Gay marriage?

Via Insight Scoop, a link to an article from the Winter issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, "What is Marriage?" [the paper is available as a pdf download on this page] by Robert George and Sherif Girgis, both at Princeton, and Ryan Anderson of the University of Notre Dame. Those interested in serious argument about gay marriage as a public policy issue will find the article and the exchanges about it worthy of attention. Insight Scoop provides the abstract:

In the article, we argue that as a moral reality, marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction. We further argue that there are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners.

Besides making this positive argument for our position and raising several objections to the view that same-sex unions should be recognized, we address what we consider the strongest philosophical objections to our view of the nature of marriage, as well as more pragmatic concerns about the point or consequences of implementing it as a policy.

Their argument elicited considerable criticism to which the authors responded. Also from Insight Scoop:

• “What is Marriage?” original article in HJLPP
• The Argument Against Gay Marriage: And Why it Doesn’t Fail first response to Yoshino
• Marriage: Merely a Social Construct? Response to Northwestern Law Prof Andy Koppelman
• Marriage: Real Bodily Union Response to Family Scholars blogger Barry Deutsch
• Marriage: No Avoiding the Central Question Response to second Yoshino

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: Important debate about the nature of marriage

Christmas I: Circumcise our hearts

Almighty God, which madest Thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of Thy Spirit, that our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, may in all things obey Thy blessed will; through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

NOW I SAY, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. [Galatians 4]

ALMIGHTY LORD, merciful Father, vouchsafe to accept the thanks which I now presume to offer Thee for the prolongation of my life. Grant, O Lord, that as my days are multiplied, my good resolutions may be strengthened, my power of resisting temptations encreased, and my struggles with snares and obstruions invigorated. Relieve the infirmities both of my mind and body. Grant me such strength as my duties may require and such diligence as may improve those opportunities of good that shall be-offered me. Deliver me from the intrusion of evil thoughts. Grant me true repentance of my past life, and as I draw nearer and nearer to the grave, strengthen my Faith, enliven my Hope, extend my Charity, and purify my desires, and so help me by Thy Holy Spirit that when it shall be Thy pleasure to call me hence, I may be received to everlasting happiness, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [Samuel Johnson, January 1, 1777]

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot..."

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind ?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and days of auld lang syne* ?

For auld lang syne, my jo,

for auld lang syne,

we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne. 

Peggy Noonan on the song many will sing tonight:

"Auld Lang Syne"—the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer.

It was written, or written down, by Robert Burns, lyric poet and Bard of Scotland. In 1788 he sent a copy of the poem to the Scots Musical Museum, with the words: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, has never been in print." Burns was interested in the culture of Scotland, and collected old folk tales and poems. He said he got this one "from an old man"—no one knows who—and wrote it down. Being a writer, Burns revised and compressed. He found the phrase auld lang syne "exceedingly expressive" and thought whoever first wrote the poem "heaven inspired." The song spread throughout Scotland, where it was sung to mark the end of the old year, and soon to the English-speaking world, where it's sung to mark the new.

The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn't be. We'll remember those times and those people, we'll toast them now and always, we'll keep them close. "We'll take a cup of kindness yet." ....

Noonan: Days of Auld Lang What? - WSJ.com

Evangelicals and the gospel

"Among the Evangelicals" by Timothy Beal in The Chronicle Review describes the findings of a variety of academic studies. A couple of paragraphs in the middle summarize well why "post-evangelical" has become an increasingly popular label among those disillusioned by the sense that technology and activity have become more important than gospel and discipleship.

A hallmark of American evangelicalism, at least since the 1940s, has been its ready willingness to adapt its theological content to new media technologies and popular trends in the entertainment industry. Implicit in that openness is an evangelical counterdeclaration to Marshall McLuhan's: The medium is not the message; the message, or the Word, transcends whatever media are used to convey it. But in the long run, is the constant evangelical adaptation of the Word unwittingly proving McLuhan right? I think so. That is partly why we find so little coherence within and among the various groups and movements and productions that pass as evangelical.

Indeed, it's impossible to imagine the likes of Osteen or Warren or Jakes without the teams of creators, editors, and marketers who publish them beyond their home churches, in books and on the radio, television, and Internet. It is not too much to say that their media producers actually create and sustain them as pop-culture icons. Their relationships with their publishers in the production of both medium and message are not unlike those of pop-music stars with their labels. Lady Gaga has Universal Music and Max Lucado has Thomas Nelson.

Later, Beal defines  describes the evangelicalism he grew up with:

Evangelism is at root about telling a good story. The Greek word behind it, euangelion, means "good news" or, more literally, "happy message" (eu, "happy" plus angelion, "message"). Whence comes our word "gospel" via the Old English godspel, "good spell" or "story." In that light, it can be argued, as it often is, that all forms of Christianity, including those way on the left, are essentially evangelical, insofar as they are about proclaiming the Christian gospel, the good story. Disagreements quickly emerge, of course, in the often radically different interpretations of what that gospel is and means.

Growing up conservative evangelical in the 1960s and 70s, I learned to see it primarily in terms of personal sin and salvation. The most popular version of that gospel message was the Four Spiritual Laws, created as an evangelism tool in 1952 by the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. They are: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life; sin separates you from God; Jesus on the cross paid the price for your sin; you need to accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior. (My mom occasionally pulls out an old reel-to-reel tape of me, age 5, singing, "What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! Oh, precious is the flow, that can make me white as snow.") Most nonevangelicals assume that is the one and only gospel among all evangelical Christians. But that's far from true. ....

Among the Evangelicals - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace"

In "Narrative and the Grace of God" Stanley Fish argues that the Coen brothers new True Grit is profoundly religious, as was the book, and in contrast to the 1969 Henry Hathaway film with John Wayne.

.... In the novel and in the Coens’ film it is always like that: things happen, usually bad things (people are hanged, robbed, cheated, shot, knifed, bashed over the head and bitten by snakes), but they don’t have any meaning, except the meaning that you had better not expect much in this life because the brute irrationality of it all is always waiting to smack you in the face. This is what happens to Mattie at the very instant of her apparent triumph as she shoots Tom Chaney, her father’s killer, in the head. The recoil of the gun propels her backwards and she falls into a snake-infested pit. Years later, as the narrator of the novel, she recalls the moment and says: “I had forgotten about the pit behind me.” There is always a pit behind you and in front of you and to the side of you. That’s just the way it is.

.... I watched True Grit twice in a single evening, not exactly happily (it’s hardly a barrel of fun), but not in revulsion, either.

The reason is that while the Coens deprive us of the heroism Gagliasso and others look for, they give us a better heroism in the person of Mattie, who maintains the confidence of her convictions even when the world continues to provide no support for them. In the end, when she is a spinster with one arm who arrives too late to see Rooster once more, she remains as judgmental, single-minded and resolute as ever. She goes forward not because she has faith in a better worldly future — her last words to us are “Time just gets away from us” — but because she has faith in the righteousness of her path, a path that is sure (because it is not hers) despite the absence of external guideposts. That is the message Iris Dement proclaims at the movie’s close when she sings “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms”:

Oh how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way
Leaning on the everlasting arms
Oh how bright the path goes from day to day
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What have I to dread what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

The new True Grit is that rare thing — a truly religious movie. .... [more]

Thanks to James M. Kushiner at Mere Comments for the reference.

Narrative and the Grace of God: The New 'True Grit' - NYTimes.com

A destructive lifestyle choice

In "Atheism Kills" Walter Russell Mead notes that it is apparently not just atheist regimes that result in great loss of life. Atheism isn't all that good for atheists themselves — or for society:

If atheism were a commercial product like Happy Meals or cigarettes, there would be calls to ban it or at least tax it to the gills in the hopes both of discouraging it and offsetting its costs. We would see calls to ensure that films and books aimed at young audiences didn’t glorify and glamorize this destructive lifestyle choice. And surely if we are going to ban candy and soda pop from elementary schools across America we should make certain that the noxious poison of atheism doesn’t pollute vulnerable young minds.

The survey that inspired these observations:

This is simply a study that shows that the more religious you are, the more likely it is that you will have good habits that prolong life and promote health. Very religious people (as defined by Gallup) smoke less, eat more vegetables and exercise more than non-religious people do. Gallup makes no attempt to correlate these findings with life expectancy, productivity on the job or lifetime earnings, but it seems likely if the poll is correct that atheism costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars every year in health care costs, absenteeism on the job and other costs. (On the other hand, like smoking, it saves us tens of billions of dollars when people die early instead of collecting social security for decades — but this is not the way most of us hope to solve the country’s pension funding problems.)

Given other studies showing that very religious people report greater life satisfaction, are less liable to depression, and seem generally more at home with themselves and the people around them, it’s becoming more and more clear that atheism doesn’t just make many atheists more likely to be unhappy, lonely and poor. It also costs the rest of us money. ....

Mead's not really serious blog entry elicited outraged comments from some who prefer to believe religion is the source of all evil.

Atheism Kills: Gallup Poll Reveals | Via Meadia

"No man is an island..."

With respect to economics and many aspects of government regulation of human behavior my inclinations — like those of most conservatives — tend toward the libertarian end of the spectrum. And yet I am emphatically not a "Libertarian." Part of the reason is well summarized in this paragraph from Christopher Beam's "The Trouble With Liberty":

.... It’s no coincidence that most libertarians discover the philosophy as teenagers. At best, libertarianism means pursuing your own self-interest, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. At worst, as in Ayn Rand’s teachings, it’s an explicit celebration of narcissism. “Man’s first duty is to himself,” says the young architect Howard Roark in his climactic speech in The Fountainhead. “His moral obligation is to do what he wishes.” Roark utters these words after dynamiting his own project, since his vision for the structure had been altered without his permission. The message: Never compromise. If you don’t get your way, blow things up. And there’s the problem. If everyone refused to compromise his vision, there would be no cooperation. There would be no collective responsibility. The result wouldn’t be a city on a hill. It would be a port town in Somalia. In a world of scarce resources, everyone pursuing their own self-interest would yield not Atlas Shrugged but Lord of the Flies. And even if you did somehow achieve Libertopia, you’d be surrounded by assholes. .... (more)

The Trouble With Liberty

"Let no tongue on earth be silent"

Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

He is found in human fashion, death and sorrow here to know,
That the race of Adam’s children doomed by law to endless woe,
May not henceforth die and perish
In the dreadful gulf below, evermore and evermore!

O that birth forever blessèd, when the virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving, bare the Savior of our race;
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face, evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven adore Him; angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King!
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert sing, evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father, and, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn and chant with high thanksgiving, and unwearied praises be:
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory, evermore and evermore!

[Prudentius, 5th Century]

This single Truth

No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

John Betjeman

reposted from 2008

Christmas Day

ALMIGHTY GOD, which hast given us Thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, and this day to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made Thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit, through the same Our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost now and ever. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto his own, and his own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. [John 1]

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of Thine only Son Jesus Christ; Grant that as we joyfully receive Him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold Him when He shall come to be our Judge, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

Come all you faithful Christians
That dwell here on earth,
Come celebrate the morning
Of our dear Saviour's birth.
This is the happy morning,
This is the blessed morn:
To save our souls from ruin,
The Son of God was born.

Now to Him that is ascended
Let all our praises be;
May we His steps then follow,
And He our pattern be;
So when our lives are ended,
We all may hear Him call —
"Come souls, receive the kingdom,
Prepared for you all."
[Hereford Carol]

In the bleak midwinter

Andrew McGowan, at Biblical Archaeology Review explains "How December 25 Became Christmas" and it probably had nothing to do with pagan traditions:

.... There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time. As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point. ....

.... By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas. ....

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in midwinter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6? ....

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. ....

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. ....

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14^th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus died was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar. March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception. Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25. ....

Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25^th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25^th.”

.... Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. .... (more)

How December 25 Became Christmas - Biblical Archaeology Review

God in man

"For to do us sinners good"

The holly and the ivy, When they are both full grown Of all the trees that are in the wood, The holly bears the crown.	The holly bears a prickle As sharp as any thorn; And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ On Christmas day in the morn. Chorus
Chorus: Oh, the rising of the sun, The running of the deer. The playing of the merry organ, Sweet singing in the quire.	The holly bears a bark As bitter as any gall; And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ For to redeem us all. Chorus
The holly bears a blossom As white as lily flower; And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ To be our sweet Savior. Chorus	The holly and the ivy, Now are both well grown, Of all the trees that are in the wood, The holly bears the crown. Chorus
The holly bears a berry As red as any blood; And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ For to do us sinners good. Chorus

The Holly And The Ivy

"An occasion for merry-making"

Via The Inklings, C.S. Lewis on Christmas:

Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn't go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merry-making and hospitality. If it were my business to have a 'view' on this, I should say that I much approve of merry-making. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone's business.

I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. (C.S. Lewis, "What Christmas Means to Me," God in the Dock, Eerdmans, 1970.)

"The commercial racket" has become even more dominant since Lewis wrote this in 1957.

The Inklings: Christmas, according to Lewis

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb..."

Lars Walker liked the film version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader very much:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the novel) begins with perhaps Lewis’ greatest opening line; possibly one of the best opening lines in all literature: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” (A line full of resonance for an author who’d himself been christened Clive Staples Lewis.) This film offers an extremely satisfactory Eustace in the person of actor Will Poulter. His maturation is the primary character arc in the story, just as in the original. It pleased me in particular, as an amateur swordsman, that he enjoys his first fleeting taste of the pleasures of manliness after a fencing match with the incomparable talking mouse, Reepicheep (played by a very talented bunch of pixels and voiced by Simon Pegg). ....

It would be misleading to call this adaptation “faithful” to the book. This movie is more like the fruit of the book. Some elements of the story are minimized or skipped over; other elements, minor in the original, are magnified and dramatized for cinematic effect. The result is bigger, more spectacular, faster moving, and more unified in narrative. It’s stirring, thrilling, and suitable for all but the youngest viewers. My own manly eyes teared up a bit in places.

I don’t think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been doing the business it deserves. I urge you not to wait for the DVD.

I haven't seen it yet and his last comment makes me worry since production of The Silver Chair depends on its success.

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Film Review: "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"

"Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! "

The Fighting Temeraire

Bernard Cornwell, one of my favorite historical novelists, reviews a book about a distinguished warship junked long after its days of glory and pleads for the preservation of others:

At Penn's Landing in Philadelphia, the battle-cruiser USS Olympia lies glorious and doomed. The oldest steel warship in the world today, she has a poignant history. In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, she was Adm. Dewey's flagship at the battle of Manila Bay, and in 1921 she carried the body of the first officially designated Unknown Soldier, felled in World War I, back from France to the U.S. The Olympia is magnificent. If nothing is done to save her, she will be towed offshore and sunk as an artificial reef. ....

The Temeraire[....]was to have a long and distinguished history, but by 1839 she was obsolete; and so she was towed to a breaker's yard and dismembered. We might have forgotten her except that J.M.W. Turner painted an iconic canvas—"The Fighting Temeraire"—that today hangs in London's National Gallery. The picture shows the vast dusk-gilded hull of the great battleship being towed up the Thames by a squat, steam-powered paddle-wheel tug. All the glory of the past is being dragged to oblivion beneath the cloud-haunted light of a setting sun. It is a picture that tells a story, and it is consistently voted Britain's favorite painting. ....

She deserved her fame. The three-decker was one of the most powerful ships in the Royal Navy. Her greatest day came on Oct. 21, 1805, when she followed Nelson's Victory into the melee at Trafalgar, where her 98 guns saved the British flagship, even if they could not save Nelson's life.

The Victory had been engaged by the Redoutable, undoubtedly the best-trained ship in France's navy. Redoutable was locked to the Victory when the Temeraire sailed slowly past her stern and raked a broadside lengthwise down the Frenchman's hull, killing almost a third of her crew with that opening blow. The Temeraire then went alongside the wounded Redoutable, only to be sandwiched there by a second Frenchman, the Fougueux. Yet the Temeraire outfought both and forced each to surrender. The Temeraire had 47 of her 755 crew killed, but the Redoutable lost an extraordinary 487 dead out of 643 men, a fearsome tribute to the skilled gunnery of Britain's sailors. ....

USS Olympia

We are lucky that we still possess HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar and a near-twin of the Temeraire. She lies in dry dock now, her great masts rearing above Portsmouth dockyard. HMS Warrior, Britain's first ironclad battleship, built in 1860, is moored nearby, while in Boston, of course, the USS Constitution still floats and is wonderfully preserved.

Those ships are, for the moment, safe. But Turner's painting and Mr. Willis's book remind us that fame and glory are not sufficient protection against an empty budget, and it will be tragic if we allow the Olympia to follow the Implacable to a watery grave. It is not too late. At Penn's Landing, in the impecunious care of the Independence Seaport Museum, we possess a precious fragment of America's naval history, and we can only hope that, 170 years from now, no one who writes the Olympia's biography will have to end it with the tale of her destruction. .... [more]

Book Review: The Fighting Temeraire - WSJ.com

"Thou who wast rich..."

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, All for love's sake becamest poor; Thrones for a manger didst surrender, Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor. Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, All for love's sake becamest poor.	Thou who art love beyond all telling, Saviour and King, we worship thee. Emmanuel, within us dwelling, Make us what thou wouldst have us be. Thou who art love beyond all telling, Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Thou who art God beyond all praising, All for love's sake becamest man; Stooping so low, but sinners raising Heavenwards by thine eternal plan. Thou who art God beyond all praising, All for love's sake becamest man.

Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour

Advent IV: Run the race

Lord raise up (we pray Thee) Thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we be sore let and hindered in running the race set before us, Thy bountiful grace and mercy, through the satisfaction of Thy Son Our Lord, may speedily deliver us; to whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost be honor and glory, world without end. Amen. [Thomas Cranmer]

KNOW YE NOT that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. [I Corinthians 9]

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.'

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, What is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be. [Winston S. Churchill 1940]

Wimsey

I spent just about every evening for the last ten days or so watching the DVDs of the The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries and thoroughly enjoying the experience. I remember watching them in the early '70s when they first appeared on American TV.  I had by then already read the Dorothy L. Sayers novels on which they were based. A Google search for that series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter turned up this NPR review. The reasons they appealed to John Powers are very like the reasons they appeal to me.

.... Back in the early 1970s, the BBC turned Sayers' crime novels into a series of TV shows starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter. When they were shown here on Masterpiece Theatre, they became such a huge hit that they led PBS to create the series Mystery! which has run for the past 30 years. ....

The first installment, Clouds of Witness, is typical. It begins at the Wimsey family's shooting lodge in Yorkshire. The fiance of Lord Peter's sister, Mary, has been found shot dead in the night, and the police accuse Lord Peter's grumpy brother, Gerald, who refuses to say what he was up to at the time of the crime. Things look bad until Lord Peter comes back from the Continent with his trusty manservant, Bunter, slyly played by Glyn Houston. He begins examining the case and questioning potential suspects, all of whom seem to have secrets galore. ....

When I first popped Clouds of Witness into my DVD player, I wondered if it was still enjoyable. After all, the Beeb's production values weren't the greatest back then. But the series sucks you into its 1920s setting with a brand of leisurely storytelling you no longer see on TV, and it's carried by Carmichael's Lord Peter. Although a bit too old and fleshy for the part, this canny actor knows exactly how to play Wimsey, a man who can seem as silly as Bertie Wooster but is actually as shrewd as Jeeves.

Of course such a character is the purest confection, which is why such cozy English detective stories are mocked by literary critics and fans of the hard-boiled crime novel. ....

The fact is, lack of realism isn't the failing of old-fashioned crime stories; it's their point. The true pleasure of the Lord Peter mysteries isn't simply that they let us sink into a romanticized '20s England. It's that they take us outside the chaotic swirl of modern society, where murder is a symptom of intractable disorder. They carry us to a fantasyland so intrinsically sedate and orderly, so conservative, that murder is an aberration. .... [T]he Lord Peter stories satisfy something in the human psyche that neither bullying nor education can erase. They offer us a fantasy of perfect closure, a world where even bloody murder is little more than a brainteaser that can, and will, be solved.

There was a later Mystery series of three more of Sayers's Lord Peter books starring Edward Petherbridge in the role: Dorothy L. Sayers Mysteries (The Lord Peter Wimsey-Harriet Vane Collection - Strong Poison/Have His Carcass/Gaudy Night). They were produced in the late '80s; the production values are much higher and they are very good, but I still prefer the Carmichael series.

DVD Review - 'Lord Peter' Returns, And It's No Mystery Why : NPR

White shores and a far green country

Tim Keller in "The Lord of the Rings and Redemptive Art" argues that the book is profoundly Christian even though "religion" is almost entirely absent.

...LOTR is a great demonstration of the difference between Christian art and propaganda. Many believe “art that does not evangelize, praise, or exhort has no place in the kingdom of God or, at best, has an inferior status to confessional works....Also, for many Christians, [overtly] confessional intent overrides artistic concerns.…evangelical popular art had a difficult time finding an interested and appreciative audience outside the evangelical market.” Tolkien, however, wrote to a friend in 1953 that “I have not put in, or have cut out practically all references to anything like ‘religion’ in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” ....

...LOTR gives us a very Christian, non-sentimental kind of hope. It is typical for people to think of LOTR as escapist fantasy, but that is simply not the case. Popular escapist fantasy normally ends with everyone living happily ever after. It is deeply sentimental. After the villains are dispatched, now all is right with the world. By contrast, LOTR is non-sentimental about the inexorable sadness of life. The good people have “fought the long defeat.” No victory over evil ever lasts, since evil always takes a new shape and rises again. Even a victory over evil will result in the loss and fading away of good and beautiful things. Frodo’s wounds will never really heal. Certainly, the elves can go to a beautiful home in the West, but “if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea, none have reported it.”

Why is the book so sad?

As a Christian, Tolkien knew that sin had marred the world more deeply than we wish to admit. We must not be naive or pin utopian hopes to our own ability to create a safe, successful life for ourselves. As one character observes, “The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.”

Even so, LOTR holds out a distant but profound hope of complete renewal and joy. .... (more)

The Lord of the Rings and Redemptive Art