Friday, August 04, 2006
Report from ‘Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts’: Week 2
Report from Week 2 of Writing as Christian Proclamation in Contemporary Contexts: The Truth’s Superb Surprise, led by Debra Rienstra of Calvin College, sponsored by CICW and hosted by Seminars in Christian Scholarship: (previous report)
Our second week took us from the richly textured work of Garret Keizer, Marilynne Robinson, and Vinita Wright to discussions of more informal and technology-driven forms of communication, including magazines, visual arts, and the Internet.
At the end of our last day, we went around and shared a word that represented a key area of reflection for us the past two weeks. Mine was “witness.” The very first two days of the seminar, when we talked about the increased blurring of spiritual memoir and apologetics, I seized on the word “witness” when it was offered as an umbrella over both. I’m no good at “witnessing” in the narrow evangelizing sense, but I’ve been challenged these past two weeks to witness in my writing and my life with even a fraction of the subtlety, beauty, wisdom, and hospitality of many of the voices we’ve encountered during the seminar.
We were all struck by the sense of community that formed early and intensely during these two weeks, more than we’ve experienced at other seminars and conferences. And we hatched a scheme to keep working, writing, and witnessing together; stay tuned!
Day 6: Stealth Proclamation
Books discussed:
Lauren Winner, Real Sex
Garret Keizer, The Enigma of Anger
Books recommended:
Donna Freitas, Becoming a Goddess of Inner Poise
Debra Rienstra, Great with Child
Discussion questions:
Some Christian authors address a topic of wide interest from the point of view of faith. Bookstores stock such books outside the religion/spirituality sections. Do they reach a wider audience? Does crossover work?
Summary statements:
Lauren Winner:
-combines confessional with essay format
-authority and voice:
combines old-style biblical proscription with new-style experiential
biblical material is presented authoritatively, but interpretation is rather literal
we appreciated:
-new approaches to naming lies in culture and church
-assertion of need for community (but “Hauerwas problem” here: idealized, abstract church community posited, but where is it?)
-response to shallow, disembodied “Kiss Dating Goodbye” stuff
we wished for:
-more narrative--textured stories of how it works well
-better vision of right practice, more emotional appeal
books mentioned: Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage; Susan Bergman, Anonymity
Garret Keizer:
general rejoicing over his style:
-poetic, lyrical, provocative, still accessible
-avoids easy path of self-help approach
we appreciated chapter on anger as privilege
this is proclamation in very broad sense:
reaches audience that does not wish to be proclaimed to in usual sense
this is a special kind of calling not often affirmed in Christian community
Day 7: Fiction
Books discussed:
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Vinita Hampton Wright, Dwelling Places
reviews of Gilead
Books recommended:
Suggested additional reading:
Vinita Hampton Wright, Velma Still Cooks in Leeway
Discussion Questions:
Why did Gilead win the Pulitzer? Is fiction a means of proclamation? What is the role of Christian fiction? Does anyone care about Christian poetry?
Summary statements:
Marilynne Robinson
Wood review reveals several assumptions reviewer is making:
-clergymen in novels are best left as comic characters
-piety and sermons are lethal to fiction
-good and virtuous characters are boring
-no one can maintain hope and conviction
-good people have no stories to tell
Siegel review assumptions:
-one cannot find appeal in books not written from one’s own faith perspective
-to express is to be militant and fearless
-the literati will swoon over Gilead only to prove their own open-mindedness
-one must accept a character’s beliefs to appreciate the character
-to focus on a moral dilemma in a novel is to define one’s characters by that dilemma
-not to have a nasty main character is a bad idea
-good characters are unbelieveable and only serve “fanatical certitude about” the author’s “values”
Gilead seems to have overwhelmed the first reviewer’s assumptions and won over. The book served to expose the other reviewer’s assumptions.
Why did it win the Pulitzer?
-experiment in form, successfully done
-highly condensed, limited action and point of view that remains compelling (we appreciated focus on inner practice of virtue, though not all readers would care)
-like 19th century novel without the sentiment or preachiness toward reader
-“processional pace” allows reader to see: luminescent
-rich historical background, given with trust in reader
on the other hand:
-some found pace slow, perspective a little stifling
-some found the goodness indeed a bit tedious
Robinson interview:
-religious mindset as “scrupulous inquiry”, way to clearer seeing (p. 40)
-art and religion both demand our practice of attention
-the distinction between faith-infused writing and “secular” writing is a recent distinction
Vinita Hampton Wright
things we appreciated about Dwelling Places:
-Rita: made us sympathetic to her overinvestment
-quoting of hymns
-honesty about life and sexuality: 66-year-old woman on first page
-excellent understanding of teenagers
-natural descriptions of church life and staff
-understanding of mental illness
-narrative strategy: giving Taylor his privacy even as narrator
-helped us understand pain of losing farm
-reverence for work
-scenes we loved:
father removing make-up from Young Taylor (confirmed YT as not just a cartoon)
grief service
description of curves of church vs. straight-lined landscape
-“sinewy” structure: chars and places and events interrelated
-approach to masculinity: both Gilead and DP are about men who have lost ability to function as men; both stories climax with man giving blessing as a key to masculinity; Mack’s struggle to regain dignity: despite all losses is presented with such respect
key themes and scenes
-Vinita’s focus: “What do you do when God’s geography changes?”
-the gothic: arises with a crisis of landscape, shift; a way to understand what we fear and cannot speak of
-YT figures out death without having to die (p. 280)
Day 8: Poetry; The Music and Film Industries as Theological Academies
Readings Discussed:
Lester Ruth, research on CCLI music and the Trinity
articles on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Discussion Questions:
Who needs to read when you can listen to music and watch movies? Are people gaining most of their theological and spiritual formation these days from music and film, both in and outside the church? What are they learning from it?
Summary Statements:
What about poetry?
-poetry has lost the cultural authority it once had
-do we need it?
it helps open up ambiguity
many people don’t like ambiguity!
pastor whose congregation d/n want to hear parables, prefer epistles and doctrine
-discomfort with poetic language related to Western rationalism and need for answers
results in tendency to overrationalize, even over-Christianize
results in literalist readings of Bible
-artists must help educate others in how to “read” art of all kinds, including language
-we need to take care with adjective “Christian” before any kind of art
-mentioned: Margaret Addison, poet; painter of Northern Nativity
Alan Jacobs’ concept of “charitable reading”
- can we practice that toward art not from the point of view of faith?
- can non-Christians practice that toward our work?
- can we practice that toward each other?
satire and sarcasm
-satire: comes from from position of love, affection, hope for change
-sarcasm: comes from position of derision and meanness
-is charitable satire possible? how is that adjudicated?
Lester Ruth’s work on Christian Worship Music
-some wondered why it matters whether worship music names Trinity
-some worried about criticism of the affective in worship
-is this different from past worship music?
-does it matter what is the theological content of song?
how we pray to God is how we learn to love God
we absorb ideas even when not being explicitly instructed
Lester’s insight helps understand
-how CWM is used: to evoke affective experience of God in worshiper
-and how it is developed: from composer through distributor into churches, without theological reflection
affective is critical in worship, but only one piece
-if we understand how CWM is intended, we can use it to do what it does best
-also acknowledge importance of other ways to use language in worship
discussion of the Jesus-as-boyfriend phenom in CWM and other expressions
- long tradition of love mysticism
- contemporary use, though, is “too easy”
- mystics put love mysticism in context of lives of spiritual discipline
we speak/sing as if we reach that point in an instant!
feeds into expectation of spiritual life as emotional experience
Narnia
is “a handful of images as good as an armful of arguments” – or better?
some of the critiques of the Narnia books are those we share, too
- importance of battle (worsened in movie)
- figure of Aslan as representing God: only does some aspects and not others
but can any book give the perfect picture of God/faith/etc.?
why the weight of criticism on Lewis and the Narnia books?
-partly because of the way the movie was used as proclamation
Day 9: The State of Christian Journalism
Guest speaker: Andy Crouch, editorial director for the Christian Vision Project and columnist at Christianity Today
Readings discussed:
Steven Prothero, American Jesus
articles by Andy Crouch
articles from Atlantic Monthly and other sources
Discussion Questions:
Who covers religion stories better: the mainstream media or Christian media? Why? Should we be thinking in terms of global audiences? How do we speak for “Christians” when we’re all stuck in one or another enclave? How do our various traditions empower and limit us? How do we speak to people who have no tradition?
Summary Statements:
- Christians can bring to the art world an understanding of the importance of community
art can arise from community: Christian artists can model this
- film clip on Makoto Fujimura:
he became “more Babylonian than the Babylonians”
this prompted recollection of play in which key line was:
“be like the Chaldeans in all unimportant ways”
can we be fully American/Canadian/whatever and fully Christian?
Mako is comfortable with language of exile: can we be?
Andy Crouch: state of Christian journalism
the culture of celebrity applies to Christian world, too
-we are ambivalent about this, but celebrities are inevitable
we need them because we can only handle a certain number of relationships, even fictive ones
so certain people become “nodes”
celebs themselves don’t necessarily package themselves: we do
-question for Christian journalists about celebs: how do we treat and present them?
-substance/personality
presentation of Hollywood celebs often detached from substance
much better in Christian world
Models of journalist enterprise:
1. journalist as servant
- serving subject/person (subordinate writer’s assumptions/prejudices)
- serving readers
- serving the truth
2. journalist as enemy
- “all journalism is betrayal”
- central tension for Christians:
- church aspires to community (defined as “no spare parts”)
media is NOT community
it’s about selection
evaluation without relationship
-still, we need media in complex world
3. journalism as accounting
- putting things in God’s account, by naming them and writing them down
- working as observer, one who sees, finding the holy (from Robinson’s interview)
charitable writing can be our goal (but what about the role of anger, critique, accountability, reprimand)
God’s activity in culture always
- raises up the powerless
- uses the powerful in ways they don’t expect
Day 10: The Internet; Conclusion
Materials discussed:
[websites recommended by participants]
Discussion Questions:
What will be the role of the internet in Christian proclamation ?
What future directions would we like to set for our shared task?
Summary Statements:
church/artist relationship:
-how can the church nurture artists and hold them accountable to levels of excellence
-can we think about “creative formation” similarly to spiritual formation?
- guilds or orders? patrons? apprenticeships?
- artists have to face the “business” of their art
The Internet
How is the internet changing proclamation?
-small communities
even when anchoring media is large (like Slate)
tribalism
very odd composition of these communities, though
-value-added factor is ability to link and comment
problem is that it’s hard to sustain topic
-accelerates ability for ideas to travel
-lower publishing threshold
- more informal style (advantage and disadvantage)
- broadcasting and narrow-casting at once
- search tools make connections we could never find another way
- best proclamation now: public diaries, back to personal?
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