reading

Back in Catamount Country

/ japfth / 2 Comments

CJ and I drove with some friends back to where I spent much time in my late teens and twenties. We all took a few days off from work to come to Cullowhee and surrounding areas. We’re using the week to think and pray through the direction for the future of the church body we serve.

We’re taking in the waterfalls, some of the local bookstores and ice cream and chocolate shops, stopping by my old college stomping grounds where I did a couple of my degrees, walking the grounds of which I have precious memories with Ken, Wayne, Barclay, Sara, Cameron, and others.

The school’s much larger now. The student body has doubled in size from when I arrived many moons ago. And Sylva has lots of new shops, but some of the old ones are still around, just in new locations. There are small breweries and art shops, though, and it still has that lovely western NC feel.

From the cabin where I sit now, the clouds hang like carefree marshmallows above the mountains. Two hummingbirds dart to and from the feeder hanging from the deck. I can hear the creek running down below us, swift due to the morning’s heavy rainfall. As far as you can see, it’s mountains and memories.

We patronized City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. I purchased a WCU sweatshirt for my wife from the campus bookstore. I looked at the wonderful Ron Rash books for sale to fellow bibliophiles and literature lovers.

It all washes over me, and something deep within my soul returns to being a boy here, finding my way, cruising the Blue Ridge Parkway with my buddies, hiking, and dreaming of our futures.

It’s only Tuesday, and I am already excited about tomorrow, when we’ll take in waterfalls, trek Highlands, Cashiers, and perhaps drive on up to the Parkway one more time–to gaze, ponder, and feel the strings of the soul plucked by the beauty pervading this place.

Reflections Upon McMurtry’s Novel, ‘Lonesome Dove’

/ japfth / Leave a comment

Introduction: For years and years, I had heard about this novel. I even had it on a shelf in my library for years. Finally I resolved to read it. It’s not that I didn’t want to. It was that I have so many books on my TBR list that I’d simply not gotten to it. But the time came at last. And to give you an idea of how highly I found the experience of reading it . . . well, I’m blogging about it. It was spectacular. If you are a serious reader, perhaps you will follow me as I share some reflections below.

Published in 1985 by Texan Larry McMurtry, the novel earned the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1986.

The plot is simple but not simplistic. The story hinges upon the spectacular efforts to leave the tiny community of Lonesome Dove, Texas and ride horseback to Montana to herd cattle back to Texas, and become self-sufficient ranchers and leave Texas Ranger life somewhat behind.

The two main characters are Captain Augustus “Gus” McCrae and Captain Woodrow Call. But their group of friends and associates and women and drunks and a boy (Newt), and ex-wives, and a black man/friend/scout named Deets, et al, will leave you with characters in your imagination you’ll not quickly forget. There are also Dish and Pea Eye and Lorena and Clara. The cast of characters is large as the landscapes the story covers, but they all grip you. At least they gripped me. Profoundly.

The stories involved in this tome include their heroisms, defeats, arguments, divorces, adulteries, friendships, betrayals, loyalties, love for the land, battles with Indians, a cowardly sheriff, tough-as-nails women, golden-hearted whores, grave diggers, and more.

So, What’s It Really About? It is difficult not to limit the book in answering that question. But among other things, it’s about friendship, about loneliness, about pride, about grit, about sacrifice, about freedom, about the need for others, about pity, about honor, about violence, and that’s just a start.

I have read hundreds of novels over my many years as a reader and teacher. I have never been one for genre fiction–Westerns, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. But this book, though certainly a Western, was not so much a book as a world.

Let me compare it this way: I love reading the great tragedies of Shakespeare. And each time I read Hamlet, e.g., I’m back in Elsinore. Well, in this novel, I wasn’t in Elsinore; I was in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and more. I was simply but profoundly there with them. The story was that good.

The Ending: It’s a long novel, by most people’s standards–just short of 900 pages. So, yes, it takes some effort to stick with it. But I can think of few novels where I wept like I did over this one’s endings. I say “endings” because we as readers see the ends of a host of characters. We come to understand Call in his pride, Gus in his courage, Clara and Lorena, and the beautiful boy, Newt. And when you see what becomes of them, McMurtry rips our hearts out–not in cruelty towards us as readers but in our love for these men and women. I cannot get over how much the scenes between Call and Newt eviscerated my soul. And the last conversation between Gus and Call was simply an example of the best of what great literature provides to us–beauty and pathos and a reminder of the power of love, pride, honor, and sacrifice.

If you will, I simply encourage you to pick up this book. Schedule time. Read it. It took me several weeks, but it was so worth it. I know this will reveal even more of my deep love of great literature, but this book does what great literature is meant to do–remind us of what Faulkner called “the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of [man’s] past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

And like so much that Faulkner wrote in his best novels and stories, McMurtry, too, earned his place among the greats with this novel.

Views upon a Trip to a Florida Barnes & Noble

/ japfth / 4 Comments

Lonesome Dove is the main book I’m currently reading. But it is about 900 pages in length. 858 to be precise. And the font is, I’m speculating, about 10-point Times New Roman. I felt the need to get up and peruse some other books. Augustus and Deets and Call and the other fellas would be here when I got back.

“I’m going to go to one of the bookstores,” I said to CJ.

“Oh, you need another one?” she quipped.

“No, I just need to see what’s out there. There’s a Barnes & Noble and a Books-A-Million just down the way. I’ll be back in a few,” I said.

I grabbed my wallet, laced up my On Cloud running shoes, borrowed our daughter’s car keys, kissed CJ on the cheek, walked out the door, boarded the elevator, and walked towards her vehicle downstairs in the parking lot.

A summer rain had been on and off again throughout the day. The sky was that muggy FL haze common in summer. The traffic was light but constant on US HWY 98 between Destin and Panama City. I read the tags on the vehicles: TN, TX, KY, GA, and lots of local FL ones.

Fifteen minutes later I arrived at the Barnes & Noble. I walked in, eager to see how this one would be arranged book-wise. Again I was disapppointed to see there was no Classics section. Instead there were sections of Manga, Mystery/Thriller/True Crime, Romance and Fantasy, Bibles, New Age, Philosophy, a small Poetry section, and sections for what Barnes & Noble called Young Readers. And there was all manner of gifts–journals, coffee cups, bookmarks, stationery, pens, toys, etc.

Once I discovered that the classics would be hard to find, I went to the Fiction section and looked for what I took as the basics they’d surely have. I did at last find some Dickens, Faulkner, Hemingway, McCarthy, McMurtry, Powers, and Wharton, and Whitman. Hope, at last.

I pulled Powers’ Bewilderment off the shelf and read the first few paragraphs. Like his other books, I found them marvelous and instructive. Powers is focused on what’s being done to the natural world in the name of progress, and he has my ear.

A young man in his twenties appproached near where I stood reading. He kept getting closer and closer, such that I looked up to see if I was perhaps in his way, perhaps blocking his view. He never made eye contact. But he kept standing right next to me. It gave me what my deceased grandfather called the “heeby-jeebies,” so I reshelved the Powers novel and moved on to the Poetry section and perused some Whitman and other poets.

After the creeper moved on, I returned to the Fiction section and thumbed through some familiar literary friends’ books–Larry McMurtry, Edith Wharton, William Gaddis. I lost track of time. I knew CJ and the family would be making jokes of my being in a bookstore and likely would have wagered I’d return with a bag of purchases. But I didn’t give in. I simply made note of volumes I’ve yet to read, but that had caught my interest. There was one called Mailman by Grant that looked like a fun read. Plus I love the region that served as its primary setting.

Nothing really stood out to me–other than the fact that reading seems to be marketed to what sells, not necessarily what is actually lasting and good. Maybe that’s just the old codger coming out in me. That lament has probably been part of bibliophiles’ sentiment since Gutenberg blessed the world during the Reformation.

Back at the beach house now. The sun has popped out. And I’m back with McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and saddled in with Call and Gus and the boys en route to Montana, to see what happens.

We’re going out for seafood this evening. CJ will want some (no, many!) crab legs, and I’ll be on the hunt for grouper and shrimp.

Remembering Dr. Higgins

/ japfth / Leave a comment

One of the most influential professors I had in studying literature in younger days was Dr. Higgins. He was a master teacher. How so? Well, he was a master of clarity. His preferred way of teaching hinged upon the use of contrasts. He would put up a T-chart on the board that looked like this, for example:

Atheistic Writers (Secularists) vs. Theistic Writers (Biblical):

Crane, Stephen vs.Melville, Herman
Hemingway, Ernest vs.Faulkner, William
Sartre, Jean-Paul vs.Percy, Walker
Camus, Albert vs.O’Connor, Flannery

Then he would pose questions of us related to atheistic writers:

  • What worldview is espoused in Crane’s short stories?
  • How do Crane’s characters wind up?
  • What emotions characterize Sartre’s protagonists?
  • Why is the anti-hero part and parcel of the atheistic writers?

We students would discuss the novels and short stories and poems of said writers, and he’d ask still more questions, and force us to justify our responses based upon the many books we’d had to read. Then he would pose questions of the contrasting writers:

  • What worldview is espoused in O’Connor’s stories?
  • How do self-righteous people play out in her stories?
  • What emotions characterize Percy’s protagonists?
  • Why is nobility possible in Melville and Faulkner but not in Sartre’s fiction?

The hinge upon which his teaching turned was the inculcation of our understanding pattern recognition and contrasts. Not this, but that.

In Proverbs 19:1 Solomon writes, “Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.”

Do you see the contrast and recognize the pattern?

Solomon contrasts two types of people–those of integrity vs. those of duplicity. One is honorable; the other is dishonorable. One person is honest; the other is dishonest. One is put together and straight. The other is a fool and is up to no good.

All these years later, Dr. Higgins, I still thank God for his putting you in my life. I have reread all of those long novels and stories more than a few times now, and they were just as you said. Thank you for teaching me. I hope I made you proud. You have since gone to your reward, and I hope to learn from you again one day. Until then, just know you made a good difference and a difference for good.

Tales from Travels: A Warrant for His Arrest

/ japfth / 2 Comments

Introduction: I had flown to Texas and then to Arkansas to minister to fellow soldiers. I was in my element–mobile, teaching military personnel, and teaching on topics near and dear to my heart: spiritual readiness and spiritual fitness. I was thrilled to come to see this set of guys again. It had been several months since I had been able to pour into them and to just be with them. They’re among my favorite soldiers–good ‘ole boys from Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, mostly. Salt of the earth patriots. My kind of people.

A few hours later, the American flight landed in Dallas. I had an hour or so to kill until my next flight. I found an open chair and resumed the book I’d read on the flight. I only had a few pages left, and I finished the book.

I’d had to wake at 0130 back in Georgia in order to be at the Atlanta airport at 0330 for American’s first a.m. flight to Dallas. All had gone well so far, though. There was scant traffic at that hour, and I had no significant hassles to speak of, even at Atlanta’s airport.

Anyway, the flight had landed in Dallas, just as the sun was coming up. As far as you could see, it was flat and already hot, even at dawn. I’m not wired for July heat in Texas or much of July heat anywhere else, but that’s another story.

Closer than I Thought: When I took another flight to my final destination, I picked up my ride. My lodging was not ready yet, so I drove to a local bookstore to peruse the shelves. I found a book of Faulkner stories. I’ve read Faulkner for decades now, and respect him now as always. A giant of literature.

Anyway, I gripped the book of Faulkner stories in my right hand, retrieved my wallet with my left hand, and walked to the front counter to pay. A petite brunette with a ponytail and black Books-A-Million t-shirt rang me up.

“Could I interest you in a membership card?”

“No thanks.”

“How’s your day going so far?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Just relaxing, eh?”

I just smiled. I sometimes struggle to engage when the conversation is about drivel. Say something significant, or I’m likely to check out.

“Could I interest you in a gift card?” she continued.

“No thanks.” Honestly, I was starting to get annonyed. Just let me pay for the Faulkner book and be on my way, I thought.

“I had to park close to the store this morning,” she said.

“Sorry?”

She kept cutting her eyes to the left, signaling me somehow.

“My husband … he told me to park right in front of the store,” she said.

I was completely lost as to what she was driving at.

She whispered, “We found out. There’s a man with a warrant between us and the store next door. The cops are on their way. My husband told me to park close to the front of the store, so I did.”

“Oh,” is all I could think to say.

I looked down at the little black pad for me to pay. The total appeared; I tapped my debit card.

“Receipt?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

I walked out, the hot sun blaring down already, my Faulkner book in my right hand. I noticed a silver Nissan by the Books-A-Million, near the bookstore’s entrance. I assumed it belonged to the girl at the register. I sat in the car for a few moments. Waiting. For something. Cops to show? A criminal to become visible to me? I waited. Nothing. No cops that I saw. Perhaps they would come circumspectly, in unmarked clothes and plain clothes. I waited some more. Still nothing.

I sat in the driver’s seat, the A/C on blast.

Here I was, out here to teach fellow soldiers about spiritual readiness and spiritual fitness, and I’d just listened to a girl tell me that a criminal was steps away, a man with a warrant out for his arrest.

I got notice: my lodging was ready. I scanned the parking lot again. I think I was looking for a man to walk in the Books-A-Million, a shady-looking guy, perhaps, but no one entered the store since after I exited.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of the bookstore parking lot and onto the road that led to my lodging. But I am still wondering what happened/didn’t happen.

Reflections on Kidd’s Biography of a Founding Father

/ japfth / Leave a comment

IMG_9452

This week I read a history of one of the most influential men in American history, a Founding Father, printer, author, autodidact, aphorist, statesman, scientist, friend of Calvinist George Whitefield, and inveterate ambassador of discovery, education, and self-improvement. Biographies are among my favorite areas in which to read deeply, and Thomas Kidd’s bio of Ben Franklin did not disappoint.

Following is a form to provide a brief book review:

1. Overview

2 Quotation

3. Main idea

4. Questions raised/reflections

Overview:

 Kidd divides the book into nine chapters: 1) Child of the Puritans; 2) Exodus to Philadelphia, Sojourn to London; 3) Philadelphia Printer; 4) Poor Richard; 5) Ben Franklin’s Closest Evangelical Friend; 6) Electrical Man; 7) Tribune of the People; 8) Diplomat; and 9) The Pillar of Fire.

Kidd provides a clear overview of Franklin’s Calvinist upbringing and deep knowledge of the Bible; his prodigious work ethic and self-discipline; his staggering output of pamphlets, articles, ads and booklets as a printer; his deftness with proverbs; his lifelong friendship and theological foil with Christian evangelist George Whitefield; his discoveries in electricity; his educational and political honors and appointments; his government service; and his final days wrestling with the question of the exclusivity of the Christian gospel.

Quotation:

 Consider the following commentary by Kidd re Franklin’s self-help moralism:

If Whitefield preached transformation by God, Franklin advocated gradual reformation by daily effort, with biblical precepts as a guide. No internal change or divine regeneration was needed. Whatever the lingering influence of his Puritan heritage, this was a point on which Franklin clearly departed from the Puritans, and from their evangelical successors like Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards. In this focus on harnessing daily habits, Franklin was setting foundational precedents for that distinctively American, quasi-religious genre, the self-help movement. Franklin’s “The way to Wealth” and his Autobiography were ur-texts of that movement. (161)

Kidd excels in demonstrating the rich theological culture that existed in America in the middle of the 1700s due mostly to the robust evangelism of Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield amidst the literacy rate of the nation seeking to separate from George and English dominion.

Main Idea:

 Kidd maintains his focus throughout the book on Franklin’s internal struggles. He (Franklin) was saturated with biblical knowledge but he never would concede the divinity of Christ, his virgin birth, or that salvation was by grace alone. Franklin sifted the Bible for moral precepts, acknowledging Jesus’ incomparable greatness, but would not, as far as historians can tell, ever trust in Christ and the gospel completely. Whitefield and Franklin corresponded for decades, and all the while, Whitefield pleaded for Franklin to trust in Christ alone, but Franklin persisted to trust in his own deeds as meriting favor with God, a clear indicator he had not embraced the gospel.

Questions raised/reflections:

 It is interesting to study a man as brilliant and gifted as Benjamin Franklin, one who was largely self-taught, one who explored the Greek and Roman classics, the Bible, philosophers like Locke, Hume, and Kant, theologians and pastors like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and never seemed to lose his zeal for discovery and learning. Despite his experiences of man’s butchery in the American Revolution, the slaughter of Indians by misguided zealots, and some of America’s birth pangs, he continued a rebel soul up until his end in this life. I wish he has listened more to his friend Whitefield and believed the Scriptures, rather than just quoting them when they suited his rhetorical purposes.

Lastly, if you wish to learn of this Founding Father, this contradictory man, this gifted writer and satirist, read Kidd’s bio of Franklin. Kidd writes so well that you may wish the book had been even longer.

 

 

Thoughts on Orwell’s 1984

/ japfth / 1 Comment

IMG_1995This week I read George Orwell’s 1984. Published in 1949, the close of WWII was less than four years prior. Unimaginable horrors were replete: Hitler and the Third Reich; Nazis; the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews; President Truman’s authorizing the dropping of atomic bombs upon Japan four years after Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by Japanese kamikazes; Mussolini’s fellow fascists in Italy; Franco’s fellow fascists in Spain; Lenin and later Stalin in the USSR; Mao in China … the list of totalitarian/socialist/communist tyrants in the 20th century alone staggers the mind. And Orwell’s 1984 still retains cogent warnings.

Published in the middle of the 20th century, 1984 imaginatively concretizes the horrors of tyranny, big government, and totalitarianism/socialism/communism by focusing on an ordinary man (Winston Smith).

How will Winston (a type of Everyman) endure when oligarchy replaces republicanism? Can the human soul endure when God is jettisoned and secular power replaces him? And what of beauty? Is literature possible in a world when bureaucrats determine the curricula? Will Shakespeare and Dickens survive in 1984’s world of Telescreens and Newspeak? Short answer: no.

Governments don’t stir the soul; reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, however, does. When the media are merely arms of the government, and the masses (what Orwell terms the “proles” for proletariat) know only what government wants them to know, wisdom goes underground. And so do truth, goodness, and beauty.

The terms Orwell coined in 1984 endure. Big Brother, Thought Police, and Newspeak are just some of the examples. If you control the language, you control the message. And today, look at college and university campuses where Leftists demand “safe spaces,” and being called by pronouns that are in contradiction to their gender. Professing themselves to be wise, they’re fools. And it is shameful.

These examples from our day illustrate what happens when a culture abandons God, abandons reason, and abandons self-discipline. Orwell’s 1984 is still important.

First, are you paying attention to phrases en vogue today? Ever heard the phrase “safe spaces”? A couple of years ago, I was at military training with my unit and a female officer asked me if I would step out of the auditorium because she wished to speak to only female soldiers. That seemed understandable to me. But what caught my attention was when she said, “We are creating a safe space.” Huh? A space is now safe when any and all potentially dissenting views are prohibited. Verboten. Forbidden. Not tolerated. What is demanded is conformity.

Second, there is a loud and mean push in contemporary politics and discourse that demands—instead of reasons. Leftists demand a Christian baker, for example, go against his deeply held religious beliefs. If he won’t, they smear him as a bigoted moral monster. If he won’t contradict biblical morality, they set out to destroy him. So much for their so-called tolerance. In 1984, the individual is crushed by Big Brother and oligarchy. Power is stolen from the individual and reserved only for the all-powerful State. If the individual dissents, he/she is crushed via torture and/or indoctrination.

Third, Orwell dramatizes in 1984 what happens when people don’t know history. What they know is what the media have force-fed them. Instead of wisdom with regard to historical understanding, they have platitudes and bromides: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, for example. Clichés are not arguments; assertions are not arguments; platitudes are not arguments. But if the masses only parrot the media they ingest, shibboleths and slogans are what we get.

In 1984, a novel now 70 years old, I encountered a warning we should heed. We are drowning in information rather than standing upon wisdom.

We would do well to read deeply, to think through Orwell’s warnings from decades ago. We would do well to actually know and understand history. We might discover how we got to such a sorry place with regard to our conversations with one another. We might rediscover that masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet, David Copperfield, and 1984 were not produced by bureaucrats or governmental committees.

The Colonel

/ japfth / Leave a comment

“You ever notice, chaplain, people don’t know their Bibles anymore?” the colonel asked.

The chaplain studied the colonel to see if he was asking with the desire to listen to the chaplain answer, or to hear himself. As the chaplain was about to answer, the colonel continued.

“You know, chaplain, I used to think it was just Millennials–the guys who can’t do fifty push-ups because their man-buns might come undone . . .”

The chaplain nodded his head slowly at the colonel to let him know he understood. The chaplain knew he would not have to say much because the colonel wanted to impress him.

“And what’s with women who now dress and act like men, but then get offended if we treat them like they are men? I mean, which is it?” Suddenly the colonel realized he’d left his original topic.

“What was I saying, chaplain?”

“You began with how few people know the Bible, sir.”

“Exactly, chaplain! But it’s even the older generation, too. You know that?”

“That’s been my experience, sir.”

“How old are you, chappy?”

“Forty-eight, sir.”

“Me, too, chaplain. But when I was coming up in the Midwest, at least my family taught us the Bible, and we even went to church. But people nowadays, chaplain—I just don’t know anymore.”

“Not much of a shared foundation anymore, sir. I’ve noticed.”

“You know, chaplain. I have an eleven-year-old son named Luke. Every night before I put him to bed, I read the Bible aloud with him for thirty minutes.”

“That’s great, sir,” the chaplain said. “He will remember that time with him and probably much of what you read with him.”

“You know what really gets me, though, chappy? It’s how he’ll hit me with a question a day or so later about something we read—something I didn’t think he was really tracking,” the colonel said.

“He may be beyond much of the West, sir,” the chaplain said, smiling a sad smile.

“Say again.”

“Firsthand knowledge of Scripture, sir, like you were saying,” the chaplain said.

“Exactly. He’ll up and ask me something about people loving darkness rather than light. Ain’t that something, chappy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But what do we do, chaplain? With the world going the way it is, and all? I mean, I know the Bible, and my wife and I, we teach it to Luke. But this generation, and even our parents’ generation . . . I just don’t know, chaplain.”

“Sounds like you’re doing well, sir. Open the Scripture, read it, and share it with those who’ll listen.”

He watched the colonel listen to his own thoughts, and pictured the colonel with Luke beside his dad, perhaps under his boyish covers on his bed, listening to his father read of David and mighty men of valor, who surely resembled his dad the colonel, and his staff officers or non-commissioned officers; and a flaming sword that blazed amidst a ruined garden; and of Jewish boys perhaps his own age, cast into a furnace deep in the desert sands near the Tigris and Euphrates where his dad had battled and returned; and of trees cursed by Jesus as symbols of people not using their time the way God wanted, and . . .

Thus ran the chaplain’s thoughts as he watched the colonel listen to himself.

“You’re a good listener, chappy. Appreciate you.”

“Thanks, sir. Likewise.”

“Hey, sir?”

“What you got, chappy?”

“Tell Luke to keep reading, and that the chaplain says hello.”

“Good copy, chaplain.”

 

The Devil’s Books?

/ japfth / 4 Comments

Prepare to be offended. I want to ask two related questions. First, should Christians read the classics? Second, what principles should guide their reading?

Let me sharthe the background of what got me thinking on this. Recently, I was having an email conversation with a “Facebook friend.” We’re both Christians, both thoughtful people, and both reasonably well educated. In the course of our writing back and forth, she asked me why I had read Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Here are my exact words to her: “Ha, I read widely. I was a latecomer to Harry Potter (sic). I read a lot of history, theology, and literature. But when something is as influential as those books, I thought I should read them all in order to understand their worldview. Just because I read something doesn’t mean that I buy into its ideology or worldview. I read many things with which I disagree. But I think it’s important to know the entire marketplace of ideas, not just things that make me comfortable or with which I agree.”

Can you guess her response? Here is the first part: “I’ve heard that before. Please don’t be offended, but don’t you think we can know about it because we know about the enemy and his worldview? All I need to know is that it is inspired by the dark side. When Harry uses supernatural powers that do not glorify Jesus Christ, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not good for us. We can know a lot about it because we know the enemy. We know how he works and we know his tactics, but we don’t need to eat from his table. It’s kinda (sic) like the Lord’s warnings in the Old Testament about going to them for counsel.”

What does that conversation reveal about the issues raised? Am I sinning because I read the Harry Potter books? I don’t practice divination; I don’t consult the dead; I don’t cast spells. But I did enjoy the books. I cannot speak for other readers, but I was never as interested in the magic that Harry performed as I was in Harry’s character—how Rowling made him (and other characters) come alive in the stories. We see how Harry grew up, and how and why his personality was the way it was.

The same goes for any literary character, right? Read The Great Gatsby? I feel like Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and Daisy Buchanan live in my imagination, but they were just literary characters. I don’t worship them. Rather I learn from them. How? I can only say, in the way that great literature alone accomplishes. It is part of the (forgive the pun) magic of great literature.

On the other hand, I have tried to think through my friend’s counsel. She is right in that Scripture clearly condemns magic, astrology, demonic spirits, witchcraft, etc. (see Deut. 18:9-12 and 1 Chr. 10:13, e.g.). There are scores of examples in Scripture where witchcraft is condemned. I selected these as among the most obvious, for those who will read them and think through them. Does thinking on things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable (Phil. 4:8) preclude me from reading anything but Scripture and Sunday school literature?

I asked her if Christians should read War and Peace and Huckleberry Finn. I’m still waiting on her answer. Because we need to think through these things. Much is at stake. I’d hate to think that all my shelves of Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, O’Connor, Walker Percy, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Larry Woiwode, and T.S. Eliot are for naught. Murders abound in Dostoyevsky, but he’s generally considered a Christian novelist. Tolkien wrote of hobbits, magic, etc., but his writings have reached thousands with the gospel worldview. O’Connor’s writings are filled with sexual deviancy but she’s overtly biblical. Percy, like O’Connor, was Roman Catholic, but I wrote my master’s thesis on Percy, and he was saturated with the biblical worldview, and warned through his writings of man, outside of Christ, is “lost in the cosmos.” Tolstoy, Lewis, Woiwode, Eliot, et al were all orthodox Christians, but each had things in his writings that wouldn’t make it into one’s Sunday school curricula. And the Christian world should evade reading them? I don’t think so.

Fear not, we’re still “Facebook friends.” Iron sharpens iron, right? Hopefully, we can discuss more than the 66 books we both cherish. I hear some good ones have been written. Many even term them “the classics.”

I realize I didn’t answer the questions myself, but you might infer what I think. I continue to teach literature and writing to this very day. I think life without literature, like life without music, would be a mistake. Scripture must guide our evaluations of what constitutes “great” literature (often termed ‘the classics’). Though I don’t make the case that the Harry Potter books constitute great literature, I do think they’re worthy of being read.

Secularism does not lend itself to the creation of great literature simply because secularism is reductionistic. Only a biblical Judeo-Christian worldview gives objective reasons for man’s dignity (he is the creation of God who is goodness Himself) and art, as an ability of co-creation of the true, good, and beautiful, is rooted in a biblical worldview.   But to disparage quality literature as inspired by the devil, it seems to me, cheapens the discussion and tends more towards intellectual cowardice than towards sanctification. Romeo and Juliet, e.g. is replete with metaphors about astrology and the roles of fate. However, to ignore and/or forsake the incomparable beauty and truths in that play, or others of that caliber, ends in making Christian holy huddles an object of pity.

As thoughtful Christians, let us trust truth-tellers, even if they don’t have coffee with us in our Sunday school classes. God even uses pharaohs to manifest his glory.