The Medium and the Light, writings by Marshall McLuhan

The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion
by Marshall McLuhan; edited by Eric Mcluhan and Jacek Szklarek—219 pp. paper $28.00

medium and the lightThose unfamiliar with Marshall McLuhan might be surprised at his continued reach and influence in an age of Twitter, Facebook and internet-driven communication. Together with Harold Innis, Northrop Frye, Eric Havelock, and Edmund Carpenter, he was a member of the school of thought that came to be known as the Toronto School of communication theory (namely characterized by the exploration of Ancient Greek literature and the theory that communications systems create psychological and social states). McLuhan himself coined the expression “the medium is the message” and “global village” as well as predicting the World Wide Web thirty years prior to its invention.

McLuhan made a slow but complete conversion to Catholicism in the 30s while a student at Cambridge studying the Trivium and G.K. Chesterton. As a result, he spent the rest of his life teaching at Roman Catholic institutions. When asked by intellectuals and artists if he was really a Catholic, McLuhan would reply, “Yes, I am a Catholic, the worst kind—a convert,” further baffling their expectations in relationship to his work.

While much has been written about McLuhan’s theories of communication, very little has been discussed concerning his reflections on communications and religion. The Medium and the Light collects essays, interviews, scattered remarks and letters, giving us insight into his thoughts on the nature of conversion, the church’s understanding of media, the relationship between liturgy (especially in terms of the changes made at Vatican II) and the media, and the shape of the future church. Letters to Jacques Maritain and Walter Ong (a student of McLuhan’s at St. Louis University), transcribed conversations with the Catholic communications theorist Fr. Pierre Babin (The New Era in Religious Communications), and topics such as “Liturgy and the Microphone,” “Do Americans Go to Church to Be Alone?,” “Electric Consciousness and the Church,” “G.K. Chesterton: A Practical Mystic,” and “The Christian in the Electronic Age” underline the question of the church’s reality in an ever-shifting electronic age:

You have to remember that electric speed allows us to compress the entire year into an hour or a day. Therefore, in terms of distribution in time, the annual cycle of feasts no longer functions in the way that it should. At the speed of light, it has no more attraction. We want everything to happen at once, all the richness, all the feasts, all the Scriptures together and instantly. It is the same thing as having Christ right here in person.

Marshall McLuhan, in a conversation with Fr. Pierre Babin

 

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Regnum Dei: Eight Lectures on the Kingdom of God in the History of Christian Thought

Regnum Dei: Eight Lectures on the Kingdom of God in the History of Christian Thought
by Archibald Robertson; 401 pp. paper $40.00

Regnum DeiWhat at first may feel like a dry theological survey of the Kingdom of God (the “Master Idea”) in the history of Christian thought turns out to be an eminently practical examination of the “Christian experience with reference to the great twofold problem of life,—the purpose of God in guiding the affairs of man, and the supreme purpose—the summum bonum—which we are severally to set before us as the goal of our life” (Archibald Robertson). There is the issue of language to address here; it takes a bit of time to accustom oneself to Roberton’s somewhat archaic, if not wholly Victorian, prose. The book itself is a facsimile reproduction of the original 1901 publication, lending to its “old book” feel. That said, the text is uniformly clear. One of the best such reproductions we’ve seen.

Archibald Robertson—a Fellow of Trinity College, Principal of King’s College, and later the Bishop of Exeter—emphasizes that regardless of the difficult and complicated nature of his study,”there can be no question that in our Lord’s teaching the Kingdom of God is the representative and all-embracing summary of his distinctive mission.” Christ taught that the Kingdom of God was at hand; the first prayer he taught his disciples instructed them to address their Father with “Thy Kingdom come.” Devout Israelites throughout the gospels held the hope of the kingdom of God to be the goal of their life and effort.

Robertson’s first three lectures address the meaning Christ gave to “the Idea,” sketching out Old Testament antecedents, Jewish expectations in the Psalms of Solomon, the apostolic teachings of Paul, the preaching of Christ himself, and the enigmatic apocalypse of St. John—which Robertson names “the first Christian philosophy of history.” Lecture IV deals with the eschatology of the primitive church, and Lecture V turns to the pivotal influence of St. Augustine, whose thought sparked the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new. Lecture VI discusses the subsequent attempt of the medieval papacy to equate the Kingdom with the omnipotent church, leading to the eventual break-up of this system (as examined in Lecture VII). Lecture VIII unflinchingly parses these ideas in an attempt to address the problems that confront Christians in modern life (including the moral aim of human society, the remedy for false individualism, moral earnestness in non-Christians, and the inherent deficits of Christian Socialism). Most strikingly, Robertson points out Christ’s use of an idea which already existed in the minds of his contemporaries, an idea he “gradually untaught his Disciples…and taught it them again in a wholly transformed shape.”

 

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The Eucharistic Communion and the World, by John D. Zizioulas

The Eucharistic Communion and the World
by John D. Zizioulas; edited and introduced by Luke Ben Tallon—186 pp. $39.95

eucharistic communion and the worldThe theologian-priest John Zizioulas isn’t particularly known as a concrete or practical thinker. Crucial and weighty, yes, but largely abstract when it comes to man’s reality in the world. This collection of essays—published previously in both French and English journals or given as keynote addresses—does the commendable work of presenting a “provocatively concrete and practical” Zizioulas. As Luke Tallon also writes in the introduction, “a great deal of freight rides” upon Zizioulas’ structure and theology of the Eucharist. Tallon has assembled a body of work that deals specifically with the Eucharist and its relation to the world—a very material Eucharist that Zizioulas assumes as foundation for his well-known writings on personhood, communion and otherness (Being as Commuinion, Communion and Otherness). Care has been taken answer critics who read Zizioulas as a “despiser of the material world” or an “existentialist in theologian’s garb.”

Rather than introduce the essays with a series of synopses, Tallon emphasizes the way Zizioulas goes about the work of theology. This works well for our purposes too. In The Eucharistic Communion and the World, Zizioulas’ engagement with scripture demonstrates a more patient exposition. While allowing the canon to form the context for interpretation, his “eucharistic-liturgical hermeneutic” opens up productive juxtapositions of the Johannine and Pauline texts. The practical implications of Christ as the “one” who unites the “many” emphasizes Zizioulas’ claim that the local Church is the catholic Church, for “the presence of Christ in a eucharistic gathering means the presence of the whole Christ” (Tallon).

Ziziloulas’ emphasis of the Eucharist as prayer for the Holy Spirit shows how the life of the world to come meets the Church here and now; the world must be transformed, not abandoned. This does not negate God’s judgement of the world. The members of Christ’s Church accept God’s judgement as they accept the Eucharist, and within it, their shared death, burial and resurrection. They bring with them the world, praying and hoping for its redemption. In this way, Zizioulas’ vision of man as the priest of creation—in relationship to our current ecological crisis—makes marvelous sense. This crisis, writes Zizioulas, “is due not so much to a wrong ethic as to a bad ethos; it is a cultural problem.” Western culture has de-sacralised life, he continues, undermining the fact that “the human being is also, or rather primarily, a liturgical being, faced from the moment of birth with a world that he or she must treat either as a sacred gift or as raw material for exploitation and use.”

 

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Beauty Looks After Herself, by Eric Gill

Beauty Looks After Herself
by Eric Gill; with an Introduction by Catherine Pickstock—253 pp. paper$18.95

beauty looks after herself“It has been said,” writes the sculptor, typeface designer and printmaker Eric Gill, “that I am one of those writers who can only keep to the point by returning to it.” In Beauty Looks After Herself, Gill ranges through the subjects of prudence, plainness, sanctification, architecture, sculpture, painting, machines and industrialism—all in relationship to art and the artist—to what end? The point he consistently circles back to is the artist as responsible workman. “I say he is a workman,” writes Gill, “because his job is ‘the well making of what needs making.’” Gill’s prose is aphoristic, deceivingly simple. This is a good thing, because his words deserve a good chew, and small bites are better.

You will hear strains of Wendell Berry in Eric Gill (better said—you will hear Eric Gill in Wendell Berry), as well as E.F. Schumacher (Small Is Beautiful). Like them, Gill should not be categorized a luddite, though he sees the shortfalls of machinery, industrialism and commercialism quite clearly. “You must not say you don’t like this scheme of life,” he writes in the chapter “Art and Industrialism.”

It is quite inevitable, because no one wants to abolish machinery…the only alternative is the complete collapse of our civilisation, and nobody wants that. But perhaps that is what will really happen. Perhaps collapse is the inevitable end of a civilisation which has allowed labour-saving tools to be replaced by labour-displacing machinery—a civilisation wherein men, in thrall to financiers and men of business, have surrendered their responsibility as workmen.

After this dire diagnosis, he decidedly makes his case (with numerous qualifying asides) that the beautiful works of man are “evidence of mind. We make what we believe to be good—in accordance with our beliefs so we make.” Rather than coming to the conclusion that a profound sense of form is all that is required for something made to be beautiful, Gill comes right out and says (“though our natural modestly makes us shy of such high phrases”) that “all goodness in men is a reflection of the goodness of God and an earnest of man’s godward direction, so all beauty is a reflection of the divine beauty, and…man’s pleasure in things seen or heard is in fact only understandable when explained as a pleasure in what is in accordance with reality, pure Being, God Himself.”

More simply put: Look after goodness and truth, and beauty will take care of herself.

 

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An Invitation to Participate in Our 25th Anniversary Book

8thdayhouseOctober 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Eighth Day Books. In honor of the occasion, we are asking you, our extraordinary customers, to tell us what Eighth Day Books means to you. We hope you’ll share reminiscences, humorous moments, epic sagas, paens, poetic waxings and/or love letters to Eighth Day Books.

Everyone who has crossed paths with Eighth Day—whether in Wichita, on the road, or in virtual fashion via the internet or telephone—is invited to contribute. We want to hear from brand-new customers, veteran shoppers, famous and not-so-famous authors, bloggers, former employees, sales reps, classmates and long-lost cousins of our esteemed founder.

We’ll publish as many submissions as possible in an illustrated paperback that’s scheduled to hit our shelves in mid-October. Please help us accomplish this labor of love by adhering to these guidelines:

  • eighth day lewis section 750 words or less. Submissions may be abridged and/or edited for publication.
  • Include name, address, e-mail and telephone for the author (and co-author, if there is one); no group or anonymous submissions.
  • Please submit via e-mail, preferably as an attachment in
    MS Word, to books@eighthdaybooks.com using the subject line “Anniversary Submission.”
  • Photographs and original artwork depicting themes related to Eighth Day Books will also be considered for inclusion; please submit in jpg format (300 dpi preferred).
  • Excerpts from your submission may appear in our blog and/or Facebook page.
  • Deadline for all submissions:  June 1, 2013.

Please direct all questions and inquiries to Victoria or Alanna (800-841-2541). Many thanks !

The EDB Staff

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Journey to the Kingdom, by Father Vassilios Papavassiliou

Journey to the Kingdom: An Insider’s Look at the Liturgy and Beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Church
by Father Vassilios Papavassiliou; 196 pp. paper $18.99

journey to kingdomAs Eastern Orthodoxy becomes increasingly familiar amidst more mainstream forms of Christianity, reliable (and relatable) guides like Fr. Vassilios’ Journey to the Kingdom provide trustworthy aid for not only the seeker but also those already immersed in the Byzantine liturgical tradition. In his opening paragraph, Fr. Vassilios depicts the Divine Liturgy as a journey. The Liturgy begins with the announcement of our destination—”Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever, and to the ages of ages”—though the journey commences with what he calls “the sacrificial act” of leaving the house, without which “there can be no liturgy.”

Journey to the Kingdom is rich with this kind of holistic understanding. In describing the tenor (and sometimes strangeness) of the Byzantine liturgy, Fr. Vassilios quotes Romano Guardini, turning one’s sense of formality on its head: The Liturgy “speaks measuredly and melodiously; it employs formal, rhythmic gestures; it is clothed in colors and garments foreign to everyday life…It is in the highest sense the life of a child, in which everything is picture, melody and song.”

The book is broken down into chapters based on the principal elements of the liturgy. In fine, Tolkien-esque detail, Father Vassilios includes a hand drawn map at the start of the book, marking these elements as in a landscape leading through the gates of the Gospel and the Holy Gifts, winding through the forest of the Creed, around the lake of the Mystical Supper and finally down the road through Thanksgiving and Dismissal as we reenter the world—the “liturgy after the Liturgy”—which the Church calls the work of the Resurrection. Journey to the Kingdom is as much an introduction to Orthodoxy through the Liturgy as it is a guide to the Liturgy itself. There can, in fact, “be no true ‘evangelization,’ writes Father Vassilios, “no effective ‘mission’ without the Liturgy. We cannot proclaim the joy of the Resurrection unless we have experienced that joy for ourselves.”

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The Bible Made Impossible, by Christian Smith

The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture  by Christian Smith; 220 pp. cloth $22.99

bible-made-impossibleThe issue of biblical authority is tricky at best. As sociologist Christian Smith (a professor at the University of Notre Dame) puts it, “I am aware that the term ‘biblicism’ is often used pejoratively, as a disrespectful slight suggesting ignorance and lack of sophistication.” He denies any “liberal” tendency on his part while pointing out that “slapping the ‘liberal!’ label on others is still a knee-jerk reaction of many evangelicals against any argument that on first glance does not seem identical to or more conservative than their own position.” So what is his position? Namely, to persuade his readers “that one particular theory of Christian plausibility, reliability, and authority—what I call biblicism—is inadequate to the task” of being, as has been presupposed for generations, “the cornerstone to Christian truth and faithfulness.” It simply cannot live up to its own claims.

Growing up in the evangelical tradition himself (he has since converted to Catholicism), Smith understands the assets and liabilities in writing a book on biblical authority from his position as a sociologist and does not claim to bring scholarship expertise to his argument (though he has studied theology at Gordon Conwell and Harvard Divinity School). The force of his case grows through wrestling with a series of very simple questions and his refusal to settle for inadequate or standard answers. Showing first the ways in which biblicism is not a self-evident teaching of the Bible, he then identifies some of the “problematic, pernicious pastoral consequences for many thoughtful youth raised in biblicist traditions” (by this he means most evangelicals and the majority of American Protestant fundamentalists).

The second half of the book moves toward a number of proposals intended to, as Smith describes it, overcome American biblicism. Off-putting as this may sound to some, Smith does not mean to abandon evangelicals or evangelicalism. Rather, he maintains that “leaving biblicism behind need not mean losing the best of evangelicalism.” Smith’s hermeneutical key is Christocentric, and he thoughtfully encourages the faithful (meaning Christians of all stripes) to get more comfortable with complexity and ambiguity. Dropping the compulsion to harmonize scripture and learning to distinguish between dogma, doctrine and opinion anchor his argument. Instead of starting with a theory of inspiration, he looks to content and pays close attention to the ways the church has interpreted scripture for the last two thousand years (as well as the history of the New Testament canon’s formation). Whether or not one is entirely convinced by the ways in which Christian Smith moves through biblicism to something more whole, readers will (as one reviewer put it), “benefit from this strong dose of realism about the way in which evangelicals actually interpret and appeal to the Bible.”

 

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Beauty in the Word, by Stratford Caldecott

Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education
by Stratford Caldecott; foreword by Anthony Esolen—168 pp. paper $18.95

beauty in the wordRecasting the educational philosophy of the Trivium (Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric) as Remembering, Thinking and Communicating, Stratford Caldecott seeks to sketch out an education that enables “a child to progress in the rational understanding of the world without losing his poetic and artistic appreciation of it.” He defines a “liberal” education as “an education for freedom,” necessarily underpinned (as it was in the medieval university) by Trinitarian theology.

The Grammar of our existence is actuated by remembering our origin and our end. Having been led to the Father (from whence we came), we awaken to thought and seek the truth. Communication is done through the Spirit, “the breath of the Father that carries the Word.” Caldecott writes from a Catholic frame of reference but emphasizes that he does not mean to exclude all but theologians and believers. If we aspire to educate children (and any number of adults) for being before doing, the theology helps us understand our needs and desires.

Beauty in the Word stays moves chiefly in the philosophical and theological realms, though toward its end, Caldecott roughs out his “creatively interpreted” liberal arts education for schools and homes. The primary curriculum (very much in keeping with Classical Curriculum) consists of five main elements: storytelling; music; exploration; painting and drawing; dance, drama and sport. Within these, three skill sets are addressed—religious education, seeing the form, and basic skills. His chapter surveying related educational philosophies and their philosophers (Vigen Guroian, Mother Cabrini, Charlotte Mason, and John Holt) lends an expansive, even ecumenical note to his treatise.

One suspects (and Caldecott says as much) a second volume addressing these particulars, but in keeping with his Trinitarian trajectory, Caldecott’s coda quotes John Paul II:

The Truth about ourselves is closely linked to love for ourselves. Only those who love us possess and preserve the mystery of our true image, even when it has slipped from our hands.

Only those who love can educate, because only those who love can speak the truth which is love… Here again is the core, the incandescent center of all educational activity: co-operating in the discovery of the true image which God’s love has impressed indelibly upon every person and which is preserved in the mystery of his own love.

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Of the Land and the Spirit: The Essential Lord Northbourne

Of the Land and the Spirit: The Essential Lord Northbourne on Ecology and Religion (Including correspondence with Thomas Merton)
edited by Christopher James and Joseph A. Fitzgerald; foreword by Wendell Berry
249 pp. paper $19.95

of the land and the spiritLord Walter Ernest Christopher James Northbourne’s philosophy of farming is not the first to consider the relationship between people and the land, but he was the first to meaningfully place the idea of “organic farming” (coining that phrase) within the context of industrialized farming—that is, a form of agriculture reductively scientific, materialist, and mechanical. “What is remarkable, even astonishing,” writes Wendell Berry in the Preface, “is that he was capable so early of a criticism that still is sufficiently complex and coherent.”

Lord Northbourne’s use of the term organic is far more than a certification or label affixed to a half-gallon of milk. In the essays that make up this reader, he is most concerned with a way of life in which “business must serve and not override man’s vital needs,” in which “the things of the spirit count for more than material things.” Because farming is concerned primarily with life, it “must be on the side of religion, poetry, and the arts.” Because mechanized farming tempts the farmer to work on too big a scale and too quickly, it can be very unlike what farming ought to be.

His discussion of craft and art in terms of self-sufficiency and vitality constructs an important framework by which to understand trade. Northbourne’s conclusions speak to commerce but also to the exchanges that define and enliven communities: “The livelier each of us is within himself the more he can contribute to the lives of others; real liveliness comes from within, not from without; it is the sign of that internal self-sufficiency which is vitality”  (from “Farms and Farmers”).

While some may not agree with his philosophy of tradition and hierarchy (Berry doesn’t), Northbourne’s “Looking Back on Progress” is an engaging comparison of the ideologies of progress and tradition (“their mutual incompatibility is total and unequivocal”). His discussion of sustainability encourages smaller farms, thereby increasing farm population so that “those who are willing and able to exercise individual care and responsibility and originality would have the opportunity to do so on their own land.” Other essays include: The Problem of Pain; The Beauty of Flowers; On Truth, Goodness and Beauty; Decadence and Idolatry; Intellectual Freedom; Old Age; and an edited version of his correspondence with Thomas Merton. A paragraph from a letter to Merton typifies the gracious propensity Lord Northbourne applies to his subject matter—namely that the human soul is always of utmost concern:

“I question whether ‘this technological society still has to be redeemed and sanctified’ (Merton’s phrase). God has destroyed societies for their abominations. But never refused Himself to a soul that has remained faithful. Therefore society in His eyes is a framework or testing ground; not it, but souls are precious. It can be sanctified…or not; but souls and not society are saved or damned. Living now is easy for the body and hard for the soul, in other times it was often the other way round; God will take this into account and not judge us too severely.”

 

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Praying the Psalms in Christ

Praying the Psalms in Christ
by Laurence Kriegshauser, O.S.B.; 356 pp. paper $39.95

praying the psalmsTrees, dogs, and arrows. Insomnia. Honey. Stone. In Benedictine monk Laurence Kriegshauser‘s poetic, forthright method, the psalms become the animated prayers they were written to be—”the voice of a humanity befriended by God.” Put another way, they are “a vast temple in which God is worshipped. Each psalm is like a room…full of God’s presence but not exhausting it. Praising God in one psalm we hear echoes of songs from other rooms.” Father Kriegshauser inscribes these rooms with simple names, and it’s pleasurable to read how each sum encompasses the whole of the psalm. Take “skip” (for Psalm 114):

The psalm telescopes into a short hymn four events of the Exodus: the crossing of the Red Sea, the miracle of water from the rock, the crossing of the Jordan, and the establishment of God’s dwelling in Zion. The name of the Lord is not used, nor is God mentioned until the end, as if to suggest a riddle behind the strange behavior of nature, a riddle answered only in the penultimate verse… the psalmist asks the sea why it fled, Jordan why it turned back, the mountains why they skipped like rams, hills like young lambs… The reversal of natural phenomena proves that Israel’s God is the creator, who can make nature serve his purposes… (Praying the Psalms in Christ, p. 247)

This is commentary, yes, and it does the intended work of turning us to the psalms themselves. But Father Kriegshauser’s exegesis is also the embodiment of fine writing, a nourishment like the psalms he obviously prays and finds sustenance in. In this, he echoes St. Athanasius:

And the one who hears is deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of the songs, as if they were his own songs… Each sings them as if they were written about himself… so that in these same words the stirrings of our souls might be grasped, and all of them be said as concerning us, and they issue from us as our own words, as a reminder of the emotions in us, and a chastening of our life. (Letter to Marcellinus 11-12) 

 

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