Sticky questions on Christian art

Andrew Klavan posted a thoughtful article today called “Eyes Wide Shut: Christians Against Art” which ought to spark some discussion. Klavan is rare among Christian fiction writers in that he learned his craft first, and then embraced the Faith. That places him in what must be at times an awkward position – he knows what makes for a good story, and sometimes that’s something that his fellow believers don’t like.

An artist’s job — even if he’s a Christian artist — is not to sell Jesus, it’s to depict life truly. A Christian’s faith is that Christ lives in real life, not only in pastel greeting cards with Easter bunnies on them. Thus any honest and good work of art should be capable of strengthening a believer in his belief — even if it strengthens him by challenging him, by making him doubt and then address those doubts.
Art only goes wrong when it lies. Pornography is so deadening (and so addictive to some!) because it depicts human intercourse without humanity — something that never occurs in real life, not ever. Most bad art does something similar — and some good art includes dishonest moments that need to be confronted and rebuked.
But good art can be about absolutely anything and still lift us heavenward….

I can’t, frankly, share his approval of the Game of Thrones series, but I do so with fear and trembling, fully aware that Klavan understands stories at a much deeper level than I do. Still, after reading the first four GOT books, I grew wholly disillusioned with George R. R. Martin’s (to me) cynical and nihilistic approach. If I were to watch the Game of Thrones series (I haven’t), my only motivation would have to be seeing the female nudity, because I can’t work up any other.
Klavan might be comforted somewhat – though the example is an old one – to read the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers of America’s current Bulletin, which includes what may be the last “Resnick & Malzberg Dialogue.” (See my Wednesday post.) Barry Malzberg reminisces, in view of recent attempts to muzzle the two of them: Continue reading Sticky questions on Christian art

Bible boffo in Bergen

One of the things my friend Ian Barrs told me, in his capacity as an expatriate Englishman, during our time together a couple weekends ago was, “Don’t link to the Telegraph as an authority for information. It doesn’t have a very good reputation for factuality.”

Still, I think I’ll link to this interesting article, entitled “Bible outpaces Fifty Shades of Grey to become surprise hit in Norway.” (Tip: First Thoughts)

Yet the Bible, printed in a new Norwegian language version, has outpaced Fifty Shades of Grey to become Norway’s most popular book, catching the entire country by surprise.

The sudden burst of interest in God’s word has also spread to the stage, with a six-hour play called “Bibelen,” Norwegian for “the Bible,” drawing 16,000 people in a three-month run that recently ended at one of Oslo’s most prominent theaters.

There’s more information on the new Norwegian Bible translation:

Released in October 2011 by the Norwegian Bible Society, the new translation replaces a 1978 edition, with the goal of improving readability and accuracy.

For example, in the older version, Mary was called a “virgin.” In the new translation she is referred to instead as a “young” woman.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops also made this change in its latest Bible translation from 2011, saying the change did not alter teaching about Mary, but was meant to address the possible different meanings of the Hebrew word “almah” in the text.

Now I’m going to call monkeyshines on that statement. No doubt it’s accurate in reporting the translators’ attitudes, but it’s also highly misleading. The meanings of the Hebrew word “almah” and the Greek word “parthenos” have been broadly debated. You can certainly argue about what Isaiah had in mind. But there’s no question (especially in context) what Matthew meant. It’s impossible to claim that this translation brings us back to Matthew’s intentions in writing. It’s an arbitrary editorial alteration of the Greek gospel text.

A few years back I translated a book for my friend Dr. Norvald Yri, a Norwegian missionary and Bible scholar. In that book he denounced several recent Norwegian Bible translations, and I’m pretty confident this one was one of those, or if not it’s been added to his list since. He himself has been a contributor to a more literal translation.

Still, I won’t condemn the phenomenon altogether. God can use very flawed vehicles.

A pastor friend of mine told a story about a Russian evangelical leader he once met. The man told how he came to be converted. He had a hunger for God, but could not get access to a Bible in the old Soviet Union. At length he went to the library and took The Encyclopedia of Atheism off the shelf. He went through its pages systematically, noting every spot where the Bible was quoted for purposes of ridicule. Out of these bits and pieces he was able to reconstruct enough of the gospel message to call on Jesus for salvation.

SF Wars

There’s a Great War going on currently in the SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; don’t ask where the second “F” went; it’s a secret). Although I’ve been a member for years, I wasn’t aware of the controversy until Vox Day started discussing it (in pretty strong terms) over at Vox Popoli, because I don’t follow the SFWA Forum. I just read the members’ Bulletin, which is what sparked the fist fight.

One of the magazine features I’ve enjoyed for the last few years has been “The Resnick-Malzberg Dialogues.” In this series, old pros Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg talk back and forth about the history – and sometimes the future – of the Science Fiction genre from the perspective of two guys who’ve been through the wars and met the people most of us never had the chance to. I’ve never been a fan of either guy, but I’ve learned a lot from picking their minds at one remove. Even when they disagreed with each other, which was fairly often.

Anyway, in a recent issue they dealt with the almost mandatory subject of women in science fiction. In the course of the discussion (which I personally judged a bit obsequious and politically correct), they mentioned that a couple of the women under discussion were quite attractive, and one of them spoke admiringly of how one looked in a bikini. Also they used the word “lady.”

And the heavens parted, and the Furies were unleashed.

Sarah Hoyt, in an excellent blog post today, speaks with more authority than I can:

So how [expletive deleted] did these columns – innocuous and reminiscent – become the latest fire storm in the long-drawn civil war in science fiction. And who is fighting this war, anyway?

Ah, sit around my children, and make long ears. Aunt Sarah will tell all. Well, actually not, but I always wanted to say that. I have guesses and ideas at what is causing this series of conflagrations starting with Orson Scott Card’s non-calling-for-the-death-of-all-gays but opposing their belonging to his church (this my atheist, Budhist and various other flavors of Christian gay friends find a non event, btw.) and continuing to what can only be called the wilding hunt for Malzberg and Resnick.

This hunt has gotten out of control….

I expect I won’t renew my SFWA membership when it next comes up. The organization is growing increasingly irrelevant, especially for self-publishers like me. I’ve kept with it mostly to have credentials of some kind, because credentials are pathetically important to those of us with low self-esteem.

In any case, it looks like SFWA is going ideological, and if I want to belong to an ideological writer’s organization I ought to join a Christian one.

The consolation of literature

Sometimes good literature can make your life better, in more than the pleasure-giving sense.
Take Mark Helprin’s In Sunlight and in Shadow, which I reviewed the other day.
Harry, the hero, is haunted by his experiences as an airborne ranger in World War II. There’s a particular scene where he tells his fiancée about one incident he can’t get out of his head. “There was nothing I could do,” he says. “But I feel responsible.”
That, friends, is The Song of My People – my people being trauma victims of various sorts. Due to circumstances of a very different kind, I too am haunted – bedeviled – by memories. Memories of bad things that happened – often things I did that I’m ashamed of – that just won’t lie down and die.
It’s comforting to me to tell myself, “Think about Harry, and people like him. Whatever you’ve done, it didn’t involve anybody dying.”’
This doesn’t mean my flashbacks are going to disappear. My Complex PTSD (not actually a disorder currently recognized by the professionals) is, I know very well, capable of infinite adaptation.
But for now it helps. Thank you, Mark Helprin.

Something gotten in Denmark

The artist in any medium is the happiest of men (people, if you insist), in one sense – if he/she has wisdom. Because when things go well, that’s great. But anybody can enjoy that. The artist is able to enjoy things that go wrong, too, because it’s grist for the mill. Accidents, inconveniences, and disasters are what works of art are made of.

Which means that Danish Day, this past Sunday at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis, was a good experience in itself, but an artistic wash.

We’ve had passing few nice days this spring in these parts, but Sunday happened to be one of them. The sun shone, but the air was cool enough to make even long periods of sitting in the sun pleasant (except for one of our Vikings who has red hair and had to seek the shade). The crowds were good, swelled by hordes of Minnesotans punchy with extended cabin fever. I sold a satisfactory number of books, and all the people I spoke with were pleasant. Generally the phrase “a good time was had by all” is pro forma, but I think in this case it was substantially true.

The only real disappointment was that – for some reason – the Danish hot dogs (pølser) were not available this year. A Danish hot dog, I’ve learned in festivals past, is a foot long hot dog with mustard and what seems to be shredded onion rings. I don’t care for mustard, but I’ve come to enjoy the Danish pølser. But there were none. They did have a very nice ordinary foot long, though, and I didn’t complain. Also æbelskiver, the delicious spherical pancake (or waffle), and fransk vaffler, an actual waffle sandwich with something like Bavarian cream inside. Compared to Norwegian Day and Swedish Day in Minnehaha Park, the Danes do themselves proud in the food department.

I had a plan to take some good pictures of the combat shows, to placate those among our readers who asked for more gratuitous violence in my reports from the Tivoli Festival in Elk Horn, Iowa (also Danish. I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Jutlander of late). But although I remembered to bring my camera, I forgot that I myself am part of the combat show. So I wasn’t in a position to take pictures, especially while wearing my combat mittens.

Thus you’ll have to take my word for it that I won most of my fights, including a crowd-pleasing dispatch of one opponent at close quarters with my skramasax.

In Sunlight and in Shadow, by Mark Helprin


In the perfection of her song, by the voice that sprang from her, speaking words as he had never heard them spoken, he now loved her as he had never known he could love. He might never see her again, and decades might pass, yet he would love her indelibly, catastrophically, and forever. If half a century later he were alive, he would remember this song as the moment in which all such things were settled and beyond which he could not go.

There’s a rumor about, colluded in by professors of literature, that literary works and plain storytelling exist in separate universes. A book can be one or the other, but not both. Mark Helprin , by means of his new novel In Sunlight and In Shadow, scoffs at this idea (probably with a Bronx cheer). Exquisitely and poetically written, this novel is also a compelling, nail-biting story of transcendent love, danger, and mortality.

The story begins in Manhattan in 1946 when we meet Harry Copeland, late of the 82nd Airborne, back from the war and trying to make peace with his memories and figure out who he wants to be. One day on the Staten Island Ferry he sees a beautiful girl and falls desperately in love with her. He meets her and learns her name is Catherine Hale. She is a singer, in rehearsal for a Broadway musical.

There are complications. She’s engaged to another man. He’s Jewish; she comes from a WASP family. He’s the owner of a failing leather goods company; she’s the heir to some of the oldest money in America.

They overcome these obstacles without compromising their integrity. But their very success brings forces into action opposing them. All their courage and faith will be required in the new, peacetime battle, and not a metaphorical one, that will sweep them up. Continue reading In Sunlight and in Shadow, by Mark Helprin

Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare

Here’s a brief documentary on how performing Shakespeare’s plays using his intended pronunciation works much differently than it does in modern pronunciation. Puns and rhymes appear, and actors say it changes their performances.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties, by Neil Gaiman

I just finished reading How to Talk to Girls at Parties, by Neil Gaiman, which is available absolutely free for Kindle here. It’s actually a short story, presented along with a free preview of Gaiman’s next novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

The title obviously interested me from the git-go (though it didn’t actually help in that department), but the story in itself is a pretty clever one, combining a sensitive portrayal of teenage shyness and angst with a space alien story. I think saying anything more would spoil it. Pretty good, and hey, it’s free.

Techniques for Judging Art

Professor Jerram Barrs’ book, Echoes of Eden, has 11 beginning criteria for judging the arts. For example: “Is giftedness from God evident in the work of a particular composer or performer of music, poet or novelist, painter, sculptor, or filmmaker? We should ask this question about the presence of giftedness for all artists, whether Christian or not.”