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Critiquing from the Inside

Our culture’s most impressive achievements usually have to do with technology: the space shuttle, advances in digital communications, instant availability of information via the internet. Albert Borgmann speculates that one ‘reason for embracing technology might be the understandable desire to embrace what’s distinctive about our culture. It’s difficult to accept the notion that the things that are most characteristic of our lives should not be most central.’ In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novels, such as The First Circle, it is striking how many Soviet citizens were unable to critique the downsides of Stalinism – and not only because of the threat of punishment. Even people imprisoned on false and trumped-up political charges were likely to defend their own country’s political system. When Christian churches dominated medieval culture and their cathedrals commanded city skylines, it was hard to challenge abuses of faith. If technology is at the center of our lives, how frightening it must be to suggest that perhaps there is something wrong at the core of what our civilization regards as most worthwhile.

-Arthur Boers, Living Into Focus, pp. 182-183

Marshall McLuhan, in The Medium is the Massage, wrote,

The poet, the artist, the sleuth – whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely ‘well-adjusted,’ he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists among antisocial types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power, is manifest in the famous story, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ ‘Well-adjusted’ courtiers, having vested interests, saw the Emperor as beautifully appointed. The ‘antisocial’ brat, unaccustomed to the old environment, clearly saw that the Emperor ‘ain’t got nothin’ on.’

Old Testament prophets were Israelites who had been summoned to the courts of Heaven (on earth, as the veil was drawn back before them) before the presence of innumerable angels in festal gathering, before the very presence of God. Isaiah saw the LORD, high and lifted up, with his train filling the heavenly temple. He saw the cherubim. He realized he, and his people, were unclean. He needed an outside-in perspective. He needed to see his own culture through the eyes that were not of his culture.

G.K. Chesterton writes this about prophets:

…If we see what is the real trend of humanity, we shall feel it most probable that he was stoned for saying that the grass was green and that the birds sang in spring; for the mission of all the prophets from the beginning has not been so much the pointing out of heavens or hells as primarily the pointing out of the earth.

Religion has had to provide that longest and strangest telescope – the telescope through which we could see the star upon which we dwelt…

This is the great fall, the fall by which the fish forgets the sea, the ox forgets the meadow, the clerk forgets the city, every man forgets his environment and, in the fullest and most literal sense, forgets himself…It is a strange thing that men…have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed (from the Introduction to The Defendant).

If anyone is going to speak with a prophetic voice in our time and place we are going to have to get a perspective on our culture that doesn’t come from our culture. We are going to have to, as insiders, look at ourselves from the outside. How are we going to do this? My own focus is on two things: First, counter-cultural church. If the church tightly resembles our culture, we will never be able to critique it, or ourselves. Second, old books, especially the Scriptures.

In Alister McGrath’s biography of C.S. Lewis, he writes,

For Lewis, the reading of literature – above all, the reading of older literature – is an important challenge to some premature judgments based on ‘chronological snobbery.’ Owen Barfield had taught Lewis to be suspicious of those who declaimed the inevitable superiority of the present over the past.

…Lewis argues that a familiarity with the literature of the past provides readers with a standpoint which gives them critical distance from their own era. Thus, it allows them to see ‘the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective.’ The reading of old books enable us to avoid becoming passive captives of the Spirit of the Age by keeping ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds’ (p. 187).

It’s not secret why Lewis and Chesterton were able to point ‘that longest and strangest telescope’ on the world in which they lived. It was because they very often had their feet in another world altogether. Most of that was due to old books. If the sky isn’t rolled back as a scroll for us, if we do not see the heavenly vision of the prophet in the flesh, the closest we will ever get is in old books. The Bible provides 66 of them. And the church, though imperfect, has provided many, many more.

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  1. ink4liberty says:

    “The Church has provided many more”.

    Charles Spurgeon always pointed to the puritans, for he had his grandfathers library to read from and from there he devoured pilgrims progress many a time.

    Weren’t many of the old books of the church written for the expense of opposing certain false doctrines?

    • Heath says:

      Hey Austin, good to hear from you. You’re absolutely right. Every time I start feeling a little crazy I pick up something by one of the Puritans. They bring sanity and clarity to my life. They allow me to get out of this world and into theirs for a while. Then I find that I’m better equipped to deal with the world I live in.

  2. BC Cook says:

    Amen to all of this. It might be interesting to entertain further how we choose the perspectives outside of our own. In public school they make you read plenty of books from perspectives “not your own”, from people of various times, all over the world. The yield isn’t necessarily so spectacular though.

    It would appear that something more than different or old books is needed. There must be more criteria in the discernment. You’ve obviously alluded to this reality in pointing to the Bible and the Church, where they have written outside of our own time and place. It doesn’t all have to be Christian-specific though, as any pointing toward Lewis’ library must undoubtably conclude. So it isn’t just about reading “anything not of your own time and place,” but it isn’t “just read Christian books” either. There is something more to the choosing.

    • ink4liberty says:

      I like what was said here. You said, ” There is something more to the choosing,” I’m left with a “on the edge of seat” experience with this last statement. What did you mean by this that there is something more? You pointed to C.S. Lewis at his study and the books he was presented with on the shelf as it were. For one (my self) who hasn’t read many “old books”, its seems there needs to be a screen to filter out the bad literature and the good literature, this would be I imagine (our faith) the doctrines and the bibles handy work.

      There’s a need of knowing church history and secular history for they both are interwoven to be sure. We should then look to our examples in church history and follow their caution but also their Christian freedom in the realm of reading books. Like C.S. Lewis,for example, wrote a book on literature in the sixteenth century and so did much of the discernment there for later generations to discover.

      Can you add a little more to this last statement and just elaborate on this further?

      Thanks for post.

      • BC Cook says:

        I think you can look at making decisions about the books you will read, very much like you make decisions of vocation. Indeed, reading a book, is almost like experiencing a mini-lifetime. You read somebody else’s experience, their actions, their thoughts, etc. You are choosing to vicariously experience all of this.

        So, as with vocation, we must consider where we are in life, what our talents are, what our desires are, and what is available to us. We must reflect on these attributes personally, submit them to wise council, and move prayerfully throughout the process. I really think book selection is most wisely done with the same type of care as one would hope to attend to in forming their “life path” with something so pivotal as vocation. Certainly, one isn’t going to attend to the process with the same degree of time and effort, but the channels of effort are all the same.

        I will use myself as an example here. When Heath asked if anybody wanted to suggest a book to read through on his blog, I tossed about several possibilities in my head, (my desires), and submitted a few of them to Heath for consideration. I talked to my wife, as well as a couple friends, and consulted a few books written by men who are much better read than myself. I weighed all this council within the context of my time, as varying degrees of my time are taken up as a husband, father, employee, citizen, and member of a church. What could I legitimately attend to in this season in my life? How might these books be useful for myself, and those whom I influence? What do I perceive God doing in my life right now? How can I submit to His purposes by my choices? I needed to ask these kinds of questions, prayerfully, and check to see that everyone else was on board for their own needs/purposes, since this was going to be a group project.

        Life is short. Solomon says that “of the making of many books, there is no end.” That statement has always stuck with me. You cannot read all that their is to read, especially in your short lifetime. It is good to be purposeful in one’s selections.

        In regards to one’s councilors, I think it is wise to submit one’s self to wisdom. We have many men who have gone before us, with interesting opinions on literature to be weighed within the context of our own lives. Leland Ryken wrote a nice book to help people break into the classics, called “Realms of Gold,”http://www.christianbook.com/realms-gold-the-classics-christian-perspective/leland-ryken/9781592443406/pd/44340X . And yes, Lewis gives us his opinions on literature, although I’m not sure I would recommend his discussions to somebody just beginning to voyage into dustier diction… The classical Christian education movement has an immense wealth of well-read individuals who happily publish their opinions on what is best read, when, and how.

        I would like to pause here to note that I think whatever you read, the Bible ought to be a part of your reading program, at all times. What parts you read and how may vary, but straight Bible-reading ought to be paramount, whatever the case.

        To recap all of this, let us put it all back into the metaphor of choosing one’s vocation. As we choose vocation, we stick close to the Word of God at all times, prayerfully working through the whole process. We also consider what wise counselors would have to say- both those we know, and those who’s expertise would seem relevant to the ideas being pondered. Still, you usually don’t just do what you are told, but instead, one must think about personal desires, talents, place in life, and availability.

        If we all consider our reading like we ought to consider our vocations, then we ought to find ourselves with alot of similar choices- for wisdom would guide us to similar wells to drink from. At the same time, we will find significant variances in literature choice- for our God-given unique purposes would dictate our paths go in many different directions, to many different degrees. We will be alike where we are supposed to be alike, and different precisely in the ways God has called us to be different.

        And remember, life is short, and there is no end to book making. Best not to wander lazily around…

        • ink4liberty says:

          I did receive from this short antidote and I see that there is a God-given adventure through books (Mini-lifetime). Your approach with the comparison to “vocation” was a creative simile and it would definitely be convenient to have some kind of green dot labeled on the “go to books” but it seems that this wont be the case.

          No reason now to say I’m bored!

          Hey, thanks for the thoughtful reply, I’m going to read some of Leland Ryken or at least walk somewhat in that direction (the classics).

          God Bless you sir!

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