In Philippians 3:20, NIV, Paul writes, "But our citizenship is in heaven." Our life on earth is one of exile, and there are different ways we can live out our life while on the journey home. In his book American Babylon, Richard John Neuhaus describes several, concluding with one that made me think of all the families involved in Classical Christian education.
"Some choose accomodation -- up to a point, praying they will recognize that point when it comes. Some strive to engage and transform the world where they are, hoping to make it less strange, knowing it will always fall pitifully short of the city to which they are called. For yet others, fidelity in exile is the course of subversion and even insurrection. Witness the liberation theologies of our time and all times. Then there are those who deliberately, and often at great sacrifice, choose to create enclaves of fidelity, outposts of the promised Kingdom, islands of Christendom in the absence of Christendom. Thus a dynamic that is at the core of the monastic tradition. Thus a growing number of Christian parents today who, through home schooling and other exertions, strive to make the family a haven from a heartless world. Faithfulness in exile takes many forms."
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Christian Atheist Citizens
In his last book before his death earlier this year, American Babylon, former-Lutheran-pastor-turned-Catholic-priest Richard John Neuhaus, who was once named by Time as one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America, wrote a chapter titled, "Can An Atheist Be a Good Citizen?" Early in the chapter he mentions that the first Christians were considered atheists by the polytheists of the Roman Empire, for they were "without the gods" and adamantly opposed to them.
Eventually he includes a piece from George Washington's farewell address, delivered at the end of his second term of office. Our first President, who aptly received the title pater patriae, said this:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. (American Babylon, 114)
Neuhaus himself then goes on to say:
"In such a nation, an atheist can be a citizen, but he cannot be a good citizen. A good citizen does more than abide by the laws. A good citizen is able to give an account, a morally compelling account, of the regime of which he is part -- and to do so in continuity with the constituting moment and subsequent history of that regime. He is able to justify its defense against its enemies, and to convincingly recommend its virtues to citizens of the next generation so that they, in turn, can transmit the order of government to citizens yet unborn. This regime of liberal democracy, of republican self-governance, is not self-evidently good and just. Reasons must be given. They must be reasons that draw authority from that which is higher than ourselves, from that which transcends us, fromthat to which we are precedently, ultimately obliged." (American Babylon, 116, emphasis mine)
"Those who adhere to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus turn out to be the best citizens. Those who were once called "atheists" are now the most persuasive defenders not of the gods but of the good reasons for this regime of ordered liberty. They are that not despite the fact that their loyalty to this polis is qualified by a higher loyalty, but because of it. The ultimate allegiance of the faithful is not to the regime or to its constituting texts, but to the City of God and the sacred texts that guide our path toward that destination. We are dual citizens in a regime that, as Madison and others underscored, was designed for such duality. When the political order forgets itself and reestablishes the gods of the polis, even if it does so in the name of liberal democracy, these citizens have not choice but to run the risk of once again being called 'atheists.'" (American Babylon, 117)
Whatever else we teach our children about being good citizens, and we must teach them to be good citizens, we must teach them that their primary allegiance is to the God under Whom exists the nation to which they pledge a secondary allegiance. Ours is a nation in which anyone and anything can become a god. Yet whether such a state of affairs is good or bad can only be articulated in any coherent and meaningful way by those who have come to know the Truth, not the desiccated propositional truth of the philosophers and scientists, although even such lower-case truths have their foundation of their existence in the upper-case Truth, but the Truth Who was and is and is to come, the Truth Who became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. With such an understanding of ethics informed by this personal Truth, this Truth Who is a person, the Christian citizen can articulate what true justice is, why it matters, and provide sound arguments for how it can be achieved.
Oddly, it was part of the initial design of the free public school system in America to produce just such good citizens. Yet by refusing the God Who is Truth and substituting for Him an atheistic pantheon of disembodied beliefs, such schools are incapable of producing the kind of citizens who can, as Neuhaus urges "convincingly recommend its virtiues to citizens of the next generation so that they, in turn, can transmit the order of government to citizens yet unborn."
To the degree that the Christian school has not lost its mandate and become a prep school for the elite with a nominal chapel time thrown in for good measure, it alone in this present age is capable of producing what our nation needs, good citizens capable of working for the good of their country.
Eventually he includes a piece from George Washington's farewell address, delivered at the end of his second term of office. Our first President, who aptly received the title pater patriae, said this:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. (American Babylon, 114)
Neuhaus himself then goes on to say:
"In such a nation, an atheist can be a citizen, but he cannot be a good citizen. A good citizen does more than abide by the laws. A good citizen is able to give an account, a morally compelling account, of the regime of which he is part -- and to do so in continuity with the constituting moment and subsequent history of that regime. He is able to justify its defense against its enemies, and to convincingly recommend its virtues to citizens of the next generation so that they, in turn, can transmit the order of government to citizens yet unborn. This regime of liberal democracy, of republican self-governance, is not self-evidently good and just. Reasons must be given. They must be reasons that draw authority from that which is higher than ourselves, from that which transcends us, fromthat to which we are precedently, ultimately obliged." (American Babylon, 116, emphasis mine)
"Those who adhere to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus turn out to be the best citizens. Those who were once called "atheists" are now the most persuasive defenders not of the gods but of the good reasons for this regime of ordered liberty. They are that not despite the fact that their loyalty to this polis is qualified by a higher loyalty, but because of it. The ultimate allegiance of the faithful is not to the regime or to its constituting texts, but to the City of God and the sacred texts that guide our path toward that destination. We are dual citizens in a regime that, as Madison and others underscored, was designed for such duality. When the political order forgets itself and reestablishes the gods of the polis, even if it does so in the name of liberal democracy, these citizens have not choice but to run the risk of once again being called 'atheists.'" (American Babylon, 117)
Whatever else we teach our children about being good citizens, and we must teach them to be good citizens, we must teach them that their primary allegiance is to the God under Whom exists the nation to which they pledge a secondary allegiance. Ours is a nation in which anyone and anything can become a god. Yet whether such a state of affairs is good or bad can only be articulated in any coherent and meaningful way by those who have come to know the Truth, not the desiccated propositional truth of the philosophers and scientists, although even such lower-case truths have their foundation of their existence in the upper-case Truth, but the Truth Who was and is and is to come, the Truth Who became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. With such an understanding of ethics informed by this personal Truth, this Truth Who is a person, the Christian citizen can articulate what true justice is, why it matters, and provide sound arguments for how it can be achieved.
Oddly, it was part of the initial design of the free public school system in America to produce just such good citizens. Yet by refusing the God Who is Truth and substituting for Him an atheistic pantheon of disembodied beliefs, such schools are incapable of producing the kind of citizens who can, as Neuhaus urges "convincingly recommend its virtiues to citizens of the next generation so that they, in turn, can transmit the order of government to citizens yet unborn."
To the degree that the Christian school has not lost its mandate and become a prep school for the elite with a nominal chapel time thrown in for good measure, it alone in this present age is capable of producing what our nation needs, good citizens capable of working for the good of their country.
Friday, September 4, 2009
On Libraries
I imagine that Zenodotus must be spinning in his grave. Don't remember who Zenodotus was? Let me give you a hint: had he married a modern girl, her name very likely would have been Marian.* Still don't know? Zenodotus was the first head of the great library at Alexandria. He was also the first to employ alphabetical order as a means of organizing materials.
According to this CNN article, the future of libraries as we know them is changing, and fast. The article describes moves by some libraries to become digital centers of information exchange. Books not required.
I am getting tired of making the same statements everywhere I go, but here I am saying the same ol' same ol'. I am not a luddite. I use the Internet, word processing, spreadsheets, blogs, Twitter, the whole nine yards. But I agree with Maryanne Wolf in her book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, that something different happens neuronally, cognitively, and emotionally when we read a book than when we read the same text digitized. There is a depth of processing that tends to occur in the former method that does not take place in the latter. Mark Bauerlein in his amply researched and annotated book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future concurs.
Of course, in an age and culture that recognizes not the value of the specific and the particular, assuming as they do that content in one format is the same in another, could not possibly appreciate the aesthetic value of holding a book in one's hand, inhaling the fragrance of the newly printed page or the page grown musty with age, annotating in the margins. Then again, neither our present age nor our culture seem capable of acknowledging such a thing as aesthetic value to begin with.
A friend recently gave me a beautiful leather-bound volume of Pope's translation of the Iliad. It sits proudly beside its companion volume, the Odyssey. I would prefer to read my favorite poet's version of one of my favorite stories from those volumes than from any of the innumerable websites on which they exist. I can only hope that they will remain on more bookshelves than just my own.
*For those who did not get the clue, this is a reference to the song "Marian the Librarian" from the musical Music Man.
According to this CNN article, the future of libraries as we know them is changing, and fast. The article describes moves by some libraries to become digital centers of information exchange. Books not required.
I am getting tired of making the same statements everywhere I go, but here I am saying the same ol' same ol'. I am not a luddite. I use the Internet, word processing, spreadsheets, blogs, Twitter, the whole nine yards. But I agree with Maryanne Wolf in her book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, that something different happens neuronally, cognitively, and emotionally when we read a book than when we read the same text digitized. There is a depth of processing that tends to occur in the former method that does not take place in the latter. Mark Bauerlein in his amply researched and annotated book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future concurs.
Of course, in an age and culture that recognizes not the value of the specific and the particular, assuming as they do that content in one format is the same in another, could not possibly appreciate the aesthetic value of holding a book in one's hand, inhaling the fragrance of the newly printed page or the page grown musty with age, annotating in the margins. Then again, neither our present age nor our culture seem capable of acknowledging such a thing as aesthetic value to begin with.
A friend recently gave me a beautiful leather-bound volume of Pope's translation of the Iliad. It sits proudly beside its companion volume, the Odyssey. I would prefer to read my favorite poet's version of one of my favorite stories from those volumes than from any of the innumerable websites on which they exist. I can only hope that they will remain on more bookshelves than just my own.
*For those who did not get the clue, this is a reference to the song "Marian the Librarian" from the musical Music Man.
The Worth of a Book
As I commented in another post, I recently read the play The Laramie Project so I could be more prepared for the local high school that is performing it this fall. As that post indicates I was not impressed with the play as a whole. As a result, I returned it to the local bookstore where I had purchased it. When the clerk asked if I would like to do an exchange, I went to look for another book I wanted. As it turned out, the new book cost less than the one I was returning, so I got a $2.61 credit.
So what was the other book that cost less than The Laramie Project? It was Anthony Esolen's translation of Dante's Inferno. Yes, that's right. Dante. As T.S. Eliot said, there is Shakespeare and Dante. They divide the world between them, and there is no one else. Dante, who, according to George Steiner, is the only true critic of Vergil. How could such a book be of less monetary value than a contemporary experimental play that, unlike Dante's work, will undoubtedly not even be remembered seven hundred years from now?
Oh, it must have been a cheap edition you say, a hack translation perhaps. Hardly. Dr. Esolen's translation is wonderful. He eschews rhyme, something many Dante lovers may scream at, but he rightly notes that rhyme, at least in English, forces too many contortions of meaning. He employs instead regular blank verse, a form wielded to great effect by no less than Milton. And the edition itself contains the Italian on facing pages, to say nothing of more useful appendices than I have ever run across in an edition aimed at the popular market. There is an appendix with ample citations from Vergil, one with citations from Aquinas, and a host of other notes and materials that make it an excellent edition for pleasure and for study.
While not displeased to have received my $2.61 credit, I remarked to the clerk that if we were measuring genuine worth, my second purchase should have been five times the cost of the first.
So what was the other book that cost less than The Laramie Project? It was Anthony Esolen's translation of Dante's Inferno. Yes, that's right. Dante. As T.S. Eliot said, there is Shakespeare and Dante. They divide the world between them, and there is no one else. Dante, who, according to George Steiner, is the only true critic of Vergil. How could such a book be of less monetary value than a contemporary experimental play that, unlike Dante's work, will undoubtedly not even be remembered seven hundred years from now?
Oh, it must have been a cheap edition you say, a hack translation perhaps. Hardly. Dr. Esolen's translation is wonderful. He eschews rhyme, something many Dante lovers may scream at, but he rightly notes that rhyme, at least in English, forces too many contortions of meaning. He employs instead regular blank verse, a form wielded to great effect by no less than Milton. And the edition itself contains the Italian on facing pages, to say nothing of more useful appendices than I have ever run across in an edition aimed at the popular market. There is an appendix with ample citations from Vergil, one with citations from Aquinas, and a host of other notes and materials that make it an excellent edition for pleasure and for study.
While not displeased to have received my $2.61 credit, I remarked to the clerk that if we were measuring genuine worth, my second purchase should have been five times the cost of the first.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Lone Founts
by Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Though fast youth's glorious fable flies,
View not the world with worlding's eyes;
Nor turn with weather of the time.
Foreclose the coming of surprise:
Stand where Posterity shall stand;
Stand where the Ancients stood before,
And, dipping in lone founts thy hand,
Drink of the never-varying lore:
Wise once, and wise thence evermore.
by Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Though fast youth's glorious fable flies,
View not the world with worlding's eyes;
Nor turn with weather of the time.
Foreclose the coming of surprise:
Stand where Posterity shall stand;
Stand where the Ancients stood before,
And, dipping in lone founts thy hand,
Drink of the never-varying lore:
Wise once, and wise thence evermore.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Cursive
It is sad to report that at least one suburban public school district has chosen to replace time spent teaching cursive writing with time spent teaching children how to operate a computer keyboard. Do most in our society use the keyboard? Yes. Do more use the keyboard than a fine fountain pen? Without question. Do those who do put pen to paper print rather than use cursive? Almost without exception.
And to this I ask, so what? A school district only takes its curricular mandates from the shrill voice of the moment when it has given its soul in sycophantic subservience to the jackbooted tyranny of the pragmatic.
Yet when a school or school district dares, when a group of educators dares, when parents dare to pursue true education, the kind suggested in Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" in which a mind is led forth from darkness to light and not merely equipped to do a job, then children are educated in truth, goodness, and beauty. The last in the list is by no means the least, and every effort is made to instill in them not only an appreciation for all that is good and true in the graphic, musical, and performative arts, but also the ability for them to take their place beside other artists by developing their own artistic gifts.
Is cursive necessary to fill out a form or to post on a blog? Not at all. But does it add immeasurably to a poem or letter from a lover to a beloved, does it grace the note of thanks or sympathy, does it bring a touch of elegance amidst the quotidian pressures and stresses of life that erode the humane senses? It certainly can. Unfortunately, such simple grace will no longer be available to the children of this school district.
And to this I ask, so what? A school district only takes its curricular mandates from the shrill voice of the moment when it has given its soul in sycophantic subservience to the jackbooted tyranny of the pragmatic.
Yet when a school or school district dares, when a group of educators dares, when parents dare to pursue true education, the kind suggested in Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" in which a mind is led forth from darkness to light and not merely equipped to do a job, then children are educated in truth, goodness, and beauty. The last in the list is by no means the least, and every effort is made to instill in them not only an appreciation for all that is good and true in the graphic, musical, and performative arts, but also the ability for them to take their place beside other artists by developing their own artistic gifts.
Is cursive necessary to fill out a form or to post on a blog? Not at all. But does it add immeasurably to a poem or letter from a lover to a beloved, does it grace the note of thanks or sympathy, does it bring a touch of elegance amidst the quotidian pressures and stresses of life that erode the humane senses? It certainly can. Unfortunately, such simple grace will no longer be available to the children of this school district.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
