Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me?

Petrona has a round-up of books eligible for this year’s CWA International Dagger award. There are many Scandinavian titles. The 2011 CWA International Dagger was given to Anders Roslund & Börge Hellström for their novel, Three Seconds (translated from the Swedish by Kari Dickson).

Medieval Jewels Discovered

“An archaeological investigation at Furness Abbey in northwest England has uncovered the grave of an abbot, which includes an extremely rare medieval silver-gilt crozier and bejewelled ring.” (via Brad Day)

Curator Susan Harrison with the Furness Abbey crozier - photo courtesy English Heritage via Medievalist.net

America and National Religion

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (written by dead white guys)

I think we all readily acknowledge that the United States Founding Fathers did not want a national religion to which all citizens must subscribe. But a number of evangelicals (I think that’s a fair label) still argue that our country was founded on Christian ideals for a Christian citizenry. It’s nice to read John Adams’ statement, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In fact, it’s a bit chilling to read the context of that line:

While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.

But I say all of this to ask one question. How would your perspective change if you became convinced the United States was not founded as a Christian nation? What if our laws were the same, but we had put to rest the idea that the Founders assumed we all respected the Bible, if we didn’t believe it? Perhaps I shouldn’t say this up-front, but I ask this question out of concern that too many evangelicals value America over the gospel. Some people talk as if God is always on our side–I mean, we’re Americans, so how could God side with anyone else? So they urge others to get with America, and in doing so, they’ll get with God.

If I’m talking to you, let me recommend this thoughtful, encouraging book: The End of Secularism.

Raven’s Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet

Evil is spreading throughout the land of Jeffrey Overstreet’s third novel in the Auralia’s Thread series. The people of House Abascar are living a hardscrabble life in caves and losing faith in their king, Cal-raven. Some of them think he talks too much of visions and fairy tales. In the previous novel, their caves were attacked by beastmen, men in bondage to a horrible curse which hulks them out like wild, contorted beasts. Now, they worry about vines called “feelers” or “deathweeds” which appear to be spreading everywhere, grabbing men or animals and pulling them into the earth.

In the middle of this, a few visionaries, like Cal-raven, are telling their people of worlds elsewhere. They remember the vivid, almost spiritual, colors that Auralia teased out of nature. They find small spots of those colors in the wild and healing in common things like pure water. Legends, like The Keeper, an enormous dragon who seems to keep a wise, though distant, eye on them, are being revealed. Abascar has a hope beyond any they could imagine, if they can only hold on long enough to see it.

By contrast, the people of House Bel Amica seek the latest pleasures and want to be distracted constantly. They live on the coast where there is a great wealth of food and trade. The Seers rule their philosophy, urging them to pray to moon spirits and pursue their own desires above all. I doubt Bel Amicans ever urge each other to get a grip on reality. When refugees from Abascar find shelter in Bel Amica, their leaders begin to worry they will never want to leave this luxurious city.

Overstreet has created a magical world. I’m fascinated by its natural glory. When the visionary characters do marvelous things or make inspiring culture, they don’t use magic. They apply artistic skill to tease out of the natural world beauty that’s either hidden or disregarded. Though their world is dangerous, many natural elements encourage health, peace, and hope. When these elements are magnified by artists, they comfort some and inspire others to noble work. (Here’s some glasswork that reminds me of something Auralia might have made.)

Raven’s Ladder is a thrilling third part of this four-part series. The revelations that conclude the book are monumental, and there’s a story in the mid-section that appears to put this fantasy world in a new context, hinting at who the Seers are and how mankind came into this place. Noting the title, the focus of this novel is on Cal-raven, Abascar’s king. He wrestles with himself as a leader and as a man and also with his visions of a bright future in pursuit of The Keeper’s tracks. That name, The Keeper, and the faith of some of the characters may lead you to suspect a thinly veiled God-figure. You might think Aslan has been restyled as a dragon, but he hasn’t. The Keeper is a complicated animal, who appears to respond to prayers as well as act like any other intelligent beast. I could say more, but I’d rather you enjoy the mystery yourself.

Scandinavian matters

I’m only following the Anders Barking Breivik story with half my attention, because everything I hear is irritating, and I’m confident the outcome will be disastrous.

This evil narcissist, by claiming to be a “militant Christian” (though not very religious) may strike the death blow to Norway’s already sickly Christian community. He’s giving a name and a local habitation to all the Left’s fantasies about conservative Christians. Having first of all committed the worst of crimes against the liberal community—the murder of their children—he is now providing them with a propaganda bonanza.

He’s right about one thing, though. They should bring back the death penalty for him. Only they won’t give him the satisfaction.

This is a one-sided coin. There’s no up side.

Moving to Scandinavian matters a lot more pleasant, I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Knox City, Missouri to attend, for the second year in a row, the Return of the Sun Viking event at Ravensborg Longphort.

It ought to be a good time. I had a good time last year, even though there was hardly anyone there I’d met before. For me that’s rare. This year I’ll have several friends around, so I expect I’ll pass out from ecstasy at some point.

Pardon my absence until Monday evening.

A King of Infinite Space, by Tyler Dilts

Here’s a very good, very professional, very engaging first novel, a police procedural, from a promising writer. I enjoyed reading it, and wish the author well, but I won’t be following his work any further, for petty ideological reasons.

Tyler Dilts’s A King of Infinite Space tells the story of Danny Beckett, a Long Beach police detective. He and his partner, a Japanese-American woman who predictably has a black belt and can beat up any man, are called to a high school to view a crime scene where a pretty, popular teacher has been viciously murdered with a knife, her left hand taken as a trophy. The woman seems to have had no enemies, so suspicion immediately falls on a man she dated recently, although Danny doesn’t “like him” for the crime.

As the investigation goes on we learn about Danny’s personal demons (I love detectives with personal demons), and he and his partner dance around a growing sexual attraction, something that seems a poor idea from a professional point of view. The final reveal seemed a little predictable to me.

Although I liked the writing and was intrigued by the characters, Dilts managed to alienate me through frequent political comments. I’ll grant that Danny is supposed to be cynical and bitter, but his utter contempt for the military, for evangelical Christians, and for business sent what seemed to me a clear message about what the author thought of me, personally. So, regretfully, I won’t be stopping at his shop again.

Otherwise, a great cop story. Cautions for language, violence, and adult situations.

Testing Our Assumptions

Jeffrey Overstreet has a lengthy review of the movie, Blue Like Jazz. His opening section is very good, but not about the movie specifically. Here’s a quote from the part about the movie:

Don Miller (the character) is not running into unbelief so much as he is running from the comfort zone of American evangelical fundamentalism into what author David Dark would call “the sacredness of questioning everything.” … But Christians aren’t the only ones being challenged to look in the mirror. Blue Like Jazz is also about how skeptics who have appointed themselves judge and jury over Christians learn to recognize that while they have plenty of complaints — including some very valid complaints — against Christian culture, their objections have ballooned into prejudice and presumption. Taylor doesn’t make the mistake of making heroes out of church-bashers. They’re shown to be as prone to cruelty and intolerance as the Christians. Note the church sign that vandals have altered to say “Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers.” Those who champion “tolerance” are quick to abandon their principles when it comes to insulting the church. And Don’s father, who sees some things very clearly, conveniently ignores that it was the church who paid for the Miller family’s groceries when he abandoned his wife and child.

Blue Like Jazz has the courage to portray all participants in this “culture war” as similarly fallible. It dares to suggest a path through the confusion — relationship rather than shouting, respect rather than antagonism, and an openness to testing our assumptions, loving our neighbors, and growing alongside one another.

Asgard Park, by Ronald Simonar



Here’s a book I got for free from the publisher, for reviewing purposes. They’ll probably be sorry they asked me. I didn’t hate it, but I find at the end that I don’t have a lot of good things to say about it, though I have several bad things.

Asgard Park, by Ronald Simonar, is a novel about Intelligent Design, but not the kind you’re thinking of. In the imagination of the author, there is some kind of intelligence guiding the universe and human life, but it’s not the God of the Bible. To the limited extent that it involves itself in human affairs, it does so through various Chosen Ones, born with special inherited genetic traits, and through the world-wide organization these Chosen Ones lead, the Midgard Group. Kind of like the Illuminati, but in a good way. The Norse god Heimdallr, the guardian of the gods who can hear grass grow, has had his most recent avatar up until now (now being 1991, the year when the novel is set) in a psychologist named Dr. Karl Leamus, who runs Asgard Park, an insane asylum in upstate New York. But Leamus is getting older, and the god has chosen a new vessel, a young Swedish neurologist named Birger Wallenberg who is, more or less, the hero of the book.

Dr. Wallenberg is not happy about having his brain inhabited by a heathen god (a sentiment with which I highly concur), and much of the story centers on his gradual acquiescence in the possession. It also involves an American spy and a beautiful Albanian widow who gets into big trouble with the corrupt government of her up-till-recently-Communist country. Most of the reader’s sympathy will center on her.

There’s also the rather nasty plot element of the widow’s friend, an underage prostitute with whom both the male heroes sleep (though Dr. Wallenberg, to be fair, does it unwittingly, thinking it’s someone else).

Aside from my objections to the theology of the story, and the creepy prostitute angle, I can also complain about the author’s style. Ronald Simonar is an Icelander, but he seems to have a pretty good grasp of English. Unfortunately, it’s not up to the challenge of writing a novel. He has trouble with his diction, confuses English and American slang, and sometimes doesn’t seem to know how to use a contraction. He also misses a big opportunity in his presentation of the whole back story of the Midgard Group and the business of Intelligent Design. It’s all just summarized as something Dr. Wallenberg reads about in a scholarly paper. A more dramatic reveal would have been possible, and would have improved the story.

So, although it could have been worse, I can’t really recommend Asgard Park.

Four Points on Creativity with Cheese

I mean, Cleese. Four points on creativity with John Cleese. Make that five–five points on creativity… Look, I’ll leave and start again in a minute.

See a post on this video and the rest of Cleese’s lecture here.

(via Alton Brown)

I am the reconciler

Any author, if he can’t claim to be a commercial success, will find comfort in discovering that he’s got what they call a “cult following.” I’m bemused to discover that I seem to be developing a cult following of my own in an area where I’d never have looked for it—pastors and theologians of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.

Professor Gene Edward Veith and Concordia Publishing House publisher Paul T. McCain were early boosters, for whose support I’m extremely grateful. More recently I’ve added “Aardvark” of Aardvark Alley and Pastor Charles Lehman, who posted the following measured evaluation of Troll Valley on Facebook last night:

Lars Walker is a genius. This is indisputable fact and not up for debate. If you disagree with me then one or more of the following are true:

1. You’ve never read any of his books.

2. You’re an idiot.

3. You are a vampire or some other variety of mythical being that lacks a soul.

4. You are Kristin Cashore or Stephanie Meyer.*

*Yes, I do realize that after writing #3 that #4 is redundant.

A recent addition is theologian Dr. Jack Kilcrease, who blogs at Theologia Crucis.

“And this surprises you, how?” you ask. “They’re Lutherans. You’re Lutheran. Sounds more like incest than Romeo and Juliet.”

Ah, but that’s because you don’t know the history of Lutheranism in America. Between Missouri Lutherans and Free Lutherans like me, a great gulf has historically been fixed. Continue reading I am the reconciler