Hope in Dystopia

Hope in Dystopia - Learning from the Christian Humanism of Walter Miller, P.D. James, and C.S. Lewis.

While dystopian novels have always been popular, they usually leave the reader with despair. 1984 and Brave New World are common examples of such literature. Yet the twentieth century also offered some hopeful dystopias, as odd as it sounds. 

Join us on October 16th in Athens, Alabama where we will discuss the novels of Walter Miller (A Canticle for Leibowitz), P.D. James (The Children of Men), and C.S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength) and what they can teach us about living well in dystopian times. 

We will begin at 9:00 am. The meeting will include three lectures (presented by Matt Carpenter) with time for coffee and discussion of the topics. We will dismiss around lunchtime. Coffee, water, and snacks will be provided. 

Schedule:

9:00 - Introduction

          Utopian Apocalypse - How Dystopian Novels Reveal the Dark Side of Perfection

9:45 - Break

10:00 - Walter Miller, P.D. James, and Preserving the Really Human Things

10:40 - Break

11:00 - Advice for Saving the World: C.S. Lewis on Pursuing Virtue in Chaotic Times

11:45 - Questions, Discussion

There is no cost. Please RSVP to Matt Carpenter (mattsc0223@hotmail.com). Please also bring lawn chairs since the event will be in our backyard. 

Meek and Patient as a Sheathed Sword

The great Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote many ecclesiastical sonnets, or poems regarding the church. One that affected me recently was titled, "Pastoral Character."

A genial hearth, a hospitable board,
And a refined rusticity, belong
To the neat mansion, where, his flock among,
The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord.
Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword;
Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue,
Gentleness in his heart--can earth afford
Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free,
As when, arrayed in Christ's authority,
He from the pulpit lifts his awful hand;
Conjures, implores, and labours all he can
For re-subjecting to divine command
The stubborn spirit of rebellious man?

He begins by expressing the living conditions, "A genial hearth, a hospital board," which show the parson as one who is generous and hospitable to others." He is a type of lord himself, whether or not he actually owns the title, he acts as one who watches over the health and good of those under his care. The picture of one mild-mannered is accurate, but Wordsworth is sure to declare that this man is no weakling, but whose meekness and patience resemble "a sheathed sword." That sword is unsheathed when he climbs the pulpit. He is "arrayed in Christ's authority" and tasked with the responsibility of, through Spirit-inspired words, "re-subjecting to divine command the stubborn spirit of rebellious man." 

What a wonderful picture of the man of God!

Thoughts on Romanticism

 

As I’ve been reading and enjoying the English Romantic poets recently, I thought I should dig deeper into the metaphysics of Romantic poetry. This ties in with the appreciation for forms that undergird reality. That which is real is the basis for what we see and experience.

The best of the Romantic poets and prose artists depict life through the lens of imagination, which is the key to the Romantic mindset. Sometimes they portray the best of the past and what we can learn from it, not always the realistic version. Other times they portray the worst. They offer strong critique of man’s disregard and corruption of nature and the consequences of it, be it nominalism, industrialism, or the iconoclastic excesses of the Reformation.

At its best it presents man in wholeness, mind, body, and spirit. It portrays life as it should be, both internally and externally. The consequences of excessive control are presented as harmful, whereas the good that comes from living in harmony with nature is positive.

On the other hand, the anthropology of Romanticism is overly optimistic. Believing that original sin is an outward problem that can be fixed through natural means is faulty. The inward decay of man is at best neglected and at worst contradicted. This stems from an overemphasis on man being made in the image of God over and against the belief in man’s depravity. The imaginative emphasis, so beautifully portrayed in authors like Walter Scott and Coleridge, is taken to excess in one like Percy Shelley.

Another pitfall among the Romantics is idealism which leads to ideology. The critique of one (bad) system while demanding implementation of a (better) system will not lead to wise correction but militant overcorrection. The example of Procrustes is appropriate here. The perfect ideal becomes the enemy of the achievable, moderate correction. There is an inherent dualism in play here. Romantics tend to divided the real from the ideal, focusing only on the latter and neglecting the former.

The most significant problem with many Romantics is their atheism. They begin with forms given by God by neglect the One who gave them in the first place. For these atheists their religion is naturalistic pantheism; their philosophy then has no real foundation, but the forms are solely their own individual imaginations. To whatever the imagination is captivated by natural law, reason, and the Creator, the results are truly beautiful. Once the imagination is divorced these things, the result may be beautiful on the surface but underneath is brutal.

New Podcast

Recently I began a new venture in the world of podcasting. I've been hesitant for a while, asking myself if we really need another person talking in cyberspace. But I think there is a need for yet one more podcast. 

We are all submerged in the modern world to some extent. We can't and shouldn't try to abandon the world in which we live. Jesus did die for it, after all. If He immersed Himself in the daily matters that surrounded Him, ushering in God's kingdom, we should do likewise. 

Slavery has always been a temptation. We understand how selling others into slavery is sin, but we don't understand the problem of giving yourself over to slavery. That's the wisdom of the doctrine of man's natural depravity. Not the straw-man version of depravity, but the realistic teaching that man naturally desires to rule himself rather than submit to God's rule. Ever since Adam and Eve, the serpent has presented the false-story of God-as-tyrant and ____?____-as-deliverer. These potential deliverers can all lead to slavery, whether bad things (drugs, ideology, communist dictators) or good things, e.g. technology, money, etc. A good life is about learning to walk free from the slavery of sin and become a faithful member of God's kingdom.

In this podcast we'll talk to people who understand different aspects of living a good life, whether it's becoming more like Christ, loving our neighbors, growing in wisdom, or being a good steward of the gifts God has given. We will talk about what it means to live free from the oppression of the world and be an agent of God's new creation.  

If you're interested, go here...https://mattcarpenter.podbean.com/

History of American Education

 

We are bombarded with stories of government overreach into education. We hear about progressive propaganda disguised as curriculum, or parents in a California school district who are not allowed withdraw their children from the LGBT curriculum. You probably did not hear about the instance in Massachusetts where the state militia arrived at several homes of families who didn’t want their children to attend the local school. Under threat of force the militia escorted children from their homes and to the local school. The reason you probably never heard about it – it happened in 1852. Government overreach and mandatory education go together like Communism and gulags.

I won’t retread the vast array of problems in modern education. No one argues that the American education system is sound. But I will argue that the fruit of our current system is not the result of a good tree that’s diseased; it is the result of a poor seed planted in thorny ground and left untended.

The first instruction regarding education was given by the prophet Moses in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. These books represent the first recorded history and culture manual for a nation. He says that parents were to teach their children to love God at all times of the day. At a time when parents would spend all day with their children, this was easily done. Education for the ancients included knowledge, worship, skills, community-wide activities, and celebrations. Yet we know Israel was not faithful to that work. When they were captive in Babylon, the synagogues were created. These were places for worship and instruction in what it meant to be Jewish.

Skipping ahead a few civilizations, the people known as “the Greeks” were not one synonymous group, but several city-states who differed in what they valued and emphasized. The most notable difference was Sparta, who valued military service and Athens, who valued leisure and intellectual pursuits. Their most famous philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, were similar to Hebrew prophets, calling the people to live in a humane way and reject pragmatism (focus on what works, not what’s best) and decadence. They were, like the prophet John the Baptist, voices crying in the wilderness who were mostly rejected by their own people.

Critiquing the world by loving it

The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is hard to qualify. It's a work of social criticism, but from a theological angle. The premise is that the Church has lost her savor because she has adopted the elements and ideologies of the world, or been lured into joining them. The answer is to develop an alternate way of life based on the Incarnation and eschaton that both critiques and embraces the world through loving our neighbors (via our daily work, service, prayer etc.) in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It has some of the best insights to the modern situation I've ever read, although it was written over 70 years ago. It is the introductory work of Jacques Ellul and I was left wanting to read more, although it is quite dense. If you read this, do not fail to read the conclusion; it brings together many of the strands that were left dangling in earlier chapters.

Learning From Our Elders

 

A Review of Live Not By Lies, Rod Dreher, Sentinel Press, 2020

No one would argue that being a Christian in the United States is easier than almost anywhere else. One of our founding pillars was the freedom to practice our religion as we see fit and people have migrated for centuries to enjoy that freedom. Nevertheless, there are changes afoot. Basic moral codes, understand in the West for thousands of years, are not only being questioned but mocked and vilified. Under our current legislation, speaking plainly about what Scripture calls sin can lead to accusation of hate crime. Big businesses, once protectors of the moral status quo (whether for the right reasons or not is another matter), now enforce an actively libertine agenda through their profits and their “training” sessions. Any state who dares to oppose this risks losing the tax dollars that come from those successful businesses.

At the time of this writing Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota and favorite of social conservatives, just vetoed a bill passed by the South Dakota legislature that would protect women’s sports to only women. She admits it was for fear of the NCAA’s potentially negative response to the bill. This even though the NCAA had yet to address the bill in any form. Just the thought that South Dakota might face collegiate consequences was enough to derail a bill Lyndon Johnson would have thought common sense. But Governor Noem is not alone. Many other red-state, supposedly reliable conservative governors have capitulated to the woke crowd. As the late columnist Joe Sobran said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a Republican.”

Yet Christians are still free to practice their beliefs without fear, aren’t they? Yes, but with increasing limitations. States drunk with power during the COVID crisis shut down churches because of the health risk while allowing other institutions and rioting activities to proceed with few precautions. The state of Christian freedom in the U.S. is not what is used to be. That leads me to the excellent book by Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lies.