling obliges her world-weary senior readers by inserting the classic arguments for euthanasia into the closing pages of Deathly Hallows (pp 682-83). There Albus Dumbledore (the greatest of the good wizards) convinces Snape (the bravest of the good wizards according to Harry) to kill him by asking him “to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation. . . . because death is coming for me” with great certainty. Here and elsewhere Rowling marshals about half a dozen other arguments to justify this murder-suicide pact, but its execution certainly secures Rowling’s claim to having boldly gone where no man has gone before in a popular children’s fantasy, certainly not the likes of J. R. R. Tolkein or C. S. Lewis (her fantasy’s purported resemblance to theirs having been just a teeny bit exaggerated).
Rowling Lights Up Youngsters’ Lives
But the really great thing about Rowling’s Harry Potter books is their down-home cheeriness. As Hilda Ravensfoot described the series, “These books of virtues combine the atmosphere of the spellbook with the effulgence of a sunrise. They are a veritable festival of lights, growing in brilliance with each new volume” (Literate Witch Online, September 31, 2005). Since the ever growing cheerfulness of Rowling’s books is the only point on which all the reviewers and critics agree, it is surely the real reason why her series is so popular.
Kids just love to see Harry bubbling over with high spirits all the time—whenever he’s not being ostracized by the other students, desperately lying to Professor Severus Snape to keep from being kicked out of school for his rule breaking, or badly bummed out about his dark fate. And Hermione’s always so sweet—except when Rita Skeeter writes a new column about her and Harry, Ron puts his foot in it (which is pretty often) or Harry tries to patch things up between them.
Then there’s all those beautiful silver and white unicorns in the Enchanted Forest—dead —because one of the dark wizards liked to slurp up their blood every night as a health drink smoothie. But no one ever messes with those sweet, cuddly thestrals, the fanged and carnivorous, carrion eating, black skeletal horses with blank white eyes and batwings that only someone who has witnessed a death can even see.
Given the sky high rates of depression and suicide among American teenagers, a little inspiration and uplift like this surely can’t hurt. And isn’t that just what Rowling said she was going to do, show young people real goodness, how to live, love, laugh and be happy, all that joie de vivre. I mean who wants to read a dark fantasy about the same kind of thing you see every night on the evening news, especially since 9/11?
Speaking of joie de vivre, surely that’s what those black-hooded, light extinguishing dementors who clamp their jaws on your mouth— and suck out your soul—are all about. Just thinking about them’ll put the joy way down in your soul so deep you can hardly stand it. Just the ticket for the ’tweens!
And how about those happy campers called the Inferi: Corpses “that have been bewitched to do a dark wizard’s bidding.” Harry first gets to meet one when a slimy white hand comes out of the dark, icy water to grasp his wrist. Then he sees “an army of the dead rising from the black water.” A small group of them grab him from behind with their “thin, fleshless arms cold as death” to carry him into the water to share their fate . . .
To top things off, there’s good old Nagini, Voldemort’s big, black pet snake and alter ego. In the last book, she finally kills Severus Snape but first gets to eat poor Professor of Muggles Studies Charity Burbage for “dinner.” Charity’s magically suspended and still living body revolving over the Death-Eaters’ conference table is the image that dominates the first chapter of this book and sets just the right atmosphere for Rowling’s last wild romp with our kids.
Rowling Reels to a Rollicking, Shakespeherean Rhythm of Rigor Mortis
Medieval painter-moralist Hans Holbein’s Danse Macabre has absolutely nothing on Rowling’s, oh, so appropriately named Deathly Hallows! Wikipedia’s death count for the book includes 19 identified characters (excluding Harry’s owl Hedwig) plus about 50 unnamed witches and wizards, mostly Voldemort followers and loyal Hogwarts students killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. Thus, in Rowling’s last fantastic, fatal fantasia with Harry, she forges fatalities fit for a favorable face-off with Shakespeare’s fiercest feuds. “O O O O that Shakespeherean rag!”
Rowling also reveals that stunning Snape-Dumbledore murder-suicide pact previously concealed but already executed in the previous book. Only the “good” wizards make such death pacts in Harry Potter so don’t blame poor old Voldemort who, all on his own, had to suffer seven deaths not even counted as such by Wikipedia, one for each of his soul fragments. With a little help from Harry, Voldemort did finally kill himself, but—unlike the good wizards—he didn’t really mean to do it.
Well, you get the idea: “Lullaby and good night, And may baby sleep tight . . .
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Solzhenitsyn RIP
I learned of Alexander Sozhenitsyn's death only Tuesday. I use several news sources including NPR, but I'm not a news junkie. And Sozhenitsyn fell out of favor with the American elites when he clarified his motivation for exposing the lie that was Soviet Communism in The Gulag Archipelago and other works such as A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This Nobel laureate was roundly booed by the graduating class at Harvard during his commencement address there when he warned the West that her forgetfulness of God was leading her in the direction of the tyranny that the Russian people had suffered under for 70 years.
For Solzhenitsyn was by the time of his exile to America a theist, a Christian theist, who had come to accept his grandparents' primitive belief that Russia was suffering under Communist oppression because they, the Russian people, had forgotten God. Like Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn experienced conversion while in prison, and he blessed his chains, as it were, for bringing him the wisdom to grasp the truth about God.
If you are familiar with Dostoevski's The Brother's Karamazov, you will appreciate Sozhenitsyn's use (in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) of the names "Ivan" and "Alyosha." In both books, Ivan is the character lacking faith, Alyosha, the one having it.But Sozhenitsyn's Ivan is not a doctrinaire atheist, he is a much more humane and likeable character than Dostoevski's. This Ivan is almost American in his mild insistence that prayer may work for you, Alyosha, but not for me. So if you haven't read The Gulag Archipelago (And I've only read the first of its two large volumes.), don't try it first or second. Go instead for the short but powerful evocation of the gulag in his short novel, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Then there is Cancer Ward and other novels and works that may today be more important than the brutal history of the Gulag.
For Solzhenitsyn was by the time of his exile to America a theist, a Christian theist, who had come to accept his grandparents' primitive belief that Russia was suffering under Communist oppression because they, the Russian people, had forgotten God. Like Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn experienced conversion while in prison, and he blessed his chains, as it were, for bringing him the wisdom to grasp the truth about God.
If you are familiar with Dostoevski's The Brother's Karamazov, you will appreciate Sozhenitsyn's use (in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) of the names "Ivan" and "Alyosha." In both books, Ivan is the character lacking faith, Alyosha, the one having it.But Sozhenitsyn's Ivan is not a doctrinaire atheist, he is a much more humane and likeable character than Dostoevski's. This Ivan is almost American in his mild insistence that prayer may work for you, Alyosha, but not for me. So if you haven't read The Gulag Archipelago (And I've only read the first of its two large volumes.), don't try it first or second. Go instead for the short but powerful evocation of the gulag in his short novel, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Then there is Cancer Ward and other novels and works that may today be more important than the brutal history of the Gulag.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
"J. K. Rowling: Sovereign Fantasy-World Creator," to be in "Touchstone," Nov. 2008
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.
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.
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