Hieropraxis

Red Booth Notes: “Chariots of Fire” Writer Colin Welland – A Gentleman and Artist

2012-05-09T16:26:01Z

Every now and again, you meet someone you know you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Ten years ago, I met Colin Welland, screenwriter for the now classic film, Chariots of Fire. We were only together in Hollywood for a few days, but I feel as though I was given a lifetime of memories when in his company.

I have a cherished friend, the gifted producer Ken Wales, to thank for my introduction. Just after Ken and I grabbed a quick, tasty lunch at the In and Out hamburger restaurant, we drove over to LAX to collect Colin. Since he had to go through US Customs, Ken stood ready to meet him at one end of the exit, while I took a perch atop a Smarte-Carte luggage caddy to get the best view of the other side of the gate. I’d been told that Colin’s knees were giving him trouble, and to look for a man in a wheelchair.

After a while, Ken and I came back the same place to wait together for Colin, as there was a bit of a delay. Then, as we were stood waiting, Colin walked up to us from behind. Ken saw him first, and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round and Ken said, “Kevin, meet Colin Welland.”

“How do you do?” Colin said with a smile, and we shook hands.

Colin Welland (pic from UK's The Telegraph 1982)

Looking over my diary entries for those days, and for a few days after, I’m deeply grateful that I wrote so many things down about the visits Ken and I had with Colin as we discussed a possible film project.

As we drove around Los Angeles together for a brief tour of places Ken knew well, and wanted us to see, Colin and I found we had something in common in our love of sports. In his younger days, he’d taken part in many a cricket or rugby match, and I had no trouble believing him. Then in his sixties, he still looked as though he could give opposing players a run for their money! He was pleased when I spoke of the great West Indian batsman, Brian Lara, and then proceeded to tell Ken and I several stories about Dickie Bird, the legendary international cricket umpire. It was a great way to begin to get to know one another, and Colin was glad to hear that I was still playing league softball—indeed that we’d just won our league championship. We reminisced some more about matches and games that we’d played, and at one point, Colin quipped, “the older you get, the better you were!”

A few hours later, we stopped at a restaurant for dinner, and I gave Colin a present to thank him for all that Chariots of Fire had meant to me: a 100-year-old copy of the Oxford University Press edition of William Cowper’s Poems. No sooner did he have it in hand, than he began to sing “God Moves In A Mysterious Way,” the great hymn that draws on Cowper’s verse. People turned and looked at us, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Colin to do. I suppose people might be likely to do any number of things in a Los Angeles restaurant, and I remember thinking, “even still, I’ll bet this is a new one.”

* * *

What followed over the few days are a series of conversations and moments that I remember fondly as really human things. Colin showed me pictures of his wife Pat, and his grandson. In kind, I showed him a picture of my wife Kelly, at which point he asked, “When are you coming over to England next?” He had, he said, a great love of The Lake District, country dear to the poet William Wordsworth, and offered to take us there when we were next in England.

Mention of Wordsworth drew forth an impromptu recitation of favourite lines from poetry and plays—Wordsworth and lines from Macbeth from Colin, while I recited lines from the American Robert Coffin’s poem, “Strange Holiness.”

At lunch one afternoon, the subject of faith came up. Though a self-described agnostic, Colin told Ken and me that he had “a little flame of faith.” He told us of his great admiration for a Methodist clergyman at whose funeral he’d given the eulogy. Then, with roguish look in his eye, he spoke of his friendship with the Catholic priest who served the church where he dropped his wife off for Mass each week. Each time, the priest strode over to Colin’s car and shook hands, saying, “We haven’t gotten you yet, but we will…”

Ken Wales with Kevin (scouting locations in York, England & and NYC Amazing Grace premiere)

Shakespeare was a recurring topic of conversation, and I knew I was being treated to a rare privilege when Colin spoke of the great actors and performances he’d known and witnessed.

Fascinating as this was, however, it was Colin’s Shakespearian memories of another sort that I’ll always treasure. He told me that at one point in his younger years, he’d decided to teach Shakespeare to the children who were cruelly called “thick kids” by some at a local school for the mentally impaired. Derided with comments like “You’re wasting your time,” or “they’ll never get it,” Colin and his colleagues persevered. Hearing him speak of performing Shakespeare for these children, and teaching them lines they could retain, was profoundly moving. Somehow, the clouds parted for them, and they experienced a new world through the words and acting that Colin and his colleagues allowed them to experience.

Laughter was never far away during those days. Somehow or other, I thought to mention how much I liked the great British actor Barry Fitzgerald’s performance in the John Ford/John Wayne film The Quiet Man. In a thrice, Ken and I were being regaled with stories that had us wiping tears from our eyes, we’d laughed so hard. We also learned that Colin had a great fondness for Al Jolson songs, and I think he pretty much worked his way through the entire Jolson songbook before we parted company.

And to be sure, Colin spoke often of the screenplays he’d written, or the creation of films that he witnessed first-hand. I heard stories about the 1971 film, Straw Dogs, directed by Sam Peckinpah, and how the film’s star, Dustin Hoffman—and Peckinpah—were in cahoots to generate scared expressions on fellow actors’ faces.

Colin spoke of his work on two superb films, Kes and Yanks. He’d acted in Kes, playing the character, Mr. Farthing. Though the film, about a young boy’s training of a pet falcon, was released in 1969, Colin said children still came up to him, recognizing him from that performance.

Yanks was a film for which Colin had written the screenplay. Starring Richard Gere, the film traces the sometimes stormy, sometimes deeply poignant relations that developed between American servicemen and British citizens during the darkest days of World War II.

So much of the script, Colin said, was based on memories of his childhood. One rather dashing young American serviceman had grown close to two little girls he knew, daughters of a local pub owner. He regaled them with stories of America, and they warmed to his kindness and charm. He was larger than life. They treasured his memory, and the many ways this unlikely friend helped them get through the war.

While researching the film, Colin decided to look this man up. Then living in Illinois, drink had tragically robbed this once vibrant man of his youth and strength. He was only a pale shadow of his former self. Colin grieved to see him this way. But then, when he arranged for a call to be put through to the pub owners’ daughters, now grown young women, a remarkable transformation took place. Colin grew quiet as he described it.

“So soon as this man heard their voices on the phone, the years fell away. He straitened, and spoke to them as I’d always heard them speak of him in their memory. No ocean stood between them, nor the space of 30 years. Somehow, that broken man became his younger self. Then, as he set the phone down, the magic faded. It was all so fleeting, but it was there.”

Last of all, Colin told us many things about the making of Chariots of Fire. My favourite memory is when Colin spoke of his research for the film, of sitting in a darkened film projection room as grainy old footage from the British sports archives flashed across the screen. Scenes from the 1920s lived again. Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams ran as they had done when the eyes of the world were upon them, and when they had won Olympic gold. “It was then I heard myself saying,” Colin remembered, “Don’t worry, lads, I’ll get it right.”

Each time I look at the DVD copy of Chariots that Colin signed for me, I remember that—along with his kindness, singing, and laughter. I always will.[1]

[1] This picture of Colin Welland is taken from an image accompanying Des Lynam’s article for The Telegraph (a newspaper published in the UK), “Stage is set for new golden age at London 2012,” posted online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/8362248/Des-Lynam-Stage-is-set-for-new-golden-age-at-London-2012.html

On the Importance of Terminology: Evolution

2012-05-13T02:59:41Z

Words. When it comes to communication, everything, literally everything, comes down to words. A vast system of sentences, propositions, grammatical structure, arguments, and syllogisms are all constructed with words. Behind every word is a set of meanings. In this sense, words are merely a placeholder, a token, through which everyone receives the meaning intended by the speaker or author.

What happens when words lose their meaning? What happens to communication? That region of communication dependent on those ambiguous words begins to fall apart. This post is a reminder of a particular example that has no small import for Christian apologetics, evolution.

The word evolution can be used in a variety of contexts. Consider the following from Webster’s New World College Dictionary:

an unfolding, opening out, or working out; process of development, as from a simple to a complex form, or of gradual, progressive change, as in a social and economic structure

Defined in this manner the term can be used to refer to almost anything. This very post went through a process of evolution from its inspiration through the process of writing, editing and posting.

Yet such examples are not where the problem lies. Stephen Meyer and Michael Keas have identified six different meanings for the word “evolution” just within the context of Biology.[1] This state of affairs is frequently lost on those engaged in debates about human origins or how to integrate science and the Bible. The definitions cited by Meyer and Keas range from the benign and undisputed, “change over time” to what they refer to as the “blind watchmaker thesis” where natural, unguided processes are responsible for the origin and development of all life. This diverse range of meaning results in many examples of the fallacy of equivocation or ambiguity. Materialists will introduce the “change over time” version then soon argue that “blind watchmaker thesis” must also be accepted as true. Young earth creationists will sometimes argue that accepting an ancient universe is equivalent to accepting the entire “blind watchmaker” package.

Once one ventures outside of the academic and popular science circles, the scope of definitions that are poured into that word are as varied as the people you may encounter. In short, in order to have an intelligible discussion, it is impossible to use the word evolution without determining what is meant by its use.

I would suggest even admonish any thoughtful person, whether agnostic or Christian, skeptic or apologist, do not fall prey to people who use the word evolution in a sloppy or cavalier manner. Whenever you encounter it in any context remotely related to biology, do yourself and other a favor, press for the specific meaning intended. If an answer is not offered or available, less communication will occur, but there will also be less confusion.

[1] Stephen C. Meyer and Michael Newton Keas, “The Meanings of Evolution,” in Darwinism, Design and Public Education (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2003), 135–156.

Why I Am Going to Houston Baptist University: The Ten Pillars (Part 3)

2012-05-13T04:10:37Z

In Fall 2012 I start work at Houston Baptist University. My job description? Change the world.

Houston is the right place at the right time to do this work. Read John Mark Reynolds’ take on it. You may want to come to Houston too, and if you think that, take it seriously. It is a city that not only has great apologists, but also people who love literature and the arts. My fellow Hieropraxis contributor Andrew Lazo has already laid claim to the endeavor of starting the CS Lewis Society of Houston…he will not have any trouble getting that membership list filled!

In part 1 and part 2 of this piece, I talked about the first six of the Ten Pillars, the vision statement that guides Houston Baptist University. Here are the final four pieces of the vision:

7. Bring Athens and Jerusalem together.

“A university is a cultural center and a place for invitation and engagement. Athens and Jerusalem can meet on a campus in the city of Houston.” Yes indeed!

Houston Baptist University is a place where the intellectual and cultural life, nourished and cultivated on campus, intersects with the life of the community. The campus is a space for engagement – and that is perfect for apologetics. St Paul preached on Mars Hill and quoted from the Greek literature of the day to help present the Gospel to the Athenians. Athens met Jerusalem, and the world was changed.

HBU has three museums: the Durham Bible Museum, the Museum of American Architecture and Domestic Arts, and the Museum of Southern History. The Morris Cultural Arts Center includes a recital hall and a theatre. HBU has made the space for engagement to happen

8. Expand our commitment to the creative arts: visual, musical, and literary.

This is part of the vision of HBU:

“It has been said that the writer of songs influences a culture more than the politician exercising power. What is surely true is that our God is a creative God who brought a beautiful world into existence and filled it with people capable of appreciating beauty. Similarly, just as we believe human beings are made in God’s image, we believe He provided the ability to create artistically as a reflection of his creative glory. The Christian university, committed to the worship of the Creator God, and thus to both aesthetic appreciation and creation, must be involved in the arts.”

I am an academic and a Christian apologist… and by the grace and gift of God, also a poet. Could there be a better place for me than HBU? I think not.

9. Cultivate a strong global focus.

The Gospel is for all people, everywhere. One of the challenges of cultural apologetics is to find ways to share the good news of God in Christ, and remove obstacles to faith, in ways that make sense for people in their particular cultural contexts.

Study abroad and language learning are important parts of learning how to be a gracious, informed, productive citizen in the 21^st century. I am excited to be part of an educational program that recognizes the necessity of both local community (in residential learning and community involvement) and global outreach.

10. Move to the next level as an institution.

And finally, I am excited about HBU because the university recognizes the importance of its role in our culture — and is stepping forward boldly to fill the need.

HBU has a brilliant vision that means educating with a ‘mere Christian’ vision to change the world for the cause of Christ:

“Christians of all stripes – evangelicals, other Protestants, and Catholics – must re-engage their historic commitments to the foundational importance of a university education that is marked by the distinctive convictions and values of historic Christianity. The church must again consider the university as part of its mission because the university is so closely tied to the future of the society.”

HBU is growing as an undergraduate university — moving steadily forward in increasing the size of incoming classes. It is also growing, very intentionally, as a graduate university, with new MA degrees such as the MA in Philosophy. More degrees are in development, including an MA in Apologetics.

The vision is clear:

“The foundation of all the efforts detailed here will be to produce graduates who have been challenged to think carefully and critically, to write and speak clearly and effectively, to demonstrate integrity in their daily lives, and to see their faith as being important both to their behavior and to their way of thinking.”

Great things are ahead… and I am grateful for, and astonished at, the goodness of God that I get a chance to participate in them.

We are going to change the world.

And that is why I am going to Houston Baptist University.

Why I Am Going to Houston Baptist University: The Ten Pillars (Part 2)

2012-05-13T02:51:24Z

In Fall 2012, I start work as a full professor at Houston Baptist University… No one who has been following my work will be surprised to learn that I am coming on board in order to help develop a MA in Apologetics, a sister program to the already-created MA in Philosophy (which has an Apologetics Certificate included — and is accepting applicants right now for the Fall 2012 semester!)

My colleagues include John Mark Reynolds, Nancy Pearcey, Mary Jo Sharp, Michael Licona, Lou Markos, and other outstanding scholars. It is quite the team!

Why Houston Baptist University? Many reasons, but they all rest on the solid foundation of HBU’s vision and commitment to become a beacon of excellence in Christian education.

Mary Jo Sharp and Holly Ordway at Houston Baptist University

The Ten Pillars are the ten principles that guide HBU’s work. In Part 1 I discussed the first three pillars. Now let me pick up with Pillar 4:

4. Establish a residential society of learning.

A strong residential focus for education is not just good pedagogy, it’s good theology.

Part of the challenge of Christian education is to push back against the naturalistic, secular idea that our bodies don’t matter – that we can educate minds without forming the whole person, body and soul. We are made in the image of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we are made for community and relationship. Ours is an incarnational faith, because the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.

The residential society is most critical for undergraduates, for whom residential life in a Christian community could, literally, be where they set their feet on the path of life. I have been teaching a diverse body of undergraduates at a commuter school for the past seven years. Our young people crave connection and meaning. A residential society of learning will help them in their studies, their relationships, and their walk with Christ.

A residential society of learning is not just for undergraduates, but for graduate students and faculty as well! It is how the faculty relate with each other and with students. It is how graduate students relate to each other and to faculty. It is a commitment to a particular place as our “home ground” for learning, and to the process of mentoring and discipleship.

5. Increase our cultural impact through our faculty.

Intellectuals from the secular universities have had a powerful shaping influence on our culture – and not for the good. To change this trend, to recover reason and reshape the imagination of the West for Christ, we need to do more than pastoral triage when our young people have their faith shaken in college, or intellectual rear-guard action to defend against wrong ideas that have taken root in scholarship. We must go out into the intellectual, academic world as Christians doing great work in whatever field we are in.

Houston Baptist University has made a commitment to give its faculty the time and encouragement to do research, write, publish, and speak in their fields. I am tremendously excited by this important commitment to engaging with culture in order to transform it. In addition to my teaching, mentoring, and administrative work, I will be actively writing and speaking, especially in my field of specialty, imaginative and literary apologetics, and proudly listing my Houston Baptist University affiliation!

You will see me in November when I speak on Literature and Apologetics at the 2012 Evangelical Philosophical Society Apologetics Conference. And I will be speaking at a conference sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Society of Madison, Wisconsin and the Bradshaw-Knight Foundation: The Ten Books That Most Influenced C.S. Lewis. But wait! Not just me, but also Louis Markos, also of HBU! Here are our topics:

The Aeneid by Virgil presented by Dr. Louis Markos from Houston Baptist University.
Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams presented by Dr. Holly Ordway, Houston Baptist University.

6. Renew our campus, renew our community.

One of the things that I immediately loved about Houston Baptist University when I set foot on campus for the first time is the feel of “place.” The campus is in the city, as part of the community, yet it also has its own distinct identity as a physical location, with enclosing walls, a beautiful (and beautifully symbolic) gate of entry, lovely greenspace with magnolia trees, and buildings that reflect a commitment to architectural grace and beauty. This is a university that knows that it belongs exactly where it is, and that has its roots deep in Texas soil and the Houston community so that it can produce students and scholars of distinction for the entire nation. New buildings are going up, and new connections are being made with the local high schools and the local community. I am excited to see what great things will happen in the days to come…

Read Part 3 here…

Why I’m Going to Houston Baptist University: The Ten Pillars (Part 1)

2012-05-13T22:00:14Z

I am going to Texas! Yes, I am leaving the beaches and breezes of San Diego, to go to Houston Baptist University, where I have accepted the position of Professor starting Fall 2012.

I am a New Englander through and through. Texas was mentally categorized under “people are nice there, and it’s hot and humid. Also, there are cowboy hats.” It was not categorized under “I might work there someday.” Why did I decide to take this step, leaving behind the familiar and secure?

Because we are going to change the world.

The mission of Houston Baptist University is to provide a learning experience that instills in students a passion for academic, spiritual, and professional excellence as a result of our central confession, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Mission & Values)

Houston Baptist University’s President Robert Sloan articulates the scope of HBU’s ambition for the Kingdom:

“To say “Jesus Christ is Lord” is not merely to affirm a religious confession, nor to say something only about an interior faith or personal, individualistic values. Rather, to say “Jesus Christ is Lord” is to make a statement that touches not only the private spiritual lives of believers, but encompasses all of the ranges of the created order, including the scope and breadth, as well as the complexities, of human social, political, emotional, and physical experience. He is Lord, not only of the church, but over all things visible and invisible (Colossians 1:16), and therefore there is no area of reality which is, or even can be, outside the sphere of His Lordship. For a university to express Christ’s Lordship as a function of its academic mission is to embrace in principle, through research, teaching, and the learning community, all the questions, issues, and intricacies which curiosity and imagination can engender, from undergraduate through graduate experience.”

John Mark Reynolds, the incoming provost, says that the future’s so bright, he needs shades

You’ll hear more from me, soon, about what I’ll be up to at HBU. But in the meantime, let me start to share with you the vision of HBU, as set out in their Ten Pillars, and how my work lines up with that vision.

You can read the full description of each of the Ten Pillars here.

1. Build on the classics.

To engage with the classics is to step into a deep, rich stream of conversation that has nourished great thinkers, writers, and citizens for hundreds of centuries. I am passionately in favor of teaching from the canon, and have done so to the best of my ability for the past six years as a professor of composition and literature. Building on the classics doesn’t mean ignoring contemporary literature or concerns: quite the opposite. By wresting with books and ideas that have made an impact on culture, and by engaging imaginatively with the fictional and poetic worlds of writers like Homer, Shakespeare, or Austen, students develop the depth of vision and experience to make better sense of their world.

Right now in my Shakespeare class, I have thirty undergraduates, from a wide range of majors and cultural and academic backgrounds. I see the recognition in their eyes as we discuss the destructiveness of Leontes’ irrational jealousy in A Winter’s Tale. I rejoice at the way they wrestle with the power of rhetoric for good and for evil in Julius Caesar. And I delight in the insights they have about the role of the arts in culture, the power of creativity, and the importance of story…making connections to The Hunger Games, Doctor Who, Star Wars…

HBU has committed to a liberal arts core curriculum of the classics for undergraduate education. Every student, not just a lucky few, will get to join the conversation. And that vision of building on the classics is not limited to undergraduate education, but is part of HBU’s vision of graduate education too.

2. Recruit for national influence.

HBU is expanding its recruitment beyond Houston, beyond Texas, and growing in size as well. This makes HBU an exciting place to be right now: a small place, building up for the future. We will be a beacon for Christian education in the world.

3. Embrace the challenge of Christian graduate education.

We desperately need academically rigorous Christian graduate programs in a variety of fields. Why should secular schools be the only option for people who are called to the intellectual life?

My PhD (in English Literature) is from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and my first MA is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (also in English); I wasn’t a Christian at the time that I chose my graduate schools, but if I had been, where would I have gone to get the same quality of education in English literature?

Can you imagine a world in which a committed Christian institution offers that kind of excellence? I can.

My second MA (in Apologetics) is from Biola University. Biola is doing amazing things to equip the saints and send them out into the world to work for the Kingdom. But there are more people who need a strong Christian graduate education than Biola can possibly educate, mentor, and equip by themselves. There are regions of the United States (like Texas and the Midwest and New England) that desperately need their own schools to love and support.

Can you imagine a world in which there is an “Ivy League” of Christian graduate schools? I can.

Here is Part 2, and Part 3….

Memory and the Land: Looking Back

2012-04-25T19:26:29Z

I never met my great-grandmother, who died the year before I was born, but she has been, ever since I was a child, ‘present’ in my imagination, from the recollections of my mother and from two sepia photographs of “Gramma Maxwell” as a young woman that were always on display in my family’s home. When I showed this portrait to friends, they commented on my strong resemblance to her, something that I’d never noticed before; that started me thinking about the connections of blood, memory, and landscape.

The landscape images in the poem are from the house, fields, and woods around the 300-year-old Colonial home where my great-grandmother lived and raised her family – where, also, my grandmother lived, and where my mother grew up, and where as a child I lived for a time, and where I spent many, many summer hours playing and roaming the fields in happy solitude or walking in the woods with my mom.

My family is all from New England, specifically north-central Massachusetts; on my mother’s side the roots are in Massachusetts for three hundred years; tracing the family lines further back finds my ancestors coming from south-central England. Learning this made sense of the deep connection that I feel with both New England and old England, which I wrote about in “Broceliande”. This is in a sense the companion piece, reflecting on the way that the connections of blood and land are real and run deep.

You can click on the poem’s title to hear my reading of it, if the player does not appear.

Maude Tucker Maxwell

Maud Katherine (Tucker) Maxwell

Pepperell, MA

(1886 – 1973)

Looking Back

A window back through time, in sepia:
The portrait of my mother’s grandmother.
She looks at me, clear-eyed, as if she saw,

Through years and distance, me who looks at her
And sees another self: that tilt of head
And curve of mouth, the subtle gleam of humor

In her wide-open eyes. Like mine, her blood
And bone are rooted deep in old New England.
She knew this land: the narrow brook that floods

In spring among the weeping willows, and wends
Its narrow secret way to woods and pond;
The garden lilacs drooping, heavy-scented;

The maples and the apple trees whose strong
Deep roots dig down into the stony ground
And draw up sweetness; clustered thick along

The ditches, brown-furred cattails, and the sound
Of peepers peeping: springtime, springtime, spring.
All this she knew, and more: she traced and found

The names that root us deeper still, and sing
Of home and land and kin: good names, of Tucker,
Maxwell, Groton, Shattuck, Ball. I bring

This line with me in blood; unseen, yet stronger
Than the years that come between, a line
That links me with a new old land to love.

Miscellany 32: Christian Film – Garden or Wasteland?

2012-05-07T04:13:58Z

What do we even mean by saying something is a “Christian film”? In a thought-provoking piece called “Moving Beyond ‘Christian Films,’” Brett McCracken discusses the recent film Blue Like Jazz, with particular attention to the way it relates to the limitations of the Christian-movie ghetto. McCracken argues that Blue Like Jazz undercuts itself in its very attempt to be a Christian movie that doesn’t fit into “Christian movie” stereotypes. I haven’t seen the film myself, so I can’t speak to his assessment of BLJ, but I most certainly agree with what he says here:

I long for the day when we will have moved on from “Christian film” as a category. I long for the day when evangelicals will make excellent films that are beautiful, lasting, complex and true. I long for the day when Christian moviegoers will appreciate truly great films and encounter God through them, regardless of if they are made by Christians or pagans.

It’s easy to bemoan a cultural wasteland. Often when we do so, we’re speaking the truth. But in this case, are we overlooking signs of growth and life outside the boundaries of “Christian Film”?

Brett McCracken also has an interesting piece to complement his take on Blue Like Jazz: “33 Films that Take Faith Seriously.” As I read through the list, I realized that many of these films are ones that I simply considered great films… not great Christian-themed films, but great films.

Perhaps one test of a great Christian film is whether it is considered great by believers and unbelievers alike. Even when I was still an atheist, I loved Amadeus, Chariots of Fire, and The Mission. I didn’t understand or sympathize with all elements of the films, but they moved me deeply (and still do). Yet as an atheist, I would never have bothered seeing the equivalent of Soul Surfer or Fireproof or Courageous. I say this, not having seen any of those movies as a Christian, either… for pretty much the same reasons.

But most important, I think, is that a film must show the truth about human experience. I think that the reason I find most of the films labeled “Christian” to be so unsatisfactory (and unsatisfying) is that they are so eager to present the light of Christ that they ignore the darkness of human pain.

If we don’t acknowledge the darkness, we will not have credibility when we speak about the light. Yet we must also fight fiercely against the idea that the bleak meaninglessness of naturalism and atheism is ‘the way life is.’ Pain and death are not the end of the story.

Malcolm Guite puts it quite well (in an interview by Lancia Smith: you should read the whole thing). He is speaking specifically about poetry, but his words ring true for film as well:

…there is a proper place for the depiction of suffering and the expression of bitterness in Art as in life. We don’t need some anodyne sugary literature saying peace, peace, when there is none. But it is also true that the agony in the Garden and Good Friday are not the end of the story. ‘Love is come again like wheat that springeth green’, and Love has the last word. If a poem is to be true it must somehow be adequate to both these dimensions…

What are some other examples of films that get things right?

Consider the film Amazing Grace, which tells the story of William Wilberforce’s campaign against slavery in Britain. Or Gran Torino, Spitfire Grill, I Am David, or Charlie Brown’s Christmas, to toss in a few titles pointed out by Hieropraxis readers.

Consider The Artist, which I reviewed here!

And, now that you’re thinking about films, here is an film review site that’s worth checking out: Looking Closer (hat tip to Mary Mueller).

So: readers, what other films ought we to notice?

The Resurrection: Fact or Myth? Part 2 (podcast)

2012-04-30T03:33:03Z

In the previous talk (listen to Part 1 here), we discussed the Christian claim that the man named Jesus of Nazareth really did die on the Cross, was buried, and was raised from the dead. The conclusion that all the evidence points to is that this is a historical event — that the Resurrection of Christ is a historical fact.

Now in this second talk, I address the question of why that matters.

I discuss the way in which the Resurrection is a crucial vindication of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, and look at the challenge that confronts us when we see the evidence for the Resurrection. If this is true, what are we going to do about it? Thomas the Apostle (Doubting Thomas) provides exactly the model we need here!

Finally, I talk about how the Resurrection can be both a historical fact and a myth.

It is a historical fact — an event that really happened.

It is also a ‘myth’ in the sense that it is part of a story – it is not just a “bare fact” without significance — oh, how odd, a dead man is alive again — but rather, it is the pivot-point of all history, because it is part of the grandest story of all: the story of God’s rescue operation for fallen humanity – a story that also happens to be completely true.

And that is one of the reasons why we do not need to be afraid of embracing the imaginative dimensions of the Gospel – in fact, why we must engage with the Gospel imaginatively, or else we will be missing a great deal of what God is doing.

You can click on this link to listen to the podcast if the podcast player does not appear above. Here is the link for Part 1 as well.

Suggested Reading:

Lewis, C.S. “Myth Became Fact.” In God in the Dock.

Lewis, C.S. The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader.’

Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.” In The Tolkien Reader.

Red Booth Notes: Edmund Burke’s Great Comfort

2012-04-26T03:32:35Z

Many know the phrase, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It’s a concise, potent aphorism—reminding us there are times in the troubled affairs of nations when good people are summoned to make great sacrifices in resisting evil.

It’s not generally known, however, that this phrase, attributed to Edmund Burke, was likely something he never said. It hasn’t been found among his writings.

But he did craft a second, no less memorable phrase: “When bad men combine,” he wrote, “the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”[1] Hence the reason many believe he wrote the first phrase. The statements are quite similar.

Despite the conflation of these phrases by some, one thing is clear: Burke was one of the great statesmen and orators of history.

A master of the written word, and with a great gift for political foresight, it was he who predicted the French Revolution would, in its rejection of the traditional foundations of society, devolve into a despotic reign of terror. His book, Reflections on the Revolution in France, is part of the modern literary canon.

Edmund Burke (from Burke's Works 1839)

Far less known is the unlooked for solace that came to Burke in the final, troubled days of his life—a solace he called his “great comfort.”

By the spring of 1797, Burke’s health was failing—internal abscesses brought on a slow, painful decline. For years, he felt his had been a voice in the political wilderness. Dismissed as one overreacting to events in France, he’d found it increasingly difficult, even when healthy, to get a hearing among Britain’s leaders.

In this, he was not unlike Winston Churchill, who battled depression during his wilderness years of the 1930s, a time when so many dismissed his warnings about Hitler’s Germany.

When France declared war on Britain in 1793, the Prime Minister, William Pitt, was sanguine about prospects for a quick victory. He thought France weakened and vulnerable after four years of violent revolution. “It will be a very short war,” he declared, “certainly ended in one or two campaigns.”[2]

“No, sir,” said Burke, “it will be a long war, and a dangerous war, but it must be undertaken.”[3]

Burke lived to see the war against France expand into a world war among most of the nations of Europe. What he could not have known, and didn’t live to see, is that the struggle would last, save for a brief peace, until 1815. It was called “the twenty-five year drama.”[4]

All Burke knew in the spring of 1797 was that there seemed no end in sight to this terrible war. He gathered his friends one last time to impart the wisdom left him—for days he would not live to see.

* * *

The reformer William Wilberforce treasured Burke’s friendship. For many years, he hosted dinners for Burke, and delighted in his sparkling conversation.

“I had peculiar pleasure in his dinners with me—an evidence of our perfect harmony,” Wilberforce remembered. “He was a great man—I never could understand how he grew to be at one time so entirely neglected. He had come late into Parliament, and had had time to lay in vast stores of knowledge. The field from which he drew his illustrations was magnificent…whenever he opened his mouth pearls and diamonds dropped from him.”[5]

Wilberforce was also witness to one scene from Burke’s last days.

“The whole scene is now before me,” Wilberforce recalled. “Burke was lying on a sofa, much emaciated. Windham, Laurence, and some other friends were round him. The attention shown by all that party was just like the treatment of Ahithophel of old. It was as if one went to inquire of the oracle of the Lord.”[6]

* * *

Historians tell us that after Burke set his affairs in order, he spent his final hours with friends who read the writings of Joseph Addison to him. Addison had written often of the harmony between nature and reason. In one essay he painted a vivid image, describing the perfect garden as one guided by nature and reason. Such writings would have offered comfort to Burke, dying amid a time of great conflict.

Yet Burke was given another book, a book Wilberforce had written. It has a fascinating history—for it was a book that nearly went unwritten.

Since 1789, when the revolution in France began, Wilberforce had been trying to find time to write a small “tract” setting out the first principles of his faith, and how they’d shaped his understanding of the good society.

Busy with the affairs of elected office, he had little time to come alongside his friends in Parliament, as he longed to, to explain how Christianity had wrought “the great change” in his life. His “tract” could remedy this. For through a book, he could speak to each of his friends, one by one.

Crafting such a slender book seemed simple enough, but it proved maddeningly elusive. Every summer or parliamentary recess he set down to record his thoughts. At the close of each recess, he seemed no nearer his object. In fact, his draft was burgeoning into a full-length book. It seemed unwieldy, and doubts pressed in on him. Diary entries like “I have not advanced a single step,” or, “I doubt whether I can do anything worth publishing,” began to appear.[7]

William Wilberforce: Wilberforce Museum statue (Hull)

In the end two friends, Thomas and Mary Gisborne, provided Wilberforce with the retreat and encouragement he needed to complete his book.

For several months prior to the spring of 1797, Wilberforce stayed with the Gisbornes at their lovely Derbyshire home, Yoxall Lodge. They possessed a fine library Wilberforce could consult, and nearby Needwood Forest offered fine walks in solitude where Wilberforce could set aside the cares of parliamentary life and recharge his batteries.

It was an ideal place for him to work, and in ways beyond those just given. The Gisbornes knew their friend well, and they knew it would take some creative thinking to help him settle down to the hard task of completing his book.

Knowing many of Wilberforce’s best thoughts arose in conversation, they skilfully pushed mealtime or fireside talks in the direction of topics Wilberforce hoped to touch on in his book. Once the discussion was in full flow, Mary Gisborne became an unobtrusive secretary, as “passages of peculiar energy burst, in all their native warmth, from his lips.”[8]

At other times, when Wilberforce went for a walk, she collected scattered pages of his rough drafts that were strewn about the study he worked in. When he returned, and set down to work, these pages were neatly ordered and supplemented with her notes.

These acts of unspoken kindness helped Wilberforce see—when plagued by the self-doubt first-time authors often experience—that he was making progress—good progress in fact. Within a few months, and after more than a few nights of burning midnight oil on returning to London, Wilberforce finished his book.

It was published in April 1797, and had taken eight years. All London was abuzz with curiosity on the appearance of A Practical View of Christianity. It had a winsome and compelling prose style that quickly gained a wide audience.

Within a few days, the initial print run of 500 copies was gone. It went through five editions in six months; and was eventually translated into several languages. A runaway bestseller, it exercised a profound influence over the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Sir Leslie Stephen, the father of novelist Virginia Woolf, called it “the manifesto” of the evangelical movement.[9]

In later years, Wilberforce knew of no more touching instance of the book’s reception than hearing what it meant to Burke, who received a copy shortly before his death. Over the two last days of his life, friends read to him from A Practical View. Near the end, he summoned one of them to his side, and committed a message of gratitude for Wilberforce’s book. “Tell Wilberforce,” Burke said, “that I have derived much comfort from it, and that if I live, I will thank him for having sent such a book into the world.”[10]

When Prime Minister Pitt died long years later in 1806, the war against Napoleon’s France still raged. It was said that his last words were: “Oh, my country! How I leave my country!”

At times, Burke might have been feeling much the same. But then, he’d also received an unlooked for solace. He was a man of faith, and Wilberforce’s book deepened his desire “for a better country, that is, an heavenly: where God hath prepared for him a city.”

[1] from page 83 of Burke: Select Works, vol. 1, edited by E.J. Payne, (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1874).

[2] from page 124 of The Life of William Wilberforce, by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, edited by Caspar Morris, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839).

[3] from page 124 of The Life of William Wilberforce, by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, edited by Caspar Morris, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839).

[4] from page 128 of The Correspondence of William Wilberforce, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1846).

[5] from page 160 of The Life of William Wilberforce, vol. 1, (London: John Murray, 1838).

[6] from page 211 of The Life of William Wilberforce, by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, edited by Caspar Morris, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839).

[7] from pages 61 and 94 of The Life of William Wilberforce, by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, edited by Caspar Morris, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839).

[8] see pages 254-255 of Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, by James Stephen, vol. 2, (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1853).

[9] From Sir Leslie Stephen’s essay on Wilberforce for The Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 21, (New York: Macmillan, 1909).

[10] from page 183 of The Life of William Wilberforce, by Robert and Samuel Wilberforce, edited by Caspar Morris, (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839).

Miscellany 31

2012-05-01T01:51:27Z

Easter is not just a single day: it is a whole season that runs from Easter Sunday (Resurrection Sunday) to Pentecost. (Here is a useful overview of the liturgical calendar and how it helps us enter into the life of Christ and the church). So… let us keep celebrating our Risen Lord through the full fifty days of Easter! Here is an “Easter Radio Player” from Signpost Music – here is what Steve Bell says about it: “It is a collection of songs (from all the Signpost artists) that touch on the general themes of Easter: penitence, prayer, disorientation, re-orientation, death, resurrection, browning, greening, biblical narrative etc. Feel free to listen wherever and whenever you want. It’s here simply to help folks enter into the constellation of seasons we call Easter and will run from Lent through to Holy Week, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. Please feel free to let others know about it through your social networks.”

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

CS Lewis’s last interview: (hat tip to Chris Reese). An excellent piece, with one bit that I particularly like:

Q: How can we foster the encounter of people with Jesus Christ?

“You can’t lay down any pattern for God. There are many different ways of bringing people into his Kingdom, even some ways that I specially dislike! I have therefore learned to be cautious in my judgment.

“But we can block it in many ways. As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the faith. We give in too much. Now, I don’t mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our Christian colors, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away.

“There is a character in one of my children’s stories named Aslan, who says, ‘I never tell anyone any story except his own.’ I cannot speak for the way God deals with others; I only know how he deals with me personally. Of course, we are to pray for spiritual awakening, and in various ways we can do something toward it. But we must remember that neither Paul nor Apollos gives the increase. As Charles Williams once said, ‘The altar must often be built in one place so that the fire may come down in another place.’”

For etymology enthusiasts: check out this visual representation of word origins in samples from different literary genres.

Now for something completely silly: here are some 19^th century LOLCats (seriously).

And… I love St Michael’s by-the-Sea. Seriously.