Center for Western Studies

2011-05-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

On Love in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

What genius to create a love triangle that serves as a love circle! Three people each loves the next: A loves B, B loves C, and C loves A! Impossible you say? Not if A is a girl posing as a boy. Viola can love the Duke, who loves Olivia, but Olivia can close the circle and love Viola because Viola appears in the guise of the man, Cessario. This makes for some wonderful comedy both onstage and off, that is, among the critics.

Recently it has become fashionable to think in ideological terms about Shakespeare’s plays, often reinterpreting characters and situations with a homosexual or feminist slant (among others). Twelfth Night, with its “gender-bending,” is ripe fruit for such interpretations.

The feminist complaint that women have no significant power unless it is through a man, finds traction in Twelfth Night in two ways. First, the fact that Viola is powerless and insignificant until she takes up the livery of a man, and second that Olivia, empowered now as head of her household, scorns the Duke’s proposals and resists the attempts by Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Malvolio to tame her to their wishes. She then pursues her own love interest, and her heart leads her toward Cessario.

The homosexual perspective, that men and women have latent tendencies toward loving their own genders, finds support in Olivia’s open love for Cessario (not knowing she is a girl), and simultaneously the sparks of attraction the Duke seems to feel toward Cessario (again not knowing she is a girl). Then there is also the open love of Antonio for Sebastian without any mistaken identity, that becomes all the more poignant when Viola/Cessario (Sebastian’s twin) denies that love when Antonio mistakes her for Sebastian.

The feminist argument loses traction, when we dig into the play a little farther. Viola may gain power and position when she is taken for a man, but her decision to dress and act like a man was not to gain power as such, but to gain security. She thought it was dangerous for a woman to go around in an unknown territory alone, a problem that is timeless. While she IS a man, pining for the Duke and avoiding Olivia’s advances, she wishes she were NOT a man, and we know that she won’t be satisfied until she can again safely appear in public as a woman. Sad is an empowerment that grants security but makes love impossible. How many women have listened to that siren call, pursuing security over love by competing with men in the marketplace, only to find that married love and family is what they wanted? They may realize too late the real power that women have: the power to bear and shape the next generation.

The homosexual argument falls apart by simply recalling the biblical distinctions between erotic love and brotherly love. In fact, the comedy in Twelfth Night is possible only for those who take such categories seriously. Olivia’s attraction to Viola is humorous only when it is taken as misguided eros, and the Duke’s attraction to Cessario is likewise funny when it is seen as misguided philia. If either had known what both Viola and the audience know, it would no longer be funny. Additionally, the love of Antonio for Sebastian is proper philia (as is that of Jonathan and David in the bible) and, if mistaken for eros, spoils the happy ending we want for Olivia, namely a happy marriage to Sebastian, Viola’s twin.

So, feminist and homosexual interpretations, when taken to their logical ends, fail to account for the play as a play, or for its humor, and would have confused and irritated both the playwright and his audience. The biblical categories of love and gender again give clarity, delight, and meaning.

John Hodges

Director

2011-05-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

"...the good teacher will almost in the same breath translate a great poetic sentence, bring out its relations to the whole of which it is a part, make its musical rhythm felt by appropriate declamation, explain a historical or an antiquarian allusion, call attention to a dialectic form, put a question about a peculiar use of the optative, compare the imagery with similar figures of speech in ancient and modern poetry, and use the whole as a text for a little discourse on the difference between the classical and the modern or romantic spirit; so that you shall not know whether he is teaching science or art, language or literature, grammar, rhetoric, psychology, or sociology, because he is really teaching the elements and indispensable prerequisites of all."

~Paul Shorey, "The Case for Classics," in Frank Kelsey's Latin and Greek in American Education, 1927.

2011-03-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

Defending Dante's hell . . .

2011-02-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

This article, which references a recent major study on higher education, indicates that a lot of the current trends in higher education--such as group work--is probably quite worthless. Sitting down alone a few hours with a difficult book, a notebook, and a pen will probably do more for you than finishing a team project that probably did little more than require you to apply some currently fashionable ideas.

Want better students? Make them work by giving them difficult reading and writing assignments.

True Confessions

2011-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

Should 14 year olds be reading Augustine's Confessions? But of course:

http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2011/01/26/augustines-confessions-for-middle-schoolers/

The Pleasure of Damnation

2011-02-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

One of the guilty pleasures of the Faust tradition is how much fun the Faust set-up can be. Berlioz's damnation of Faust, for instance, is just pure entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBFfoZKylbA&feature=related

(I don't know what is up with the formatting: I can't get the link to embed properly. Sorry.)

Scaring Ourselves Silly

2011-02-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

The Faust legend has been one of the most potent of the modern era. Though Marlowe kicked it off with his play, it really wasn't until Goethe got hold of the story that the narrative blasted off and has not come back down yet. The story of the man who wagered his soul has burned its way through opera, novels, films, comic books, and rock music. Much of the result has been awful (for instance, the hilariously bad film Faustus: Love of the Damned), but some of it has turned out quite well, such as "The Mephisto Waltz" by Listz.

We love playing around with Faust and Mephistophiles, telling stories that edge close to the edge of evil but which pull back at the last minute, like the ersatz fear induced by roller coasters. The Faust legend is a pile of fun, yet there's something curious about our love of this story that is so central to modern Western culture. Most of the Faust narratives depict evil, an evil that has been denatured usually by a romantic love which almost always saves Faust at the last minute.

We are entranced by the power of Love to overcome evil, but we seem fixated on Romantic Love as the source of saving power. Maybe we need to read some more Augustine on True Love. Augustine vs. Faust. Now there's an exciting cage match.

2011-01-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

"But we should not think that we ought not to learn literature because Mercury is said to be its inventor, nor that because pagans dedicated temples to Justice and Virtue and adored in stones what should be performed in the heart, we should therefore avoid justice and virtue. Rather, every good and true Christian should understand that wherever he may find truth, it is the Lord's."

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, BK II: XVIII

The Medium is the Message

2010-12-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

In his book Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, T. David Gordon writes:

"No one has ever written a requiem, for instance, to be accompanied by three people playing guitars. Why? Because death is still . . . a fairly serious matter, and guitar-playing just doesn't sound serious. It sounds like casual amusement."

Gordon goes on to make the exception for classical guitar, but his point is that in present day culture the overwhelming majority of people associate guitar playing with casual entertainment and hear guitar playing only in that context.

Gordon's book--along with his previous one, Why Johnny Can't Preach--is an excellent brief introduction into the ways in which musical forms and words shape religious experiences in ways most people are no longer aware of. His main argument is that the culture of amusement (pace Neil Postman, whom Gordon frequently refers to) now dominates nearly all thinking in the church, especially thinking about music. People today by and large no longer even are aware of different musical traditions and the ways they can convey religious truths and values (such as repentence from sin). Gordon's short study is provocative--and Christians today need to be provoked since most of their fundamental assumptions about worship are probably wrong, especially when it comes to music.

Thinking Christianly

2010-12-07T06:24:00.000-08:00

Is there a Christian view of communication? Is there a Christian understanding of powerpoint?

Is powerpoint bad for you?

Reading Pleasure

2010-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

For those of you who want to read the Inferno with some snacks, why not try Dante's Inferno Salsa?

Of course, not all the Inferno is hellfire and brimstone, so save the salsa for the funny parts where the demons dunk sinners in boiling tar.

On Dante

2010-10-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

A Poem by the British poet Elizabeth Jennings.

It is not possible to say how much
We owe to him, because his splendour blinds
Our eyes. Simpler it is to blame those minds
Too small to honour him, to sense his touch.

He did not fear to plumb to places where
Failure alone survives. But this was done
For our example. Only his country dared to shun

His greatness. Her ingratitude at last
Turned on herself. As proof of this, observe
How always to the perfect sorrows fall

Most painfully. To those who are the best
Most ill occurs. Dante did not deserve
Exile; his equal never lived at all.

Guide to the Dark

2010-10-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

In Peter Hitchens' new book The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith, readers get a whirlwind tour of how and why Christianity broke down so quickly in England during the last century. Hitchens actually covers more than that in this small book, but along the way he outlines the how and why of the breakdown of the Christian church after WWI. The path to an atheistic culture will probably work differently in America since somewhat different cultural forces are at work, but Hitchens' book is a dark study of why it might be possible that Christianity will remain a minority faith in Europe for the foreseeable future--and that means perhaps centuries.

One thing that Hitchens all too briefly discusses is the complicity of the Church in its own demise--first by becoming merely a chaplain to secular political forces and then by becoming a sentimental, theologically woozy suitor to all worldly trends. We have seen this latter hunger to be deemed "relevant" by American churches, first in the older liberal mainline denominations and now increasingly in various Evangelical bodies. Instead of standing with the hard truths of the Faith, Christians want to be liked and to be seen as "relevant," and so they make various concordats with secular culture, the latter never responding to the pitiful suasions of Christians who just want to be liked.

Hitchens is a clean, classical writer, and his emphasis on rational discussion demands a hard look at truth. I heartily urge the reading of this book by anyone interested in the contemporary state of Christianity and culture. The English context of Hitchens' experience doesn't fit neatly with the American situation, but his analyses still illuminate much that is happening today throughout the world.

Speaking of Classical

2010-10-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Jay Heinrichs' book Thank You For Arguing is a nice introduction to how classical rhetoric can be repackaged for life in the 21st Century. The subtitle of the book, "What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion," points to the wide-ranging nature of the book. Heinrichs sometimes comes off a bit too cute here and there, but the book as a whole is a superb introduction to the power of classical rhetoric.

The book is broken up into numerous chapters, each of which explains a piece of classical rhetoric, supplying examples and summaries. It's a very useful tool either to gain an introduction to the discipline or to refresh one's familiarity with the nuts and bolts of how rhetoric can work in daily life.

Here in this season of political upheaval, it is also a good handbook on how bad some arguments can get, even while those arguments persuade people who don't know how to think through arguments.

Return of the Classical

2010-10-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

Although it ultimately simplifies too much, it is still useful to think of the history of Western culture as a pendulem swinging between classical values and romantic values. Right now, we are in sort of a postmodern romantic mode for the most part. Television, movies, music, advertisements, even comic books generally promote a subjectivist individualism ("just listen to your heart!").

But the classical impulse never entirely disappears, even if it has not had much traction lately in the larger culture. This article on recent classical architecture is a case in point. Here and there, artists rediscover the value of classical ideals, with good results. It is possible that classical attitudes will never again become dominant, but they won't entirely die out.

A question about all this: what is the Christian response to embracing the classical vision for the postmodern world? The classical mind is not inherently Christian, but is there something in the classical mind that comports well with certain elements of the Christian faith? Christians thoughout the ages, both Catholic and Protestant, have thought so. But Christians for the most part today do not now see much value in the virtues of the classical orientation.

Dante Lectures on Youtube

2010-09-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Humanities departments in ivy league universities are rightly coming under attack due to their being colonized in totalitarian fashion by professors who seem only interested in promoting critical theory. However, not every professor is a far left radical whose only purpose in lecturing is the dismantling of his or her students' traditional beliefs. One can still find teachers who seem to love their subject and want nothing more than to make it accessible to students.

Take these Youtube lectures on Dante, for instance. I have not watched all of them, but the professor seems genuinely interested in Dante as an artist with things to say to us. He is not concerned with dismantling Dante simply as a dead white male who speaks in a Eurocentric voice of patriarchal oppression.

Worldview Resources

2010-09-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

The current wave of worldview thinking among American Christians has been generated primarily by what is sometimes called the "neo-Calvinist" tradition which was given shape first by Abraham Kuyper and then later by Herman Dooyaweerd. Many, many other Christians have helped shaped the current worldview movement and many of them are not Reformed. But these two Dutchmen stand out as major thinkers in forming the current discussion, even if most people have never heard these names.

But the current books, web sites, and seminars devoted to discussion of Christian worldview thinking are primarily located within the American context. It's always good to expand one's horizon and see what Christians from other locations in the world are doing to shape a Christian culture.

These South Africans, for instance, offer some thoughts on art, culture, faith, and politics, thoughts that sometimes sound like what you would hear in America. But sometimes their literal and figurative distance from America offers some Christian ways of responding to the world that can energize our own.

Lecture on Dante

2010-08-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

The translation of The Inferno used by fellows and faculty of the Center is by Anthony Esolen.

This lecture by Esolen on the final image of Lucifer embedded in ice (along with some other material from Purgatory) is an outstanding introduction to the central meaning of the Inferno. Esolan's style is a bit ragged, but his commentary gets one directly into the heart of the Inferno, and his lecture also gives one some insight into how to read the rest of the imagery of the Comedy.

Note: the lecture isn't actually as long as it appears. Some of the recording is taken up with questions and answers.

Beauty in Music

2010-08-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.resourcesforlifeonline.com/series/122/

Apologies for not embedding this link into the text. Apparently I can't do that from my netbook.

This is a link to a lecture John Hodges gave in 1996, on Beauty in music. Having recently endured a rock 'n roll worship service led by college students, I turn in gratitude to something that gives me relief from the amplified subjectivist piety I was subjected to. The service might have been meaningful in some way to the students, but it was not by any measure of reality a beautiful service of worship.

Do You Like Tolkien?

2010-08-19T07:17:00.003-07:00

Have you ever listened to him?

I listen to this trying to imagine him reading to the Inklings. He sits or stands, while Clive smokes a nice cigar and smiles.

2010-08-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

After too long a lapse in posting, this blog should become more active over the coming months as the Institute gears up with new students. Stay tuned for more discussion and for more links to helpful sources.

2009-06-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well, our first year is finished. We held our closing dinner last Monday, June 15th, and students, their families, faculty, and board were in attendance. Director Hodges played MC, and speeches were given by students, faculty and board about the significance of the work we are doing, and the specific experiences each had this year.

The students graciously thanked the faculty and board for their work to make the year possible, and said in various ways that they will always remember the rich discussions, the fabric of life at L'abri, the time to get to know other cities (Paris, Chartres, Versailles, London, Cambridge), and the joy of a year together.

We hope that the year gave what was promised: a better understanding of how a Christian can see life through the eyes of faith, and some insight into the great writers, artists, and musicians who addressed the big questions of life -- the questions every generation must address. It is wise to reflect on the answers they have given: THEY are our rich cultural inheritance. The reason that we have museums, concert halls, and libraries is so that we can have access to these answers, these ideas, these profound human experiences, embodied in words, paint, stone, sound. If it were not for these media, these answers would be lost to us today. But make no mistake -- these embodied answers ARE our inheritance, and our vision is clearer when we include them in our thinking. We are unwise to dismiss the past when we consider the present. G. K. Chesterton has said that we rightly reject the idea of excluding the vote of someone just because he is not of our social class -- why should we exclude the votes of our ancestors just because they are no longer living?

C. S. Lewis has said that it is not so much that we need more people to write about Christianity, rather we need more Christians who will write about everything else (cooking, art, business practices, philosophy, et c.). We hope that we have encouraged our students to see and ponder all of life from the vantage point of the Faith, and that through our work, they will each be encouraged to take the truth into every area of their work.

If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining us for our year starting August 24th, 2009, please contact our Director John Hodges at 229.9409 or by email jmvhvi@bellsouth.net. We have openings for our student year, and for an adult course of study that we are calling our "Reader's Seminar." We would be pleased to discuss the details with you and even put you in touch with the students who have just completed this year so that you could hear first hand how things went.

Special thanks to our faculty: Bill Jenkins, Keith Callis, and John Hodges who helped make this year the great success it was. And thanks to our Board members who encourage and support this important work.

Into the Woods

2009-06-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

Went to see the Playhouse on the Square production of Into the Woods on Saturday night in Memphis. Have you seen it? Very interesting storyline -- several fairy tales (Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood) woven together with aspects of other tales thrown in. All the characters are thrown into the woods to achieve their (sometimes vague) goals. By the end of the first act, there are happy endings for all the "good" characters. But then comes act II...it seems they didn't live happily ever after after all --a giantess terrorizes all of them, and each of them goes through heartaches as well. In the end, many have died, and the remaining few decide to carry on together as best they can.

Games are played with the moral lessons of each of the tales, and new "morals" are given along the way, especially the moral that parents should be careful what they tell their children as they are setting them up to be hurt when they find out how the world really works. It runs until June 7 -- have a look and then let's discuss it here.

Barbarism and Civilization

2009-05-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Though most people automatically associate Herman Melville with his novel Moby Dick, Melville wrote many other important works of literature. Several of these concern the South Seas, an area that Melville had first hand experience with.

This article on a Melville novel, Typee, reflects on Melville's concern with understanding the differences between civilization and more primitive modes of existence, especially the way some civilized people develop a desire to return to a putatively better state of innocence by abandoning civilization for "nature." The article is an excellent exploration of an important work of American literature and how that work can serve us today in thinking about what is worth revivifying in the Western tradition.

Good literature speaks to us today, sometimes in surprisingly relevant ways.

Modern Education

2009-05-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

As we work over The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis, you might find this article on education to act as a useful summary/introduction to the book. The article itself refers to Lewis, but the example given derives from our contemporary educational disaster.

The site on which this article is placed is also worth looking at.

Eliot

2009-05-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

T. S. Eliot is such a major figure in 20th Century culture that it would be impossible to cite even a partial list of useful works that make his own writings more accessible.

However, as a way into his "Waste Land," this article by R. V. Young does an excellent job of helping one see the grand view of Eliot's purpose in this most difficult poem, and the article also provides numerous helpful coments of specific lines and images.

A Helpful Resource

2009-04-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

The web now hosts a huge number of reference works on just about any topic, so The Dictionary of the History of Ideas might not be the most amazing thing one can find online. But it is useful, so you might want to bookmark it for future use, even if your use of it is sporadic.

Take, for example, "The Faust Theme". It isn't as much fun as thumbing through a big, heavy book, but it can be useful for filling in gaps in one's learning.

Faust Resources

2009-04-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

The figure of Faust is one of the most potent of the modern age. The number of movies, operas, novels, even comic books made from the Faust narrative is astonishing, and it makes one wonder why the Faustian set-up has been so compelling. As a way of gaining some insight into the many dimensions of Faust--especially in the dramatic forms given by Marlowe and Goethe-- this page of faust resources should be helpful to just about anyone.

Looking to join us next fall?

2009-04-15T06:58:00.001-07:00

The Center is still taking applications for students for the fall. Please contact our director John Hodges at 901/229-9409, or by email at jmvhvi@bellsouth.net to set up an appointment to discuss details. We will offer lectures, one-on-one tutorials, group discussions, a schedule of attendence at plays, concerts, films, and other cultural activities, as well as travel. Come join us for a year's study of our rich intellectual and spiritual heritage.

2009-04-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our trip to Chartres -- statues of the disciples on the south portal, our crew at the north portal. Approaching Chartres from the NW.

The three Graces - 18th century depiction of the ancient Greek subject.

2009-04-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Paris and London. The students are seated across from Buckingham Palace watching the changing of the Guard. There is a statue in the Louvre of Blaise Pascal contemplating a geometric figure, and below you see our students in front of the British Houses of Parliament.

Dante Resource

2009-03-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

Although we are way past Dante in this point of our study, The Princeton Dante Project might still be of interest to you.

What is Education?

2009-03-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

This brief but concise article on the "death of public education" explains very nicely the difference between education and job training.

Opening lines:

"Education, in so many words, is knowing what things are for, not simply how they work. The truly educated person understands the proper uses to which such things as bodies, brains, governments, art, and sport are put, not merely how to eat, how to execute difficult mathematical computattions, how to win an election, how to paint a still life, or how to hit a curveball."

Anti-Christian Stereotypes

2009-02-26T07:20:00.001-08:00

One of the most difficult things to do is argue against the historical "urban legend" type of arguments that agnostics throw in the face of Christians. It is difficult because it must be done again and again with little apparent effect. For instance, the theologians of the Medieval world never taught that the Earth was flat. Aquinas, for instance, knew it was round. Yet again and again you will hear people say that Medievals were afraid of sailing too far from shore since they thought they would fall over the edge.

One recurring myth concerns the figure of Giordano Bruno, a putative scientist who died defending Galileo's ideas. In fact, Bruno was apparently an unlikeable man in a number of ways, and he got himself into trouble for practicing the occult and for being nasty to his sponsors. Today, we would insist that it was wrong to burn him for his views, but we would be right to say that he is not a poster boy for Reason and Enlightenment.

The problem is, of course, that even with these kinds of refutations, such historical myths seem to live on. This suggests that those who accuse Christians of being fearful of using their intellects are in fact afraid themselves to alter their own erroneous views based on reasonable evidence. The opponents of Christianity often base their arguments on subrational desires to be free from religious constraints, not on real historical truth.

Reading Gulliver's Travels

2009-02-17T08:27:00.001-08:00

Gulliver's Travels has a stereotyped reputation of being a children's book. People who think this obviously haven't read the book. Swift's novel is about many things, some of them rather obscure, since the book makes numerous hidden references to people and events of the day. In spite of this dense allusiveness of the book, though, it deals with perennial issues that we deal with even today.

One of the things the novel is concerned with is, ultimately, original sin. Swift's depiction of the multifarious ways in which humans are grotesquely distorted from their created purposes is sometimes hard to face, even when couched in ridiculous satire. The novel ultimately reflects humanity back to itself, showing us what we look like without redeeming grace.

Freedom of the Will

2009-02-11T08:20:00.001-08:00

We've been discussing some of the ideas and strategies of Erasmus and Luther on freedom of the will. Though our purpose is not to tell anyone what he or she must believe, we do want to clarify ideas so that others (and ourselves) can come to more informed decisions concerning Christian doctrine. The Institute does not exist to promote a particular vision of the Christian faith, and we do not intend to tell students (or anyone else) what they must believe. Even so, it is good to look at these ideas from the past and engage them for our own intellectual and spiritual profit.

Since there was some real, solid dialogue over the issue that set Erasmus and Luther upon one another, I thought it might be helpful to see one Lutheran's brief take on the place of good works and faith. This blog entry certainly won't solve the problem, of free will nor will it explain in depth the issues involved. But it will help give a brief overview of what Luther was getting at by rejoicing in the lack of free will to choose God and to do works naturally that please Him.

You don't have to become a Lutheran to understand and appreciate Luther, and you don't have to become a Roman Catholic to understand and appreciate Erasmus. But to appreciate and understand, you do have to learn what they are really saying. That's getting educated.

Shakespeare Resources

2009-02-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

This site for Shakespeare essays (that is, essays on Shakespeare, not essays by Shakespeare) is an example of the good and the bad side of the Internet. On the one hand, it is good because many of these essays are genuinely helpful and come from a variety of backgrounds and serve a variety of purposes. On the other hand, many of the links are dead.

One could go to a traditional library and find a fifty year old essay stowed away somewhere in a bound collection of journals or on microfiche. Today, the 'net is hit and miss. Something that might last for five years suddenly disappears one day and you can't find it anymore.

The 'net brings us some good stuff, but it is also curiously impermanent in some ways. It is transitory like the computer technology itself that has to be updated every five years (or less) at enormous expense, whereas the books waiting in the library can be cracked open even if they haven't been touched in decades. Can one ever expect a server, a hard drive, or a cd-rom of today to be accessible in fifty years? They will all be in a landfill or an attic or a museum somewhere.

Just some thoughts.

Russian Lear

2009-02-03T07:29:00.001-08:00

Even though we are pretty much finished with our study of Shakespeare, I thought it would be worthwhile to point out one version some of you might want to watch.

This Russian version does some pretty amazing things visually with the story, such as in this scene; here, the storm scene is re-envisioned as a collection of the powerless among whom Lear falls in. The film is full of these interesting variations on what we normally assume Lear should look like.

The Cordelia in this version is one of the best I've seen. It seems that Cordelia is a hard part to play without going overboard. Portraying love and mercy is hard to do in film ,a medium that is better at displaying evil and horror since those are visually more appealing than goodness.

The stark black and white colors also serve the story well.

Finally, this version is a testimony to how much power Shakespeare has on even non-English speakers. The number of film, operas, and plays based on Shakespeare in other languages suggests that his power is not just in his amazing use of language.

New Semester

2009-01-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

Well, we aren't exactly measuring our time in terms of semesters, but it's a roughly accurate way of keeping to some kind of schedule.

We begin this new year with Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Shakespeare is simply unavoidable, but in today's academy, the Bard is usually taught through the lens of some fashionable critical theory, such as Marxism or feminism. The joy and the darkness one finds in the plays are explained away as one "interrogates" the "text" instead of discovering the pleasure of the human in it.

A well known web site called I-Monk has a nice essay on this dimension of Shakespeare titled "Why I Love the Bard" . This is a fairly bland title, but the content is anything but--the author tells us how Shakespeare saved him from a white trash existence and expanded his Christian vision of human beings in all their strange, wonderful, fallen diversity. Hopefully, we too can expand on this humanizing aspect of Shakespeare's plays, widening our own vision of humanity and our relationship to God as we go.

Scholasticism

2008-12-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

Recently we have spent some time getting familiar with the basic outlines of Thomist philosophy. Thomas Aquinas is so important in the development of Christian culture that one must necessarily deal with his brilliant output at some level. The term usually given to his kind of work is "Scholasticism," and Aquinas was certainly not the only Medieval to generate such material.

Also important to note is that Scholasticism did not really die with the Middle Ages, though in popular thought the two are nearly always put together--i.e., Scholasticism is a superrationalistic form of unnecessary disputation about things like how many angels can dance on the head of pin, a form of discourse that those benighted Medieval Catholics got lost in and from which Protestants rescued the Church.

In fact, Protestants developed their own forms of Scholasticism, and this article is useful for getting a feel for the development of that tradition, one that most Protestants are entirely ignorant of.

One Last Post On Dante

2008-12-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

We are wrapping up our discussion of The Inferno, but one last post on Dante might be of interest.

I'll give you just the title to whet your appetite:

"Zombies Meet Dante at the Mall."

2008-12-01T06:20:00.000-08:00

Many translations of Dante's Divine Comedy are available, but the one we are using is by Anthony Esolen. In this interview, Esolen discusses the work, but he also talks about contemporary cultural issues, especially the problems with defining masculinity today. Esolen is a professor of English, and he's also a conservative Catholic who has written widely on contemporary issues.

A good review of Esolan's translation can be found here.

Dante and Dostoevsky on Hell

2008-11-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

Dante, of course, didn't literally believe that hell was structured the way he depicts it in The Inferno. Nor was his depiction of punishment for sins like lust, usury, and murder in any official way taught by the Medieval Church. Dante was getting at something deeper by using literary tools, and an interesting bit of help on what Dante was up to comes from the Russian novelist Dostoevsky.

Here is a passage from "The Brothers Karamazov" . Though there are some variations between Dostoevsky's Russian Orthodox Background and Dante's Medieval Catholic background, both literary artists put their finger on a truth all Christians can accept: hell is in a sense self-chosen. God does not send one to hell, but one sends him- or herself to hell.

More on Dante and Art

2008-11-18T05:46:00.001-08:00

More on Dante and art. In this case, we have more images from Gustav Dore's famous images of the Divine Comedy, this time set to music from Liszt.

Dante on Film

2008-11-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

One of the most famous artistic realizations of Dante's Divine Comedy is found in the artwork of Gustav Dore. In 1911, Italian filmaker Francesco Bertoli produced a a film version of The Inferno, and it was apparently the first full length film of Italian cinema. Bertoli used Dore's artwork as the basis for his film, and selections from it can be found on Youtube.

Hail to the Chief

2008-11-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

John Hodges does not go to great lengths to toot his own horn, which is natural for a well-developed Christian, so I will take this opportunity to remind those involved with the Institute about the qualifications of the man leading us in this experiment.

I want to point to one of John's accomplishments--his participation in The Trinity Arts Conference from several years ago. If you look at the other participants, you will see that John keeps good company. Several of the other speakers are nationally known writers and academics who have written important books on the relationship between Christianity and Culture.

I wanted to inform readers of this blog about John's background to help promote the Institute by helping you to see that John has spent much time and effort in getting to where he is today. Please give the Institute due consideration in whatever fashion you can, knowing that the impetus behind it results from a vigorous Christian vision that has been shaped by years of thought and work.

Turning Up the Heat

2008-11-05T11:23:00.001-08:00

We will soon begin discussion of Dante's Inferno, and some of you might find this visual guide to Hell useful.

Of course, merely getting in order the circles of Hell and the sins in each circle is just a small step in getting into this important work. Dante deals with much, much more than creating particularly delicious torments for sundry sinners.

Even so, obtaining a sense of the structure of the epic will help one get oriented to the larger themes and issues the work deals with. The symbolism of Dante's descent provides the artistic structure for exploring the nature of sin.

Students on the Greeks - Chelsea Brock

2008-10-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Odyssey and The Orestia present the culture of ancient Greece through slightly differing perspectives. While there are many similarities, an interesting thought progression is shown through the differences between the two works. One of these differences is the glorification of violent revenge in The Odyssey. When Odysseus returns home, the only logical course of action in the story is for him to avenge the wrongdoing of the suitors by murdering them all. He does this and peace is restored to his estate and family. This brutal act ends up being the resolution of the entire story and is not shown in a negative light at all; on the contrary it is glorified as an act of bravery and justice. In The Orestia, murder is also used as a way to avenge the wrong doings of others. However, the murders in this work are presented in a less glorified way. The Greeks upheld family as one of the most important things in their lives, and the only way to properly avenge the death of a family member is to kill the person who is guilty of the crime. However, Aeschylus seems to be suspicious of the never-ending cycle of violence that is mandated by the Greek culture. Rather than glorifying each murder, he shows a chaotic downward spiral that will continue forever if something doesn’t change.
Another difference between these two classic works is the faith that the characters have in the gods. In The Odyssey, each of the characters seems to be completely certain in the identity and relevance of the gods in their lives. Odysseus trusts the gods to guide him through every one of his trials and while at some points on his journey certain gods make it harder on him to return home, eventually they never fail to bring him to safety. In my opinion, here is a differing portrayal of the gods in The Orestia. There are several allusions in the work to the characters not being sure who Zeus is or if the gods are really responsible for what is happening in their lives. This shows that rather than the blind faith of the characters in Homer’s work, Aeschylus is presenting some questions concerning the gods that were most likely beginning to circulate through Greek culture.
It has been very interesting to observe ancient culture through these two classic works of Greek literature. Homer and Aeschylus have not only created exciting plot lines and complex characters; they have given the modern world an in-depth look at a major progression in thought that was occurring in their civilization.

Students on the Greeks - Jonathan Sessions

2008-10-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

Our first book this year was Homer’s The Odyssey followed by Aeschylus’ The Oresteia which we are currently finishing up. These books are good to read because they show the progression of the Greek opinion concerning order, chaos, reason, the supernatural, etc.
In The Odyssey the Greek ideal is given form in the hero of the story, Odysseus. The hero is strong, handsome, clever, loved by the gods, and he knows what really matters: being where you belong and being with the people who you love and are loved by. His fate is to live in Ithaca with his wife and son and to rid his home of his wife’s suitors. The Odyssey is the story of how he overcomes all of the obstacles that the gods put in his way as he journeys home to his family. What The Odyssey expresses is the idea that being where you belong (i.e. your home, following your fate) and being with people that love you is the most precious thing in the world. The view of the gods in The Odyssey is that the immortals are more like super men than divinities. They hold grudges, they are prone to violent reaction when angered (i.e. typhoons, earthquakes, etc.), and do not seem to be very concerned about the ordering of the world, which is what they are supposed to do.
The Oresteia shows the Greek mind taking another step forward. The story depicts the victorious return of king Agamemnon from the Trojan War to his home in Argos where he is received by his treacherous wife Clytemnestra, who has been secretly plotting his death; once she has him washed and bathed and seated at a “welcome home” feast, she kills him. The story is also of Orestes who is the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother and is then chased by the Furies, who are the goddesses that avenge “inter-family” killing, until Apollo (god of Reason) and Athena (goddess of Wisdom) have to intervene to save the young man’s life. The two gods demand that Orestes be tried in a court of law and end up saving the day using the combination of Wisdom and Reason, which is Rhetoric. What this story depicts is the movement of Greece into an age where its people begin to question barbaric tradition and replace it with well ordered and well reasoned ideals. The story shows the first court of law and how Reason and Wisdom overcome the bloodlust of barbarism. At one point in the book Zeus himself is questioned and the speaker wonders if Zeus is really what the people have always thought him to be. The speaker wonders if Zeus is even the god’s correct name. The amazing thing about this view of the gods is that it does not negate the idea that there is a supernatural being ordering the cosmos, it just questions whether the gods are really what they have always been taken as, which are super men, or whether the gods are much more than man had ever thought them to be; more omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
These two stories show the state of man where he simply believes in what he has been told exists and does not question it, but also the state of man where he begins to wonder about absolute truth and question what he has been told is true. The remarkable thing about ancient civilizations similar to the Greeks is how they assumed that there must be a god who orchestrates the universe. This and the fact that the Greeks took it a step further by searching for absolute truth, and determining that it must be with god(s) is astounding. The culmination of this search for absolute truth came through Plato. As a Greek he knew the ancient stories, and reasoned that for the gods to be the ordering principles of the universe, they must be perfect. The gods must know or be absolute truth. Eventually he deduced that there must only be one god who is absolute truth, goodness, and beauty. This is an astounding insight, since Plato came to this conclusion without the specific revelation of the bible. Plato’s reasoning only furthers the glory that is the Christian God’s alone. The Triune God is a god of order and even a pagan, like Plato, can pick up on that. The Odyssey and the Oresteia show the transition from barbarism to order and Plato lays a foundation that thinkers like Aristotle, the Romans, the medieval Christians, and our modern philosophers have built upon as they have continued to ask the question, what is the truth?

Student's on the Greeks - Mason Hodges

2008-10-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

Studying Greek culture so far has, in many ways, given context to the world in which I live day to day. Essentially starting from a philosophical scratch the Greeks began to touch on the fundamental principles of what it meant to be a human being. They developed the concept of being self aware, a response to an innate sense of morality and the distant, yet distinct, relationship between man and the supernatural. Inspiring? I am continually intrigued how much the Greek mind progressed in almost naturally Christian ways without the benefit of Scripture and, conversely, that many Christians have stunted their intellect by studying only the Bible. Part of our responsibilities as followers of Christ is engaging and relating to the culture we have been placed in; being “in the world, but not of it.” What I have learned from being apart of the Center for Western Studies so far is that all aspects of God’s creation are worthy of our intellectual pursuit and the Word of God provides the framework in which to do so. Whether it is history or math or philosophy or science, the Greeks understood that being a human meant pursuing every one of the different aspects of creation to find and develop the deeper, transcendent meanings within them. I believe the underlying support of the vast influence Greek culture has had throughout the history of western civilization is the purpose found in developing the mind. We are creatures, made to bear the image of God who reveals himself through His creation. No one found more purpose in living as a Christian should live (intellectually) than the Greeks. I have begun to have immense respect for studying the history, literature and art of these cultures because of the context in which it places my everyday life and the glory of God that is revealed through studying His creation.

2008-09-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

The gang: Chelsea, Mason, Prisca (helper), Jonathan, and Jock McGregor; the addictive "speed" scrabble with Nancy Snyder and Mason; the L'abri living room, the library, and the Chelsea.

Lunch discussion - Jonathan is saying "and Zeus, he is like this really BIG god, see, and..."

Around the table from left to right are Chelsea, Erin (another student), Prisca, Larry Snyder, Jonathan, and Mason.

Info on Center for Western Studies

2008-09-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for an overview of our Center, and statement of our mission, scroll down to the May post entitled "Overview of our Year Program." In between this and that, you'll find updates on our work these last 6 weeks, and articles, speeches, and links that will give you more of our thinking and approach. Photos to come!

Back from L'abri

2008-09-30T07:16:00.001-07:00

For the last 2 weeks, our Center students Chelsea, Jonathan, and Mason lived, worked, and studied at the L'abri branch in Rochester, MN. There, they met quite a number of new people, including Larry and Nancy Snyder, who have worked with L'abri for over 30 years, and Jock and Allison McGregor, also long-time workers -- Larry and Jock have been leading this branch for nearly a decade together, and have blessed students the world over with their clear-headed teaching and warm hearts. Our students made immediate friends with Prisca, Erin, and Marilee, who help the workers handle the day-to-day challenges of running the ministry. Our students listened to lectures from the L'abri library on various subjects like revelation (how God speaks to us), the humanities (literature and psychology), and philosophy (relativism and tolerance) from thinkers like Jerram Barrs, Donald Drew, and Dick Keyes. They attended meal discussions and film discussions with L'abri's leaders, and weekend lectures on subjects like the "new atheism" from P+R Books senior editor Marvin Pagett, and on the life and works of Hugo and Mozart from our own John Hodges. In addition to work (cutting down trees, and cooking meals), their studies and their discussions, the students found time to play speed scrabble ("an addiction"), shoot baskets, visit 2 college campuses (St. Olaf, and Carlton, Northfield, MN), and most of all, experience a unique expression of Christian community. Special thanks to Day Hodges who joined them for the two weeks.

First Week

2008-08-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Last week we kicked off the Center, held our first lecture, our first tutorials, our first discussion group meeting, and even had a special lecture on Sire's worldview questions. We are off and running. Dr. Callis gave us a great first look at Homer, using a bit of reverse psychology to get the students to take a closer look at the book, and begin questioning from the outset the applicability of the work to our day.

Much of what we discussed last week had to do with the comparing a Christian mind with the Greek pagan one. What does virtue look like -- that is, what do the gods approve of? And what sort of powers do the gods have over circumstances in the world they inhabit, compared with the sovereignty of the God of the Bible? We discussed how sovereignty is at best divided up among the various gods, and perhaps even beyond or behind them we find the Fates, spinning out fate without direct contact with men in the world.

Athena's love of Odysseus was another topic of discussion. How is it that she has such affection for him? Is it that she is taken with his abilities? He is so powerful, able, crafty, smart, et c? Or is it that the gods have made him that way first? What part does Athena's encouragement play in his successes that make him such a favorite? Which came first?

Books 7-12 tonight, and on we go! Planning for a trip to L'abri in Rochester starting Sept 15th. I can't wait for the students to get to know our friends the Snyders and the MacGregors.

We've kicked off!

2008-08-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well, we have done it -- we have begun the first week of our year-long tutorial with our new students. Last night we had a kickoff dinner with students, their families, the faculty, and some of our supporters. Director Hodges gave a short speech on what we are doing, and why we are doing it, describing our unusual year of study as a combination of a Christian view of the world with a study of the history of ideas in the West, through the great books. He told us to think of the work more as an apprenticeship than a class -- the idea is to pass on what the faculty has grown to love in the books we will be reading, and in so doing light the flame of enthusiasm (or fan it!) in our students. Here's a short excerpt from his talk:

"Even 100 years ago these great books still had a strong position in our culture, although they were slowly losing ground. Now, in 2008 some colleges and universities consider these works backward-looking, or even oppressive and negative because they refer to certain visions of the good life that are no longer in vogue. The result has been, sadly, that we are losing what was once a cohesive cultural foundation set in the common stories of our education that for centuries has been communicated through these books.

1598 years ago, the barbarians were closing on the gates of Rome, after overwhelming the outposts of the Holy Roman Empire in Eastern Europe and Britannia over the previous century. Just 66 years later, the last emperor abdicated, and night fell on Western Europe. The barbarians were vicious, cruel, and technologically inept. They tore down buildings they didn’t know how to rebuild, killed citizens they didn’t understand, drove people into the wilderness but wouldn’t live in their homes, and destroyed a culture they had no way of rebuilding. Just imagine an angry inner city gang, a few hundred Islamic terrorists, and a tribe of New Guinea headhunters all attacking your neighborhood church. They wouldn’t have any interest in the sanctuary, the organ, the beauty of the architecture, the silly robes the pastors wear, the pastors themselves, or the people praying. They could no more create the civilization that inspired the church they destroy than fly to the moon. The trouble is, they couldn’t even imagine wanting to create such a thing. At that point, they don’t have the cultural framework even to imagine a Chartres, much less build one.

Yet – in the end, the story of the barbarian invasions is a story of God’s redemption, because no sooner had those barbarians taken over but they began to be converted to Christianity, and it is from those Barbarian ancestors that we have the great artworks of England, France, and Germany – think of Beowulf, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Kells, and ultimately, the great Romanesque cathedrals followed by the Gothic ones (including Chartres) – that the Italians never did like much because they were, well, of the Goths. But the Goths became Christians, and they made some of the most beautiful and profound art the world has known. What will the art of the 20th century converts from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism, and Atheism create in the years to come?

I have no doubt that God is in the business of bringing the unbelievers into contact with Westerners today in order that they too might hear the Gospel and be redeemed. It may be a slow and difficult process, but in the end, Islam will bow the knee to Jesus, and so will the pagans, the atheists, and the syncratists who are flooding into our country today.

So what, in the midst of a potential Dark Age, should Christians do? We should pass on what we know. The faithful ones in the 2nd half of the first millenium were the ones who kept the books: those who copied and taught the books they knew until such time that the culture would once again be interested in the questions those books answer. When folks come to their wits’ end and once again long to know the definitions of important words – words like, love, truth, trust, goodness, beauty, justice, mercy, grace…they will again need God to define these words for them, and they will find the definitions in marvelous books written over the centuries that can again help present generations remember what once was known by many but was lost.

And this is what we are hoping to do at the Center for Western Studies: not save Western civilization just because it is Western – but pass on Western civilization because it is civilized. We want to pass its ideas on to our students in faith that one day they will be needed again, and you will both be able to live in accordance with them yourselves (which will give great joy and peace) and pass them on to colleagues, peers, and children when the time comes. This is to glorify God.

Why do this, students? Not so that you can get this over with and get on with your lives. Rather so that you can begin to get a good idea of what your lives should be like. What are you going to value? What are you going to love? After this year, we hope that you have a better picture of what you have in common with Augustine and Dante and Shakespeare. These fellows are writing TO YOU. You are not listening in on a conversation they are having with someone else, hoping that you will remember enough to put down on a test and move on to the next thing – you are listening to them talk directly to you. You are going to learn to listen to their hearts through these books and music and paintings – you are going to realize that they had you in mind when they wrote. Dr. Jenkins, and Dr. Callis and I are not going to be telling you what you ought to know (as if there were a finite amount that can be known and we are going to give you a percentage of it), we are going to tell you what we love about these writers and the ideas they describe. We are not giving you a year of telling you what you need to know to pass a test – we want to infect you with a love for learning itself, and teach you what we know in hopes that you might go on learning the rest of your life. Think of it more as an apprenticeship than an education, though it will be both."

Tonight, Dr. Callis gave our first lecture on Homer's Odyssey, laying out 10+ reasons why we should NOT bother reading this work. This week we are going to prove him wrong! We will post notes on that lecture soon.

If you would like to be able to join us for some of our lectures, discussions, or cultural outings (plays, concerts, films, et c) please respond here and leave your email address so that we can send you the details. For suggested donations to the Center, interested folks can become auditors and participate in what is going to be a great first year.

Saving the West

2008-08-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

Saving the West through good grammar.

Actually, what this blogger argues is more than using good grammar to be a proper person. She argues for the reality of underlying structures of the cosmos, laws and patterns society is capable of recognizing and adapting to, and thus building a civilization worth inhabiting.

A. Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-12T05:33:00.001-07:00

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a man from the East. Not in the sense of being from Asian culture, but in the sense of being someone formed by Russian culture and spirituality, someone who could look at the West as something of an outsider and tell us what we had let go of to the danger of our souls.

When Solzhenitsyn first came to America, he was hailed by liberals and conservatives, but many people, both left and right, quickly turned against him as he began outlining the failures of the West. Much of what he said still resonates painfully today.

An example of this is his Nobel Prize speech of 1970.

Tradition Isn't a Bad Word

2008-08-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

Though some Protestants have taken an extremely negative view of the concept of tradition--some to the point of rejecting anything even a few years old--other, more informed, Protestants have understood that a biblical faith does not entail automatic rejection of something just because it is old. A good example of this is John Milton, the British poet who swallowed whole the entire Western tradition as a Protestant and made great poetry out of it.

James Kurth, a political science professor and a Presbyterian Elder, shows how we can again go about this biblically shaped conservancy in his article "Western Tradition, Our Tradition". Tradition is not a dirty word.

Commencement Address

2008-07-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Honored seniors, Westminster students, respected faculty, staff, and administration, fellow board members, friends, and most of all, parents, I am delighted to have the honor of addressing you on this important night when we celebrate the commencement of our latest senior class. I have enjoyed working with you seniors in Capstone all year, and I am very proud of your accomplishment.

Brevity is most certainly is the soul of wit, and while I am ordinarily reluctant to take any advice from Polonius, if there were an appropriate place to be brief, it would be when you are standing between a wild-eyed senior class and its stack of diplomas. In this case, brevity may prove also be the better part of valor. I want to promise you that I will indeed be brief, to the point, time-conscious, brief, short-winded, timely, brief, and most of all, redundant.

I do have to say at the outset, that I do not at all appreciate the sidelong glances and giggling that I have had to put up with from the faculty in the back halls. It is not at all professional. I have TOLD you that I didn’t pick the color of my stole – pink signifies a major in music – it is not a sissy color as some of you seem to think. So just grow up, will you?

Seniors, you have been told for years now WHAT a Classical/Christian education is, not only through the content of your classes, but in parent meetings and assemblies – some of you since first grade -- and you would probably rather have a root canal than hear it discussed in public again, and I can’t blame you. So, I’m going to make you a second promise, one that is even more daring: I am NOT going to tell you what Classical/Christian education is again…even if you beg. If you don’t know by now, there is really very little I can do to help you, anyway.

However, I do want to tell you a secret. I want to tell you WHY we did it. We, that is, the faculty, staff, board, and most of all, your parents, who chose to put you through this peculiar education when you could have been sent to public and private schools already in existence. It would have been easier, less expensive, and just the thought of the extra free-time we’d all have had --- well, all I can say is that we would all have better golf games…

Why did we do it? Because we believe it is the best way we know to prepare you to be used by God.

You have heard it said that the Classical/Christian education is the somewhat awkward combination of Greek reason and Christian revelation, and that this combination is the foundation of Western civilization. Actually neither of these statements is completely true. First, the only reason that the combination of reason and revelation is in any way awkward is that the two sides have been rather brutally separated by our recent ancestors, and putting them back together is a little reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty. And secondly, the only reason we think of this hybrid as the foundation of Western civilization is that we have overlooked what really IS the foundation of Western civilization, a foundation that is at once more clear and more mysterious.

You will recall that God had to throw the Apostle Paul down to the ground and blind him in order to get his attention. What really interests me tonight in this story is that when Paul is led into Damascus, God speaks to a fellow called Ananias, and tells him to go heal Paul’s blindness. Well, Paul’s motto was always “stone first and ask questions later,” and Ananias was understandably a bit reluctant to meet him. But God convinces him by telling him that he has chosen Paul to be the one to take God’s name to the gentiles. Why choose Paul?

Who can fathom the plans of God? Paul grew up in a Jewish home, learned his scriptures, knew the ways of temple worship, and by his own admission, kept the law perfectly. But in addition to being the consummate Pharisee, he was given a Greek education. He knew his revelation, but he also knew his rhetoric. He embodied the Athens/Jerusalem combination: reason and revelation, knowledge and belief, eloquence and wisdom. It should not surprise us that God chose this man to be the one to speak for him. He had been prepared for this job long before he had any idea what he was going to do.

A side bit of advice – it is not unusual not to know what you are going to be doing. Yes, we all like to have a plan, but God is in the business of changing your plans when it serves His purposes, and His purposes are always better for you than your original plans. So, hold those plans loosely – you may find one day that you are stoning the wrong people, and you don’t want God to have to blind you to get your attention…

So how did God’s chosen spokesman know where to preach? In Acts chapter 16, we read that Paul desires to turn north and east into the eastern world, probably toward Byzantium, but he is specifically stopped by the Holy Spirit, and given a dream of a man in Macedonia, that is in the west, calling him to come and preach the gospel to them. He immediately does so, traveling across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia, then south into Greece, and winds up in Acts 17 on Mars Hill in Athens, the center of the ancient Greek world.

In his remaining missionary work, he repeats his trip to Greece and points west, and finally goes to Rome. Rome, of course, is even further west than Athens. You see, from the point of that miraculous dream, Paul never again looks east. Once God set him on this path, he never looked back. It can rightly be argued that THIS is the true founding of what is known as Western civilization – all the accomplishments of Augustine, Boethius, Bede, Anselm, Suger, Thomas, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Milton, Rembrandt, Handel, Bach, Pascal, Newton, Burke, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Eliot, Chesterton, and even what’s-his-name who authored the Prince Caspian story, all these people owe their accomplishments to one man who was prepared when God told him to preach the gospel to the west. And how many more in the future will be blessed by this event? How many in Africa, India, China, SE Asia, and in the dense jungles of Bartlett owe their knowledge of the Savior to the Western culture that was born from Paul’s obedience and education? This is how Western civilization was born. Not simply through a forced combination of two competing schools of thought, Athens and Jerusalem, science and faith, reason and revelation, but through one unified thing: an obedient Christian who was educated to think well.

Do you see why your parents thought this was worthwhile? Why the board, faculty, staff, and administration would sacrifice their golf games to be sure this education was passed on? We are part of a long history of faithful men and women who have passed on what they knew, regardless of the cost, and you are the next link. We are hoping that you will embody what is truly great about the West – that you will be a group of people with a command of language, and a command of the Scriptures. Then, armed with the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide you, you might be equipped to live out the gospel, and be witnesses to God’s work of redemption in the world. It is not by accident that you have been trained this way -- you have been chosen too, just like Paul – you have been educated for a reason. You are going to be ready to speak and write when the Lord says, “not this way, that way” – and the result of your faithful choices will echo through the future generations just as Paul’s have, should the Lord tarry. But always remember that without the leading of the Holy Spirit, your education is of no value at all. In fact it could make you quite proud, which is deadly. It required a conversion, not a diploma, for Saul to become Paul.

At this point in the speech, most commencement speakers tell you that this is an exciting time – the beginning of your careers, you can be anything you want to be, just believe in yourselves. What a load of nonsense! This IS an exciting time, but it is not because you can be anything you want to be – for example, I can say without too much fear of contradiction, that none of you, save perhaps your valedictorian, will have much of a future in the NBA. You can’t be ANYTHING, but you weren’t built to be anything – you were built to do the specific work that God has called You to -- “you are God’s workmanship, created for good works in Christ.” You will embody the faith, communicating it to your watching pagan/barbaric neighbors through your academic work, through the way you raise your children, through your writing, artwork, science, through the businesses you start, the churches you lead, through the way you spend your leisure time, through your carefully chosen words, and most of all, through the way you love one another – in short, the Lord will be made visible through the WAY you “do” culture.

Through you we hope to see a genuine turn back toward civilization again. It is a mighty burden to place on such a young and small group – and it may be that it will only be possible through your great-grandchildren, but it will be accomplished, if it is accomplished, through a million little faithful decisions day-by-day, week by week by a growing community of believers who reveal the truth by their actions. If we are each faithful in our own generations, God will use us for His glory, and what better thing is there than that?

May God bless you each and keep you safe as you enter into the world of college academics, and give you great joy as you stand with Him there. And now I want to ask you to promise me something: promise that you will never apologize for holding both to revelation and reason – they are your inheritance as godly men and women of the West.

Overview of Year Program

2008-05-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

We are planning a Aug-June program that addresses two things: a Christian worldview, and the history of ideas in the West through a great books reading schedule. We’ll start the last two weeks of August, do 7 weeks on the Greeks and Romans, and then take two weeks off to attend the Rochester, MN L’abri branch. Then 7 weeks on the medievals, and a month plus off for Christmas. Then 7 weeks on the Renaissance and Reformation, 7 weeks on the Enlightenment and Romanticism, 2 weeks off to go to England and France, then back home for 6 weeks on the 20th century. In the end, the students will have a sense of the flow of history through ideas that have shaped our civilization, read from original sources. The hope is that this will prove to be a “clothes line” that the students can add to as they each go through college and for the rest of their lives.

We have 3 faculty members, myself dealing with art, music, theater, and general reading, Keith Callis, PhD in Romantics and also in Shakespeare, and Bill Jenkins, PhD, who is a 20th century fiction specialist and who also specializes in writing. We will also have guest lecturers here and in England (I have a couple of friends at Cambridge who we plan to meet with when we travel there).

Weekly schedules will include a lecture or two, lots of reading, tutorial time (one-on-one), group discussion time, and some sort of cultural event (play, film, concert, gallery showing, et c.) with discussion afterward. Some of the lectures and events will be opened to the public too, and perhaps the trip overseas too.

We are setting tuition at $12,500 for the year. It includes the expenses on the trip to Europe – not included are books, food or lodging during the regular year.

Also, we have connections with Belhaven College in Jackson, MS, and they are willing to give college credit for the work we are doing. (I have taught for Belhaven before.)

If you are interested in this program, please let us know, and we will be pleased to speak with you directly either by email or phone.

The lamp post

2008-01-17T14:38:00.001-08:00

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

GK Chesterton, from "Heretics"

Once upon a time there was a horse...

2008-01-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a horse. It was a marvelous horse, tall in stature, proud in character, rich brown in color. People came from miles around to see this horse, as it was the only one in existence.The horse was strong, graceful, proud, beautiful. People were so struck with awe at the combination of rippling flanks, the snorting, the stamping, the swishing, the power, the gentleness, they decided to study the horse to see what could be learned about it, but there was so much to the mighty creature they decided to each address a portion of the horse to save time. So one studied the nose, another the flanks, another the hoofs, another the ears, and together they marveled at the details they uncovered and shared their discoveries with each other. The one who studied the nose spoke of its shape and nostrils, the one who studied the hooves spoke about the curve of the hoof, and the difference between the hoof tissue and that of the rest of the leg, the one who studied the ears spoke of their ability to turn in various directions and the cartilage he could feel through the flesh on the outside. Each was amazed at the living breathing creature, and how many facets it had.So much so, that when they went back to their own homes, they tried to describe this animal to their friends. These descriptions were so astounding for those who had never seen the horse that others wanted to come and study with the scholars about this horse they had inspected. The one who had studied the nose could describe the nose in detail, but the details about the rest (since it had not been his specific area) were more vague in his mind. Likewise, each of the others found that when they were apart they could describe the area of study they had each undertaken, but it was difficult to describe the whole horse, and even harder to describe the awe they had found in its presence.The scholars decided that they should band together to properly communicate the entirety of the horse to their individual students, all in hope that they would be able to recreate in their students the awe they had each felt. But to do so, they needed each other's expertise. The one who studied the hoof was in need of the one who studied the ears, and the one who studied the tail needed help from the one who studied the flanks, et c. The horse was too much for anyone to grasp completely, so they followed their studies in the various horse-disciplines, but always with an eye to make sense of the whole of the parts, and even more, the life that that whole seemed to contain.So the scholars began a school for students to learn about the horse. There was no real point to this study apart from the amazing knowledge itself. It would not directly give anyone special advantage in the pursuit of wealth or power, but they found that when you got a glimpse of the living breathing horse itself, you were astounded and awestruck. This experience became a motivator for the scholars to continue to learn and grow in all areas of knowledge, and as a result, knowing about the horse as a whole seemed to give one a better understanding of life in general. Employers began to look for people who knew about the horse because those people always seemed to be in awe about life in general, and this made them more interested in learning other things, like how to market products or design Powerpoint presentations, and those seemed to guarantee sales. (oddly, as the years went by, the more marketing and presenting these horse-scholars-turned-businessmen did, the less enthusiasm they had for horse-studies, but ironically the less interest they had for business practices too, and most ended up watching a lot of cable television and muttering to themselves, but that is another story.)As the generations went by, the students grew and began to teach about the horse themselves, and, as might be expected, they mostly discussed the aspect of the animal that their individual teachers had studied the most. So there came to be schools of thought about the horse. The “students of the nose,” as they were called, came to believe that their part of the animal was the most important, as did the “hoof scholars” and the “mane institute” – and they passed their best information on to the next generations of students as best they could, writing in the “New Albany Journal of the Horse," all about their individual studies, and about how each thought his study really got to the most fascinating and essential parts of the horse.After several more generations, the various schools decided to separate to pursue their respective studies. This came about because each scholar began to think that his individual area of study was not only the most important in knowing the horse, but was also somehow limited by close proximity with the scholarship of the department nearest him. One can’t study the hoof completely without constantly running into the “leg scholarship” guys, and one can’t study the mane of the horse without always having to keep the nose, mouth, and eye guys “out of your hair.” (which is, of course, how that phrase came to be).So, the various schools broke the tenuous connections they had held through inter-school communications, the New Albany Journal, and the National Horse Conference, to pursue their study of the horse without the limitations of the others. They each founded their own journals, started conferences specifically for their individual area of study. This made it possible to really dig deep into the details of the various aspects of the horse. The mane scholars found that there were many different lengths and widths of hair in the mane, and the hoof fellows found that there were all sorts of diseases that could be addressed by proper care for the hoof, and the flank guys studied the ribcage showing through the thin skin on the flanks, and speculated about what could be found underneath the ribs.So the awe for the life of the original horse was slowly transferred to the awe for the details the scholars could show, and then eventually awe for the scholars themselves. Just look at the insight, the detail, the well-organized facts about the various aspects of the horse! The schools even began to compete with each other over how many details they could catalogue. Also, in their free time they established football teams made up of students from the various schools to give them momentary diversions from their studies. These teams built huge followings and in some ways overshadowed the original purpose of the horse studies, but that is another story.Eventually the horse studies became known simply as “the studies” since everyone had nearly forgotten about the horse, and the various schools became known by the specialty they each offered. The Nose School, the Tail Way, the Hoof Gymnasium, the Mane Institute… and each found that by studying a particular aspect, students became quite good at certain aspects of life. Those who studied the nose became skilled at predicting diseases in people, those who studied the tail found that they could build great violin bows, those who studied the hoof found their way as manicurists, and those who studied the mane seemed to become experts in cosmetology.As centuries went on, an entire culture rose up around those who were doctors, musicians, cosmetologists, et c., and a certain demand sprang up for these abilities. Eventually scholars simply taught medicine, music, and hair-styling without bothering to make reference to the parts of the horse at all. The courses that connected the vocations to the horse itself were ignored or discontinued in hopes of making the students’ years of study as efficient as possible so that they could enter into their desired jobs as quickly as possible. Eventually, there were so many schools cropping up, the competition among the various schools became quite fierce. The schools who received fewer students found that they were not able to pay all their faculty, so since they did not want to shut down, they hired marketing firms to bolster their images and attract students. As soon as one school went this route, others had to follow, since their market share was becoming threatened. So they all turned to advertisers and marketers who would write ads and marketing slogans for each school, and be paid by them all. They would get paid huge sums for, “We noses can get you a better job than those ear guys.” and other witty aphorisms.There were still some schools that attempted to connect studies to the parts of the horse that originally inspired them, even though these schools were considered out-of-touch with the mainstream, and taught useless information. One day, at the Mane Institute of Technology (at this late date, few knew anymore what the word Mane actually referred to -- the Institute, or MIT, was now most highly regarded for doing the physics and chemistry work needed to produce acne products), a graduate student, deep in the recesses of the library was going over ancient references to hair follicles and discovered the definition of something called "the mane." He asked his study partner, “just what is this "mane" anyway?” The partner, a junior, had no real idea. "And it is in the name of our school, too." And the two of them began to wonder why they were studying follicles, hair thickness, and length, and began to ask what the mane was, and what it had to do with anything important. Their faculty at first resisted their questions, but then began to be curious as well. One called over a scholar from the Left Ear Institute at a football game their teams were playing, and asked, “What do the names of our schools have to do with education?” “Who cares? Go Earholes!” he shouted as they scored.But the Mane Man was not daunted – he began to imagine what the field of study would look like if all of them gave up for a moment pursuing the studies of music, medicine, law, and glue manufacturing, and got together to pool their knowledge about the ancient and lost arts of nose, ear, flank (no one studied this one anymore), hoof, tail, etc. He formulated a conference and invited the top scholars from each of the present schools, and these debated the differences among their various fields. After some time they were able to piece together on paper a picture of their combined subjects, and make educated guesses about which parts were missing. The result was a very awkward and fractured picture of a four legged creature with a long nose and pointy ears. They were each amazed and a strange awe swept over them all. Could this be what the ancients were about? It was an amazing sight, one that none of them had ever seen before. “It’s beautiful,” said one, and all agreed. “But what use is it?” asked another. There was silence around the room.

Interested in an outside-the-box education?

2008-01-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

The Humanities Project: The Center for Western Studies.

Introductory remarks:
It has become increasingly clear to cultural critics that we are declining as a civilization in the West. Once, long ago, Western civilization imagined and created universities, hospitals, cathedrals, great art and music, as the result of the unique combination of Greek and Christian thought that formed the basis for the Western mind. Today, while we may sustain the outward appearance of these institutions, our culture has lost the general Christian convictions it once held, and the result is that these institutions are becoming hollowed-out shells that still resemble the original institutions on the outside but inside are increasingly confused within. Universities that once touted mottos like “Veritas” now teach that there is no truth; hospitals that once only employed those who took the Hippocratic Oath now embrace abortion as a matter of course; cathedrals built by the people themselves over the course of generations now stand nearly empty; transcendent art and music that once was a part of daily life has been relegated to museums; and the dynamic and profound relationship between reason and revelation that brought all this culture to fruition has been dismissed as irrelevant. We are living on borrowed capital from that earlier age, and more than one pundit is predicting that we are in the last days of Western Civilization. While none would want to go back to a world of plagues, feudal warfare and no plumbing, we would like to regain any truly timeless thinking that past generations have done, and find ways to apply those ideas to life as we do the human work of writing, composing, painting, designing, discovering, and studying in order to know the truth about ourselves and our human situation.

Walker Percy once wrote that learning has lost its sense of wonder. Learning should be, he said, like the experience of that first explorer who stumbled into the Grand Canyon. What a dangerous and profound experience that must have been – quite different than the experience a tourist might get today: secure fences all around it, buildings with air conditioning built on its rim, park guides who will take you on a well-worn path to see the aspects they think the most impressive. Learning, Percy said, should be like that first discovery – fresh, alive, dangerous, not-for-the-squeamish. It requires hard work, hardship, and a sense of adventure. The Truth is a prize fought for and won, not pre-packaged, delivered as efficiently as possible, and graded on the curve all within an hour’s class time. That’s not the way life is, and we underestimate our students when we suggest that an education should be efficient – we are implying that it is a commodity that is purchased before getting a job (which itself is only a means toward self-definition – “and what do you do?” we ask each other.)

Learning to think well means that you will be able to see today’s problems in the context of history. Who will you vote for in the coming elections? Why? Has there been a time in the past when we have had a similar field of candidates? Have they been asking the same questions? Have you heard these answers before? How did we do in the past? And more than all that, what role should politics play in the "good life"?

Learning to think well means that one should be able to make sense of human artistic activity – that creativity is not just a means of self-expression, or of audience entertainment. How do we see the worldview of a painter? Can instrumental music express content? What does the church architecture of our day say about what we believe? What does it mean when a culture’s literature (in film, novel, television, theater) reduces the timeless themes of love and death to discussions of genitalia and torture?

Learning to think well means not that you learn everything there is to know about one sub-specialty, but rather that you learn how to begin to address any subject. How does this subject fit into the universe that God has created?

What we are proposing here is a year of discovery. A year to get two things firmly in hand: first, the elements of a Christian world-view, and second, a foundational sense for the history of ideas.

The worldview part would begin with theology and establish a vocabulary and roster of questions that can be asked that will serve to unlock the presuppositions of any position. What can orthodox Christianity tell us about questions of God’s person, plan, works of creation and redemption; what is a human being, and why is he here; and how do we know what we claim to know about truth, beauty, goodness, and history? We would read extensively in the bible, and in various writers from the past and present who have addressed such first questions.

The history of ideas is accomplished through extensive reading in the great books, following the conversation through the centuries about God, man, and the world. What does Homer have to say about what a virtuous man is like? What does Augustine have to say about the relationship of soul and music? What do the medieval writers have to say about the nature of beauty? How do Bach and Mozart approach composing music? Why does Beckett despair while waiting for Godot, if he doesn’t believe there is a God(ot)?

We are proposing a year of study of Western civilization from a Christian view as a foundation for any learning any one would want to do in any subject. It would be an on-going, in-depth tutorial with a small group of students who are interested in an outside-the-box education, culminating in a trip to Europe to study various aspects of our subject. (I have taken several groups of students to Paris, and my colleague has taken students to England).

Tuition would be well under the norm for a year at college (around $12,000 including books and the trip’s travel costs) for a September 08 to May 09 program. There would be 3 main faculty, several additional guest faculty, and a lot of interactive discussion around our various readings from great books. We would keep the group small – less than 15 students. Food and housing would be on your own, but we will provide a meeting place with a fireplace, good coffee, and space and time to think.

Due to a good relationship with Belhaven College in Jackson, MS, we also have the opportunity to give college credit for some of the work we would do together, credit that could be transferred to another college if you should like to do so. There would be an additional per-credit fee that Belhaven would charge for that, but it is not high.

Read this talk and make your comments – and let us know if you would be interested in joining us. We already have folks in Atlanta and Santa Cruz, CA who have shown an interest, as well as some in Memphis. If you are interested, please let us know and we’ll let you know more details and answer your questions.

Thanks for your attention, and may our Lord bless your decisions for studies!