Category Archives: Authors

Authors, Publishing

Crouch: Plagiarism Isn't the Problem

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Andy Crouch discusses the flak flying over some of Mark Driscoll’s publications. Sure, some material was used inappropriately, but is this a plagiarism problem? “There is something truly troubling here, in my view,” he writes. “Not that ‘Pastor Mark Driscoll’ carelessly borrowed a section of a commentary for a church-published Bible study, but that ‘Pastor Mark Driscoll’ was named as the sole author of that Bible study in the first place.”

He points to St. Paul’s use of scribes and partners and the unique credit given in Romans 16:22.

Prolific writer and author John Piper has taken to Twitter on this: “If lying is the ‘industry standard’ reject it. Come on, famous guys, if someone writes for you, put the plebe’s name on it.” For more, see Warren Throckmorton’s blog for many details.

Authors

Interview with Christopher Bailey and Dr. Boli

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The men behind Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine have an interview on The Catholic Book Blogger [defunct]. If you’ve every wondered what kind of wondrous ponderer the writer behind Dr. Boli must be, here’s a small glimpse. Both Mr. Bailey and Dr. Boli give their thoughtful answers. Mr. Bailey says:

Dr. Boli’s last name is etymologically the same as mine. The Baileys were a Pennsylvania Dutch family from York County who originally spelled their name Böli (or Behli or Beli—they’re all pronounced “Bailey” in Deitsch). The face of Dr. Boli is actually a photograph of Samuel Bailey, my great-great grandfather. And the name “Henricus Albertus” is a Latinized version of my grandfather’s name, Harry Albert Bailey. As I tell you these things, my grandfather is spinning in his grave like a top, because he had no idea his family was German: he fought the Germans in the First World War and hated everything German for the rest of his life, right down to the “dirty German dark bread” at the bakery.

They go on to discuss a new book, Dr. Boli’s Gift Horse

Authors

Plagiarism Accusations, Retractions

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I didn’t mention it directly in the “Writing for others” post below, but I linked to a Patheos.com post on plagiarism and personality-based leadership. In that post, Miles Mullin linked out to this week’s context: Janet Mefferd accusing Pastor Mark Driscoll of plagiarism in his most recent book and later, other publications. He links out to evidence of this charge, which allows you to judge some of the material for yourself.

Now, Mefferd has retracted her accusation and removed her blog with the evidence and the interview in which she made the accusation entirely. You can read her apology here.

Update: In her apology, Mefferd did not “evangelical industrial complex,” but her producer, who just resigned over all of this, did. Ex-producer Ingrid Schlueter wrote, among other things: “I hosted a radio show for 23 years and know from experience how Big Publishing protects its celebrities. Anything but fawning adulation for those who come on your show (a gift of free air time for the author/publisher by the way) is not taken well. Like Dr. Carl Trueman so aptly asked yesterday in his column at Reformation 21 [sic], does honest journalism have any role to play in evangelicalism now? (It was rhetorical.) My own take on that question is, no, it does not.”

All of this is ugly, but since it’s public, I’d like a clearer explanation than what has been given at this point. Some commenters are saying the silence of certain writers and leaders is telling, but I don’t think it’s telling what they think it’s telling. I suggest it’s telling that these leaders don’t want to assume guilt and start shooting.

Authors, Religion

50 years gone

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C. S. Lewis’ grave in Holy Trinity churchyard, Headington Quarry, Oxford

Photo credit: jschroe

I’m going to alter my long-established custom of always posting about a days’ commemorations in the evening of that day, which means most of you read it the next day. Tomorrow is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis (also of a couple obscure characters named John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley).

I was, of course, around when it happened, in junior high if you must know. What did I think when I heard Lewis was dead? I’m not sure, because I wasn’t aware of his death date until years later, long after I’d become a Lewis enthusiast. I do remember the day though, because of the Kennedy thing.

But I’ve written about that before. I’d like to just recall what Lewis has meant in my life. It occurred to me today that Lewis was himself my Wardrobe, the portal through which I entered a larger world.

I was educated, like most of my friends, in Lutheran colleges which are now under the umbrella of The Very Large Lutheran Church Body Which Shall Remain Nameless. But, unlike a large percentage of my friends from those days, I neither apostatized or became a liberal. It was Lewis who made that possible (with the help at a later stage of Francis Schaeffer). The Lutheran schools I’m speaking of had then, and I assume still have, one single purpose in their religious education curricula, and that is to destroy all Christian faith in their students. But Lewis (though no biblical inerrantist) showed me that embracing orthodox Christianity doesn’t mean giving up reason. I clung to reason, and I clung to the faith of my childhood.

You yourself may approve or disapprove of that course on my part, but as for me, it’s one of the things I’m thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches.

Authors, Fiction

50th Anniversary of Doctor Who

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This Saturday is Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. A special episode, “The Day of the Doctor,” will broadcast around the world at 7:50 p.m. GST (11:50 a.m. PST/ 2:50 p.m. EST).

I don’t know who introduced me to the show. I just remember watching it through the 80s and maybe before that. PBS played whole series on Saturday nights year round, so if season 16 has six multi-part stories, then PBS played them in 6 weeks. They were playing Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor and favorite of The Countess of Wessex, when I started watching. At some point, they broadcasted all of Jon Pertwee’s episodes, picked up again with Baker, and carried on with Peter Davidson, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy until it was cancelled (or put on hiatus) in 1989. I haven’t picked up the new series yet, though Christopher Eccleston’s first episode, “Rose,” was great fun.

I’m sure you’re dying to know that my least favorite of these actors was Sylvester McCoy (who plays Radagast in The Hobbit), not because of his ability, but because of the script. Of all the shows I have seen, his version of our universe’s problem solver seemed to have read the script more than any others. The stories in the late 80s didn’t show The Doctor figuring out situations and boldly foiling the bad guys. They ran him and his companions through a variety of hoops until the curtain rose on Act 4 to depict The Doctor walking in with the solution in hand. How did he know the solution? He read the script, as far as I could tell—and crazy scripts they were.

For the series anniversary, I wanted to compile some trivia which will amuse and befuddle you. No need to thank me. The pleasure is all mine. Enjoy!

Continue reading 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who →
Authors, Writing

Do We Need Another C.S. Lewis?

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People have often suggested a popular Christian fantasy author is the next C.S. Lewis. I don’t think that’s an appropriate question. Few people strikes us as the same as another person only better, so why should we look for a living author to replace a dead one? That would make the dead one mostly obsolete, wouldn’t it?
Steve Harrell doesn’t think so. He says we need a new Lewis. “When we try to insert Lewis’ cultural observations into our culture today,” he writes, “we become like Indiana Jones—still fighting the Nazis through the 1980s. The Modernist war between reason and theology is over…. We live in a postmodern, post-secular age that doesn’t respond well to the intellectual arm-twisting and large-scale historical criticism that Lewis excelled at.”
Joel Miller argues Harrell is missing the point. “A vibrant intellectual life includes thoughts that span millennia. They’re not so foreign as some insist, and their differences might just keep us from going off the rails.”
Rowan Williams, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, notes Lewis’s blessing to us is “in what you might call pastoral theology: as an interpreter of people’s moral and spiritual crises; as somebody who is a brilliant diagnostician of self-deception; and somebody who, in his own book on bereavement after his wife’s death, really pushes the envelope – giving permission, I suppose, to people to articulate their anger and resentment about a God who apparently takes your loved ones away from you.”
In related a post, Jeremy Lott notes the angst many have had over Susan’s absence from The Last Battle. Many readers think Lewis condemns her life choices by appearing to keep her out of Narnia when everything comes falling down, but Lott quotes from Lewis’ letters to show that the author simply believed Susan’s story was longer and more adult than the one he wanted to tell. “Why not try it yourself?” Lewis asked a reader, to which Lott replies, “Who has tried to tell Susan’s story?” He hopes someone will attempt to pick up the life of Susan Pevensie and finish at least part of her story.

Authors, Fiction

Beowulf: "What's My Line?"

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Remembering being asked to make a new translation of Beowulf, Seamus Heaney said, “While I had no great expertise in Old English, I had a strong desire to get back to the first stratum of the language and to ‘assay the hoard.'” He had gained a feel for the sound of Anglo-Saxon and wanted his translation to sound as authentic as he could make it. He remembered a way of speaking from his relatives. “I called them ‘big-voiced’ because when the men of the family spoke, the words they uttered came across with a weighty distinctness, phonetic units as separate and defined as delph platters displayed on a dresser shelf. A simple sentence such as ‘We cut the corn to-day’ took on immense dignity when one of the Scullions spoke it.”

So he brought out this sound in England’s oldest epic poem. Now, researchers are saying their accepted opinion on the poem’s first word may have been skewed. The word translated as “hark”, “lo”, “behold”, and similar words (“Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!”) probably isn’t so boldly declarative. And Heaney may have thought so as well, long before the researchers caught up to him.

Authors, Bookselling

Klavan and the Imp of the Perverse

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Today, Andrew Klavan announced the release of his new young adult thriller, Nightmare City. In an interesting post on his approach to writing for that market, he makes some cogent points:

Criticize the selling of self-destructive behavior to the young and you’re “puritanical,” or “slut-shaming,” or being “unrealistic about the modern world.” But in fact, this effort to normalize the degraded is itself perverse in the extreme. It’s the incarnation of that imp within who urges us to do ill to what we love the best: ourselves and our children. The people who peddle this trash curse those who dare to criticize them so loudly precisely because they know they are doing wrong and can’t stop themselves. Believe me: the person who accuses you of “slut-shaming,” is herself deeply ashamed.

The term “The Imp of the Perverse” is a reference to story by Poe.