Adam Roberts notes about The Lord of the Rings, “The repeated theme is the danger of words; their slipperiness but also the ease with which they can move us directly into the malign world of the text. One ring to bind us all. Books are bound, too.”
A Presbyterian Walks Into a Baptist Chuch
Mark Jones writes about the differences between open and closed communion, meaning whether people in your church are allowed to take the Lord’s Supper with you regardless of the mode or theology of baptism.
During a conference last year at SBTS, I was treated to an excellent paper by a young Canadian scholar (Ian Clary) on Andrew Fuller’s communion practice. In the Q. and A. I asked (ipsissima vox):
“If you aren’t baptized by immersion, then you can’t be a called a Christian (in any meaningful ecclesiastical sense). And if you can’t be called a Christian, then you can’t take the Lord’s Supper. Is that the implication of the closed communion view of Fuller?”
The room was silent: here a Presbyterian was asking a Baptist (in a room full of Baptists) to admit they can’t call me a Christian.
My friend admitted that he believed/felt I was a Christian. But I countered: “Fuller’s theology of communion and baptism doesn’t allow you to call me a Christian in any official (ecclesiastical) sense. It is merely a private judgment.” My friend, had to (uncomfortably) concede my point.
This, friends, is one of the ways good doctrine matters. Are Presbyterians actual followers of Christ? Is closed communion a good way to govern your local church?
Authors Union Seeks Investigation into Amazon.com
The Authors Guild met with the Justice Department in August to request a federal investigation into Amazon.com’s actions against Hachette Book Group in their ongoing dispute over ebook prices and service fees. They say the earth’s largest bookdealer is using anti-trust tactics against publishers like Hachette. Authors United is also preparing to ask the DOJ to get involved. Does this make you want to find other bookseller options, or is this all so inside baseball you don’t care?
Writing as Product Development
Barnabas Piper reminds writers that their ideas are their products, so they should work through product development before launching them. “It means that you are probably the worst judge of whether your idea works.”
Aaron Armstrong also has a bit of encouragement on writing better.
Self-Publishing: Too Many Little Fish in a Huge Sea
Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post’s Book World, asked Roger Sutton, editor in chief of Horn Book magazine, about reviewing self-published books.
Charles asked, “What do you say to the indie writer who reminds you that Walt Whitman was self-published?”
“You are not Walt Whitman,” Sutton said. “The 21st century is different in so many ways from the 19th that the comparison is meaningless. No one is forbidding you from self-publishing, but neither is anyone required to pay attention.”
Charles reviewed Sutton’s recently expressed concerns over the glut of self-published books vying for place in our hands. Are there bound to be some great books out there? Yes, but there are too many bad one that look like it from a professional reviewer’s outpost. The school of the self-published will only grow, and perhaps a new system of reviewing and judging will be organized to help readers find good books. Sutton isn’t convinced it will matter. “People are more interested in writing self-published books than in reading them.”
Ouch.
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Sam Smith answers a few questions about himself and his upcoming book, The Green Ember.
I love what C.S. Lewis called “dressed animal” stories. He loved them and kids usually do too, if they haven’t been talked out of them. One thinks of Lewis’s well-known statement about children getting “too mature” for fairy tales. “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
He’s using Kickstarter to presell the book and generate buzz. Watch for it this Friday.
Ask a Southerner to Pray for You
Because God answers more prayer in the southern United States than in other states, according to a new Lifeway Research survey. Wealthy people are far more likely to pray that bad things will happen to bad people than are those who have low income. Nearly half of respondents said they pray for those who mistreat them or their enemies.
D.G. Myers, the Lion
Tributes to D.G. Myers from Friends & Colleagues
John Wilson wrote, “Like Samuel Johnson, David Myers was not a clubbable man, but he was the best of friends. Our friendship took place almost entirely under the umbrella of Twitter (where Doctor Johnson also would have flourished), yet in a lifetime blessed with friendship his was among the most precious to me.”
George: “No Longer Tolerable”
Robert George believes we are at a tipping point with many opinion-makers. “Christians, and those rejecting the me-generation liberal dogma of ‘if it feels good do it,’ are no longer tolerable by the intellectual and cultural elite,” he says. The individualism of modern liberalism has become like a national religion for these elite, so our views on personhood, community, God, and everything else are heretical at best. They are in a position to punish us for holding these views, as George explains in two videos.
Professor, Critic D.G. Myers Has Passed Away
Micah Mattix says D.G. Myers was one of our best critics. Last Friday, Myers died of the cancer he endured for the past few years. Patrick Kurp is organizing a Festschrift for him to be hosted by Gregory Wolfe. Terry Teachout described him in an essay only a few days ago.
Kurp has written a few posts on Myers. Here he remembers a story of a dying man by Henry James. Here he passes on information from the family.
In a talk Myers’ gave at Congregation Torat Emet on July 17. 2014, he said:
Several years ago terminal cancer called to me and I answered Hineni, “Here I am.” The religious language may seem blasphemous, as if I were claiming to be a prophet, but that’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is Hashem places you in your circumstances, and even the most ordinary of persons can discover his unique role in life, his calling—he can help to complete creation—if he recognizes and accepts where he has been placed.