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Helen Bar-Lev: "Two Zinnias"
2007-06-29 23:57:00
Two zinnias in a glazed vaseclipped by nuns' careful scissors,are the only decoration in this spartan    roomin a convent in Jerusalembut it is clean, the mattresses comfortableflagstone floors, yellow- and red-ochre,have been polished to a gleam by    passing shoesthese one hundred years, even moreWe have returned to Jerusalemafter an absence of some months ?a jittery city, it is more intolerable    than everhorns constantly honk, faces do not    smilecongestio n and pollution, agitation,congregate in its centretogether with beggars,street musicians, religious Jews, Arabsan incongruent conglomerationwhich beckons in a manner I cannot    fathomand repulses with vengeance,as though one reaction triggers    its opposite,a contradiction of emotionsthat is disturbing considering I    lived herefor so long and loved it with passion,wrote love poems i...
More About: Book Reviews , Helen , Elen

Good News for My Imaginary Friends
2007-06-29 23:29:00
Various chapters of my novel-in-progress have received honors over the past couple of months. I was waiting to announce them till I had an online publication to link to, but none yet, so here's the tally so far:"Pura siccome un angelo" was a runner-up for the Andre Dubus Award in Short Fiction sponsored by Words + Images, the literary journal of the University of Southern Maine, and appears in their beautifully illustrated 2007 issue, available here. This chapter finds my pair of gay lovers facing some bad news for their relationship."Julian's Yearbook," about one of those characters during his high school years, won an Honorable Mention in the E.M. Koeppel Short Fiction Award from Writecorner Press. It's been rumored that this story has been/will be broadcast on a radio station in the Berkshires; if I get any more info on that, I'll post the MP3."The Albatross," in which my sarcastic ten-year-old heroine gets saved and then un-saved by her evangelical&n...
More About: News , Site News , Friends , Good News , Good

Signs of the Apocalypse: Special Family Value Pack
2007-06-28 03:08:00
Two items from the Wall Street Journal made me think about how bizarrely commodified our intimate lives have become. Alexandra Alter reports ("The Baby-Name Business", June 22) on the latest service providers to capitalize on parental anxiety: consultants who, for a fee, will help you name your baby: Sociologists and name researchers say they are seeing unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children. As family names and old religious standbys continue to lose favor, parents are spending more time and money on the issue and are increasingly turning to strangers for help. Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren't too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They're also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas....The chief reason for the paraly...
More About: Family , Signs , Special , Apocalypse , Value

Thomas Merton on the Perils of Overachieving
2007-06-27 21:59:00
This apt quotation from the great contemplative writer Thom as Merton comes to me by way of Bishop Gordon Scruton's editorial in the June issue of Pastoral Staff, the newsletter of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts: There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist, fighting for peace by nonviolent means, most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes their work for peace. It destroys their own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of their work because it kills the inner wisdom which makes their work fruitful.
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Elisha Porat: "An Early Call"
2007-06-21 18:46:00
      to Aharon AmirYes, he recalled also a day of enlightenment: the imagined skeleton of his future life suddenly cleaved and he saw the innards of his life, the innards of his    years, the innards of the innards of himself in a sort    of mirror. Walking in green citrus groves whistling himself a tune, crying secretly,remembering words, packing them into    his notebook: collect, compile, convey, repeat. Seeing his days growing short and his nights    becoming petrified. And from afar, from the hill, a sudden sorrow pulls him: that time ran out and he did not finish and did not understand and already    he is called. Read more work by Israeli poet Elisha Porat at Magnapoets.
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Poems and Songs by Judith Goldhaber
2007-06-21 01:39:00
The sonnet comes as naturally as ordinary speech to poet Judith Goldhaber. I've enjoyed her versified retellings of classic fables in the book Sonnets from Aesop, illustrated with charming Chagall-like paintings by her husband Gerson. This YouTube video shows the Oakland Symphony Chorus performing "The Power of Light" from the musical "Falling Through a Hole in the Air: The Incredible Journey of Stephen Hawking" (book and lyrics by Judith Goldhaber, music by Carl Pennypacker). Judith is the lady with dazzling red hair who is standing behind the famous physicist. Here are the lyrics:The Power of Lighti.To touch the heart of a star,To feel the ground of being in the boundless,The edge of space,The edge of time,The edge of eternity...CHORUS:Feel the power of lightFeel the depth of the night,Long is the journey to our distant home,Worlds spin ?round us but we?re still alone,Darkness, silence, and the end so far,Who will speak to us and tell us where we are?And then....
More About: Songs , Poems , Book Reviews , Haber

God's Wrath, Christ's Peace, and the Culture Wars
2007-06-18 21:36:00
Catholic theologian James Alison's essay "Wrath and the gay question: on not being afraid, and its ecclesial shape" is not only the best explanation of the Atonement I've seen in a long while, but also represents (to my mind) a more helpful direction for gay-affirming Christians than merely hunting for proof-texts that support our position and explaining away those that don't. Alison contends that human societies constantly seek self-definition by scapegoating outsiders. When Christ, the only completely innocent person, voluntarily assumed the scapegoat role, he exposed the sinfulness of that entire system. Never again could we in good faith believe that spiritual purity depended on exclusion. If community must be founded on sacrifice, Christ was the sacrificial victim and the entire human race became a single community, united by our responsibility for his death and by his equal love for us all. Yet Alison also finds fault with the liberal "many fla...
More About: Peace , Culture , Bible , Wars , Culture War

Would Jesus Discriminate?
2007-06-18 21:00:00
The website "Would Jesu s Disc riminate?" offers a provocative new take on some familiar Bible stories. Using textual and historical analysis of the original Greek text, the authors claim that certain New Testament episodes are really about gay characters, such as the eunuch baptized by Philip in the book of Acts. I'm cautiously enthusiastic about this project. I'd like to believe that there are positive stories about gay people and relationships in the Bible, but there are two things that make me hesitate. First, I don't have the scholarly background to know how plausible these readings are. Second, it would be a shame if we went overboard and read a sexual component into all stories of intimate friendship (e.g. David and Jonathan), as our pop-Freudian suspicious culture is wont to do. Anyhow, click the billboards on their site and let me know what you think.

Philip Nikolayev: "Ideers"
2007-06-18 20:29:00
Bash'um hard with a hunk o' lard, cowboy,when they come 'ere to seduce our sons and daughters,the only sons and daughters we have,with their damn ideers. They think ideersare worth somethin' like a Bushel O'Porkper each. Trahahahaha. They eschew the feelin's of patriotism, peals of chivalry'n' private property like. So what does we careto preserve them as a subspecies? Bein' ourselvesof solid as rock good local stock 'n' rooted in these very hills that we cultivate,bein' so local that the mind races overaeons of banjo-tinklin' memory of rootslike echoes in the prairied valley, beingprecisely that kinda stock, honest blue grass treadin',we're buyin' none of that Uruguay political correctness.None, I be tellin' ya m's'ladies!We automatic'lyput that subspecies under suspicion, zitwere.The shmuck (pardon me, Sir, me umbilical vernacular) hadta be tryin' tospray us around wi' hi' curlture. He said he be a-dribblin' learnin' into our headswi' like critical thinki...
More About: Book Reviews , Hili , Niko

Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Defeated in Massachusetts
2007-06-14 20:05:00
This just in from Stanley Rosenberg, our state senator for Northampton:"Knowing of your interest regarding the proposed Marriage Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution, I am writing to provide an update on the Constitutional Convention held today, June 14th 2007. "I am pleased to report that at this the 18th Constitutional Convention meeting on the question of same-sex marriage, the members present and voting defeated the proposed amendment by a vote of 151-45. This means that the amendment will not advance to the November 2008 ballot. "This is a significant victory for the civil rights of the gay and lesbian community. When the debate began 18 Conventions ago, there were only a couple dozen people in the Legislature that believed that Civil Unions or Same-Sex Marriages should be allowed. Over the years, as a result of the public debate and deep reflection, that number grew to 151. This is truly a reflection of the shifting views not only of the Legislators but also of their co...
More About: Site News , Gay Marriage

Christian Wiman on Illness, Love, and Rediscovering Faith
2007-06-14 19:52:00
This beautiful essay from Christian Wiman, editor of the venerable journal Poetry, describes how falling in love and diagnosis with a fatal illness revitalized both his poetry and his faith. Wiman writes: If I look back on the things I have written in the past two decades, it?s clear to me not only how thoroughly the forms and language of Christianity have shaped my imagination, but also how deep and persistent my existential anxiety has been. I don?t know whether this is all attributable to the century into which I was born, some genetic glitch, or a late reverberation of the Fall of Man. What I do know is that I have not been at ease in this world. Poetry, for me, has always been bound up with this unease, fueled by contingency toward forms that will transcend it, as involved with silence as it is with sound. I don?t have much sympathy for the Arnoldian notion of poetry replacing religion. It seems not simply quaint but dangerous to make that assumption, even implicitly, perh...
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"Lonely Tier" and "Flash" by Conway
2007-06-14 19:45:00
Here are some new poems by "Conway," a prisoner at a supermax facility in central California who's serving 25-to-life under the state's three-strikes law for receiving stolen goods. In his May 2 letter, he writes that he was recently relocated to a new cell block whose yard has a much-appreciated view of the outside world:"I have moved to another place and the cages we get to go to for yard for four hours two or sometimes three times a week, are in perfect view of the entrance road to this facility, so we get to see cars trucks and motorcycles drive in and out and there are these trees along the outside perimeter that are shedding these seeds when the wind blows, thousands of little paper flowers searching for a home to grow roots, a very nice change of scenery from being behind the wall for so long. I saw a woman ride by the other day on a bicycle and wrote a poem about her, not sure if you would approve though, kind of racy :)"Lone ly Tier Each night I sleep on this ston...
More About: Flash , Lash , Lonely

Reminder: Massachusetts Vote on Gay Marriage June 14
2007-06-11 19:48:00
Just a reminder to readers of this blog who live in Massachusetts and support gay marriage: The state legislature will vote this Thursday, June 14, on whether to place a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November 2008 ballot. Now is the time to call or email your state senator and representative, and if you live near Boston, join the MassEquality demonstrations at the Statehouse. This vote has important ramifications beyond the gay community. Allowing majority rule to restrict the civil rights of a minority is contrary to the spirit of the Bill of Rights. It's cheap and easy for people with nothing at stake to cast a symbolic vote that disproportionately burdens a few. What authorizes us, the straight majority, to wield this power? As Christians, can we really say it's our duty to collude with Caesar to correct what some of us consider the sinfulness of another's private life? Gay people are not going to form straight families...
More About: Site News , Marriage , Gay Marriage

Bishop Schori Interviewed by Bill Moyers
2007-06-09 15:35:00
The PBS program Bill Moyers Journal yesterday interviewed Bish op Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA and the first woman to lead a national Anglican church. Schori is an interesting figure. As the interview shows, her background as an oceanographer gives her an appreciation of the diversity of God's creation. Science also shapes her historical awareness that tradition and expert opinion always evolve in response to new data, and that somehow the enterprise (be it science or religion) can continue through change without losing legitimacy. Moyers' leading questions got on my nerves; he persisted in framing the issues as us-versus-them, seeming not to hear Schori's primary emphasis on reconciliation, coexistence and patience. The transcript and video are both available on the site, along with background material on the conflict over homosexuality in the church. I may be asking too much from television, but I wish the cultur...
More About: Bible

Abandoned by Liberalism
2007-06-06 17:38:00
Today's post from Hugo Schwyzer perfectly describes both the ethical strengths and the one great spiritual weakness of liberal mainline churches. I'd only add that the needs he describes are in no way limited to teens. The church in question is All Saints Pasadena in California. This flagship church of American Anglican liberalism is very, very good at encouraging individual exploration. We are very good at raising awareness of suffering in the broader world. We are very, very good at teaching young people how to ask the right theological questions. We are very, very good at instilling suspicion of any person or institution who cllaims to have The One True Answer. We are, most of the time, pretty good at loving kids ?where they?re at? instead of where we think they should be.But we liberal Episcopalians are often not so good at helping kids to come to certainties. Too often, when a young person in pain asks ?where is God when I need Him??, the institutional response is to say ?Ah,...
More About: Liberalism , Libera , Done , Abandon , Abandoned

Resolving Realities: GLBT Christians, Love, and Law Versus Grace
2007-06-04 00:35:00
David at Resolving Realities makes one of the more thorough arguments I've seen for why same-sex love is compatible with Biblical authority. I particularly appreciate how he goes beyond reinterpretation of specific verses to lay out a theory of Christian sexual morality. As the comments thread demonstrates, he wisely refrains from claiming that his is the only plausible reading of the text, merely that the pro-gay reading is one reasonable interpretation and therefore should not be a litmus test for whether you take the Bible seriously (as it has become in the Anglican Church's present schism). Some highlights (boldface emphasis mine): It is stunning to me that some Christians are willing to site Levitical mandates as a source of morality. If one desires to give Old Testament law, there is simply no way around justifying the commands, for we see even our Lord declaring, contra the Mosaic code, that ?nothing that goes into a man can make him unclean?. Both Christ and his apost...
More About: Love , Grace , Versus

Prison Poetry by Shrong Clemons
2007-06-03 17:35:00
The PBS documentary series NOW ran an episode this week about an innovative program in the Sheridan Correctional Center of Illinois that aims to reduce recidivism by combining therapy, education and follow-up counseling for released convicts. In this video clip, former drug dealer and gang member Shrong Clemons, who became a model prisoner during his 20-month stay at Sheridan, performs three of his poems. Watch the whole episode here.
More About: Poetry , Prison , Poet , Riso , Lemons

In Memoriam: Sarah Hannah
2007-06-02 16:43:00
Yesterday's Tupelo Press newsletter brought the tragic news that one of their talented authors, Sarah Hanna h , had taken her own life. An award-winning poet and literature professor at Emerson College, Sarah was the author of two collections, Longing Distance and Inflorescence, both from Tupelo. The press will hold a memorial service and tribute reading for her at Poets House in New York City in September. Meanwhile, flowers and expressions of sympathy may be sent to her family at the following address: Nathan and Harriet Goldstein, 17 Metropolitan Avenue, Ashland, MA 01721. The following poem is reprinted by permission from Longing Distance:The Colors Are Off This SeasonI don't want any more of this mumble?Orange fireside hues,Fading sun, autumnal tumble,Stricken, inimitable?Rose.I want Pink, unthinking, true.Foam pink, cream and coddle, Miniskirt, Lolita, pompom, tutu,Milkshake. Pink without the mottleOr the dying fall. Pink adored, a thrallSo pale it's practically white.A ...
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"Stream of Thought" and Other Poems by "Conway"
2007-05-31 20:28:00
"Conway", a prisoner at a supermax facility in central California who's serving 25-to-life under the state's three-strikes law for receiving stolen goods, has sent me some new poems that I share below. Writing materials are often scarce for him, so he composed these on the back of an official memo listing the rules for the Administrative Segregation unit (as I understand it, a variety of solitary confinement). Excerpts from that document are in italics below.Stream of Thought Take a step back, through the open doorSlide a pace forward on this polished flooranalyze the truth, judgments always doineffectually, mendaciously for me and you.Which shadow that falls, which court has set asideCensured from my youth, where folly used to ridespringing out of the deepest roots revealedbrought forth by the lies that truth concealed.Is it candles on an altar, or sacrificial breador some speculated monologue of what was saidwould thee that I banished a tenacious thoughtstagnating in the streams ...
More About: Poems

John Stackhouse on Rethinking Christian Missions
2007-05-30 20:52:00
In the latest issue of Books & Culture, theology professor John Stackhouse, Jr. (Regent College, Vancouver) lays out a more inclusive vision of Christian missionary work: one that respects the spiritual riches as well as the limitations of all religious traditions (including our own), and that saves not only individual souls but their bodies, their communities and their environment. It was hard to choose excerpts from this essay because every paragraph seemed essential and worth quoting. Here are some highlights, but go read the whole thing while access is still free: Christians typically have believed that those who have not heard the name of Jesus are simply lost and destined for hell. Much of the energy of the great 19th-century missionary movement among Westerners, and much of the impetus of missions work around the world to this day, has come from the horror of a Niagara of souls pouring into a lost eternity for want of an evangelist.We also need to acknowledge, howeve...
More About: Missions , Sion , Mission

Self-Esteem the Christian Way
2007-05-29 16:08:00
Martin Luther once observed that when your ego trip has crashed and burned, and your pride is no longer keeping you from God, the devil tries to use your shame to keep you estranged. It is so important to remember we are not God, and not anywhere near as holy and righteous as He is. It is equally important not to dwell morbidly on this fact, such that we don't dare to feel loved by God. The fact is, the righteousness gap between us and God is qualitatively greater than the differences between any of us. The person who is over-scrupulous and timid about not leaning on God's love does not gain any significant moral advantage over the person who boldly throws his flawed self at Jesus' feet. Personally, I've found that I have a harder time accepting God's grace for myself than for other people. I have this deep-rooted semiconscious conviction that He doesn't like me. I can imagine Him feeling affection for the characters in my novel, even though they're unbelievers who have ...
More About: Christian , Self Esteem , Este , Esteem

Book Notes: The Fall of Interpretation
2007-05-28 21:09:00
The thesis of Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith's The Fall of Interpretation : Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic is simple and revolutionary: The necessity of interpretation -- the impossibility of unmediated, perspective-free experience of a text or an event -- is not a tragedy nor a barrier to truth, but an acceptable aspect of being a finite creature. Complete interpretive agreement, which history shows us is impossible, is not the only way to maintain the authority of a text such as the Bible or the Constitution. Smith argues that giving up the ideal of total, self-evident consensus will not lead to chaos because tradition and real-world experience constrain the number of interpretations we will actually find useful. Hermeneutics is the branch of philosophy dealing with theories of interpretation. From Plato to today's evangelical scholars and deconstructionist philosophers, there's a common assumption that the neces...
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Humility in a Mass Culture
2007-05-28 20:38:00
On the Chabad.org website, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, shares his thoughts about the "lost virtue" of humility in a mass culture where our fears of anonymity and loneliness drive us to frantic self-display: Humility is the orphaned virtue of our age. Charles Dickens dealt it a mortal blow in his portrayal of the unctuous Uriah Heep, the man who kept saying, "I am the 'umblest person going." Its demise, though, came a century later with the threatening anonymity of mass culture alongside the loss of neighbourhoods and congregations. A community is a place of friends. Urban society is a landscape of strangers. Yet there is an irrepressible human urge for recognition. So a culture emerged out of the various ways of "making a statement" to people we do not know, but who, we hope, will somehow notice. Beliefs ceased to be things confessed in prayer and became slogans emblazoned on t-shirts. A comprehensive repertoire developed of signalling individuality, fro...
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Marilynne Robinson on Poetry and Religion
2007-05-28 18:05:00
Novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson (The Death of Adam) reviews Harold Bloom's new anthology American Religious Poems in the May 2007 issue of Poet ry magazine. The book itself is merely the jumping-off point for an eloquent, original essay on how poetry and religion both need and exceed the boundaries of rational analysis. Some highlights: Any reader of Ecclesiastes or the Book of Job is aware that the canon of scripture has room for thought that can disrupt conventional assumptions about the nature of belief, whether these assumptions are held by the religious or by their critics. Indeed, religion is by nature restless with itself, impatient within the constraints of its own expression....Any writer who has wearied of words knows the feeling of being limited by the very things that enable. To associate religion with unwavering faith in any creed or practice does no justice at all to its complexity as lived experience. Creeds themselves exist to stabilize the intense spec...
More About: Religion , Gion , Lynn

Hail Thee, Festival Day
2007-05-27 23:52:00
Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, on which we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. The story is told in Acts 2:1-21. In the Episcopal service I attended today, this passage was read alongside the story of Babel in Genesis. At the beginning of the Bible's history of the human race, God created language barriers in order to thwart our plans to build a tower that would reach to heaven. At Pentecost, by contrast, the Holy Spirit made it possible for Jews from many nations, who were in the synagogue for the harvest festival of Shavuos, to understand the apostles' preaching as if it were in their own language. So does God want diversity or uniformity? To me, the juxtaposition of these stories suggests that God wants us united only under His banner. We couldn't be trusted at Babel to use our communicative powers for good. Perhaps he allowed us to experience linguistic boundaries in order to teach us that we are creatures with a li...
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Said Sayrafiezadeh: "Forbidden Fruit"
2007-05-25 22:52:00
In this excerpt from his forthcoming memoir about growing up Communist in America, Iranian-American essayist Said Sayrafiezadeh turns a childhood memory of his mother's grape boycott into a darkly comic, profound meditation on how desire is whetted by prohibition: In 1973, when I was four years old, César Chávez, president and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, called for a national boycott of iceberg lettuce and table grapes. The Socialist Workers Party, which my mother was a member of, honored the boycott immediately. Under no circumstances, my mother informed me, were iceberg lettuce and grapes permitted in our household any longer.... Even though my mother never once relinquished and allowed grapes to cross the threshold of our apartment, they became a constant, unyielding presence in my life, following me like a shadow. There were political posters about not eating grapes, fliers about not eating grapes, T-shirts about not eating grapes, conversations about not eating grap...
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Christine Potter: "The Sorrow of Early Spring"
2007-05-25 22:14:00
Noon finds each dry leaf piledunder each empty tree. No wind.Light carries sudden heat?the scentof sugar or blossom?but nothingis up except onion grass. The bleached, papery skullof a snake casts its thumb-sizedshadow. That sad thing, that sad thinghas returned. It closes your throatto the words which mightgive it ease. You can?t yet countyour losses, or say which budswon?t open their small wings;the earth?s too tender for walking.But the usual fever has gildedthe willows. The gas-blue sky stings.     &nbs p;reprinted by permission of The Pedestal MagazineRead more fine writing in the latest Pedestal issue. I especially enjoyed the poems by Dana Sonnenschein and John Hazard.
More About: Spring , Potter , Early , Otter , Christine

Common Ground for a Schismatic Church
2007-05-23 22:33:00
Episcopal preacher Sarah Dylan Breuer, who blogs over at Sarah Laughed, has suggested this list of core beliefs to remind both factions of our divided communion that our similarities in essential matters may outweigh our differences. The comments below her post offer worthwhile additions, mainly emphasizing human sin and the necessity for grace. Other commenters note with dismay that some liberal churches within ECUSA now reject the very idea of collective agreement on doctrine. Sarah's list: Jesus is Lord. Jesus and the God who created the universe are one. The Old and New Testaments were inspired by God, and are useful for teaching and Christian formation (a la 2 Timothy 3:16-17). Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical person who was born of Mary, gathered disciples and taught, healed, and confronted evil powers in ministry the first-century Roman province of Palestine, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate's authority. Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ of God. The Go...
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Chabad.org: Living a Life Through Faith
2007-05-23 21:44:00
Life coach Chaya Abelsky shares her thoughts on the Hasidic website Chabad.org on what it means to live a life inspired by faith. Excerpts: Faith is not a relinquishing of responsibility. It is not an excuse for inaction that allows us to say, "The situation is out of my hands, G?d will look after it." On the contrary, it is only when we push ourselves to the limit of our own abilities that we begin to experience true faith. Faith is the confidence of knowing that having reached a point at which we can honestly say we have done all that we can, that everything else ? all that is not within our own control - will look after itself.But this confidence we experience is not faith itself, it is a result of faith. Faith is more than just a mind set. Faith is not merely something inside us, an emotion we experience like joy or satisfaction. Faith reaches out beyond us and transforms the world around us. When we approach the world with faith, it is a power that flows from a deep well within...
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Christ-Symbol or Christ-Substitute?
2007-05-23 01:26:00
Today my Bible study group listened to a taped sermon on Romans 8 by the estimable Tim Keller, a Presbyterian minister in NYC, who mentioned how examples of self-sacrificing love in books or movies can help us emotionally understand Christ 's gift to us. For instance, Keller suggested we could view Sidney Carton in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities as a symbol of the substitutionary atonement. This reminded me of an email discussion I had with Dr. Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments last year about whether Dickens' novels were truly Christian. Do figures like Carton, or Florence Dombey (whose endurance of child abuse finally melts her father's heart), point us toward the realization that we need Christ as savior, or away from the gospel and towards believing that we can be saved by human love alone?Is the problem with the whole genre of the modern realist novel, in which God must remain an implicit presence and only human action is directly visible? Aslan can function as a Chri...
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