Review: Surprised by Oxford
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
The 1995 film Before Sunrise famously focusses on the part of a relationship that most romantic stories leave out — the process of getting to know another person through talking and time spent. Most worry about how to get the couple together, Before Sunrise explored what happens once they’ve met.
The new memoir Surprised by Oxford takes a similar path in its description of a conversion to Christianity. It looks not at the way life led Carolyn Weber to hear about God, but her wrestling once she had. Starting from her arrival in Oxford as a post-graduate, the book takes us through the events, conversations, thoughts — and romantic entanglements — of one year.
The result is an honest description of the issues of someone confronted with faith. It makes clear that, even for a thoughtful person, the process of conversion is not just a matter of addressing intellectual issues but is wrapped up with emotional struggles as well.
It is not perfect. It would have been a stronger book — and be open to a wider audience — if it was more self-contained, if did not assume so much knowledge about Christianity. And the reported conversations are mixed: Some had me gripped, such as a description of the discussion at a college High Table. On the other hand, some felt a little too neat and unrealistic.
But given all that it is a thoroughly enjoyable and immensely readable book. Both Weber and the people who populate her life are a pleasure to spend time with.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Emily Dickinson and blogging
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve never thought about whether Emily Dickinson would have had a blog. I imagine the answer is no. Like so many great writers in the 19th century, Dickinson had an incredible ear and she knew, as Mark Twain said, the difference between the right word and the almost right word, which is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Until you’ve got the right word, you probably don’t want to put it down.
via Roger Lundin: The poetic language of leadership | Faith & Leadership.
Photos for Good Friday
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I was asked to come up with come photos for a Good Friday service. A challenge if you want to avoid impact-free cliches.
Here’s my favourite
For more see the Photos for Good Friday album.
Review: Fasting by Scot McKnight
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Scot McKnight’s ‘Fasting’ is part of the Ancient Practices Series edited by Phyllis Tickle. It provides something of an introduction to the practice, but its main concern is with balancing some common misconceptions and potential extremes.
McKnight implicitly critiques two attitudes that have coloured our view our fasting in recent times. The first is pure pragmatism, which sees fasting only as a route to a desired end. The second is dualism, which sees the body as irrelevant to spirituality. Addressing these points is vital; in my experience the combination of these two has left the church slightly bemused as to what fasting does or ‘how it works’. Is it there to free up time for prayer? To help us focus? To beat our bodies into submission? To twist God’s arm? (The last of these most often mentioned as something we know can’t be true, but the number of times it is said suggests that we’re not so sure.)
McKnight alternative to these two attitudes is summed up in his description of fasting as ‘the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life’. It is the whole-body expression in the face of events that are so significant that we have to do more than simply talk or pray. These events might be a tragedy or injustice or realisation of our own failings.
Taking this view fasting can be described as, for example, ‘body talk’ or ‘body grief’ or ‘body hope’. In contrast to dualism, where the body is an inconvenience, this views fasting as part of an embodied spirituality. In contrast to pragmatism, fasting is a response not a means. So, fasting is not a way to make our plea heard, but our pleading is so intense that not eating is a natural consequence. And if there are results, McKnight suggests, they are related primarily to that intensity rather than the fasting.
McKnight makes a valuable contribution to the discussion with this refocussing and I found it very helpful. He takes his alternative view and shows how it works in the examples of fasting found in the Bible and church history. This makes his point clearly and, most of the time, convincingly.
I have two criticisms. The first is that his link to the ‘response to a grievous sacred moment’ formula is a little too relentless. Although it does well in countering the pragmatic/dualistic approach, at times I wondered if pushing a single formula limited the discussion when a wider exploration would have been beneficial.
My second question is related to the push against dualism. I think McKnight’s approach is very helpful, but perhaps more is going on than mere ‘body talk’. I wonder if we would benefit from taking the non-dualistic view further. McKnight is clearly concerned with the abuses and extremes of body discipline that have been associated with fasting in church history. And understandably so: When we get to the point where we are damaging our bodies or characterising them as evil that must be brought in to line, things have gone too far. But on the other hand, if we are truly whole persons, then surely the act of not eating does have an effect on us as whole people beyond ‘body talk’? It would have been valuable to explore the possibility that fasting has a wider formative impact on us. (We might think of James K A Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, showing how liturgical practice can shape us.)
But these criticisms should not detract from the valuable contribution that ‘Fasting’ brings to our understanding of the practice, reminding us that responding as whole beings can be an important part of spirituality.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Garber on diversity of calling
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
… most … eventually go home and help their fathers build buildings or grow corn, or become kindergarten teachers or university professors, and would not go to New Guinea with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. And if we were going to be faithful to our theological convictions, we would need to offer a picture to our students of that kind of diversity, viz. some who would go to plant churches in Kazakhstan and some who would go home to raise cattle. And, we would need to say loudly and plainly that these were equally honorable vocations, equally important callings to God in service to the world.
Alain de Botton on formation
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Twice recently I’ve come across items by Alain de Botton on moral formation. It seems that his current project is to take lessons on formation from religious practice and apply them to secular culture.
The first is Does more information mean we know less? which compares modern obsession with information:
The news occupies in the secular sphere much the same position of authority that the liturgical calendar has in the religious one. Its main dispatches track the canonical hours with uncanny precision. Matins have here been transubstantiated into the breakfast bulletin and Vespers into the evening report.
with the approach of religions
Rather than letting us constantly catch up on “news”, religions prefer to keep reminding us of the same old things, according to strictly timetabled routines.
With the implication that secular reading should, perhaps follow religions and return to a smaller number of readings repeatedly (and perhaps we might say liturgically?)
If we lament our book-swamped age, it is because we sense that it is not by reading more, but by deepening and refreshing our understanding of a few volumes that we best develop our intelligence and our sensitivity.
The second is Are Museums our new churches. In which he suggests that museums should be arranged in such away to encourage moral formation based on the artistic works they contain. This he bases on the way churches use art (though, I think he reduces the formation that churches are looking at as purely moral).
Both are worth a look. It is fascinating to see ourselves reflected in someone else’s mirror…
–
Addendum
Since writing, I rediscovered the following tweet from de Botton, which says it all…
“Atheists shouldnt denigrate religions, they should steal from them”
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...