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.
The Lake Superior Mysteries, by Tom Hilpert
If Chesterton’s Father Brown had been a Protestant, and in better shape, and a man of action, he might have been something like Pastor Jonah Borden, hero of three enjoyable novels (to date) by Tom Hilpert.
Pastor Borden serves the parish of Harbor Lutheran Church in Grand Lake (a stand-in, I assume, for Grand Marais), Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. He is a widower, a gourmet cook, a coffee addict, and a martial artist. He once killed a man in self-defense. He holds court a couple evenings a week at a local tavern, where he listens to people’s problems while sipping soft drinks.
In the first book in the series, Superior Justice, one of Jonah’s parishioners is arrested for the murder of the child molester who killed his daughter. Under the seal of the confessional, the accused man gives Jonah a rock-solid alibi, but it’s an alibi he wants to keep secret. In order to clear him, Jonah has to identify the real killer. Along the way he begins a romance with Leyla Bennett, a beautiful TV news reporter. Continue reading The Lake Superior Mysteries, by Tom Hilpert
Possibly an Overreaction to Banning Books?
Alan Noble says that Springs Charter School story may be an overreaction. In fact, the school says, “We can and do provide educational books with religious perspectives, including Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.”
The school statement continues: “However, like every other public school in the State of California, we cannot legally maintain religious textbooks on our warehouse shelves for distribution to our families. Donated items are made available to our families at no cost. Any and all donated items are not incorporated onto the shelves of our Curriculum Warehouse. The only materials we maintain on the shelves of our Curriculum Warehouse are items we have purchased ourselves in accordance with the laws of our State.”
Noble asks, “Did the Superintendent make this clear in the letter she sent to PJI? That much is not clear, since PJI didn’t actually post her letter online.” But the Super does appear to be a practicing catholic, not a opponent of faith.
Lazere: Colleges Should Be Full of Leftists
If the government-sponsored drought doesn’t drive people out of California, the education system should. One California English professor (that’s a professor of California English, not just one who lives in the state) argues in his book that students should be exposed to liberalism in college. Johnathan Marks reviews Donald Lazere’s Why Higher Education Should Have a Leftist Bias.
Here’s the idea: “Neither mainstream liberals nor mainstream conservatives question the ‘unmarked norm’ of capitalism, and consequently students don’t question it either. ‘Isn’t there something to be said,’ then, ‘for … preserving in the human imagination … socialist ideals,’ and ‘mightn’t college liberal arts teachers … be indulged in this role, like the monks who preserved the manuscripts of classical humanists?'”
Marks goes on to destroy Lazere’s arguments with facts, which I won’t repeat here. “Lazere’s great narrowing of the aim of higher education encompasses more than his wish that it occupy itself with preserving the thought of the left. Because Lazere thinks that not only ‘unmarked norms’ but also the deliberate efforts of a ‘conservative attack machine’ have prejudiced students against the left, exposing that machine becomes an important aim of ‘general education.'” (via Prufrock)
The Hiding Place Should Be Read in Public Schools
Joel Miller explains “What banning this book says about the future of our society,” talking about the Springs Charter Schools removing Christian books from their circulation. That book is Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place
Rod Dreher describes a bit of how it changed him. “Reading The Hiding Place as a kid dramatically affected me. The moral heroism of the ten Booms sensitized me to the effects of anti-Semitism, and taught me what Christians must do if ever we are in a situation where persecuted people rely on us for protection.”
Miller writes, “Given this Christian impulse to identify with the oppressed and save those in danger, to remove The Hiding Place from library shelves betrays a sort of societal self-defeat, and similar examples multiply as our culture fumbles toward a more rigorously enforced secularity. We’re like the cannibal committing suicide one nibble at a time.” (via Prufrock)
Good Reading: The Thanatos Syndrome
“In the wonderful world of Walker Percy, old fashioned Southern gentility saunters in seersucker into sub human behavior and sips bourbon while planning a congenial genocide.
Their shabby chic sophistication makes the nefarious activities of the characters in The Thanatos Syndrome even more chilling.”
Truth triumphs over sentimentality in this story. Dwight Longenecker explores it for us.
“Price point”
I’ve heard people use the term “price point,” and I’m pretty sure they only meant “price,” but thought “price point” sounded professional or something.
I’m sure there’s a proper way to use “price point,” but I’m not sure what it is.
In any case, the price point for my self-published novels has been adjusted to $2.99. This does not affect the price points for my Baen or Nordskog novels.
Try Death’s Doors, here.
Test Your English Vocabulary
Now this is a vocabulary test.
An independent American-Brazilian research project is “measuring vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates.” They ask you to check all the words you can define, not just ones you think you’ve seen before. I got a respectable score, but yours will probably be better. Feel free to let us know. If you know what vibrissae and uxoricide are without me telling you, you’ll do great on this test.
To Remain Unseen
“Kjell Askildsen writes what might reasonably be called ghost stories in which there are no ghosts.” (via Prufrock)