Musings of a Christian Humanist

     Sadly, only the most dedicated Bradbury fans seem to be aware of this lesser known work. In truth, as with many Bradbury novels, this work consists of short stories woven together to tell a unique tale. Without giving away too much, it is a work that has moments of whimsy and poignancy. There are characters and elements that are early Bradbury in tone and there are items that are the mature, reflective  and even philosophically poetic Bradbury.       The story focuses on an Illinois family distinguished by the fact that most are ghosts and other creatures. Two key characters are a mortal child Timothy, and Cecy, a creature hard to describe. While there are numerous great moments and several delightful passages of rich word craft, the scene that was most striking to me was as follows:       " Listen, now, let me provide the history of the rising tide of disbelief. The Judeo-Christian w...

    Many of Ray Bradbury's stories have enough ambiguity worked into the tale to lend them to rich varying interpretations. This does not mean that any and all readings are faithful to the story, but it can make for lively discussions and honest disagreement about the meaning of a particular story.  The October Game is such a story. Spoiler alert--I offer here a alternative reading of the story than the one given by most. If you have not read the story, read it before you make your way through this interpretation. If you have read it, please indulge me. The consensus is that at the end of the story, the audience is shocked because they see the dismembered body of  The reading offered here is that the daughter is alive and well at the end and the shock is that she is there despite the panic and anticipated horror that something terrible had happened to her. In other words, the audience...

     It has long been a conviction of mine that too many believers are too much of the world and they know not. Human cultures have a way of so becoming the atmosphere we take into our lungs that we lose sight of the truth that sometimes the air is poison. For some it is a slow death by breathing.      Os Guinness, Peter Berger, Max Weber, and Jacques Ellul have assisted me in checking the toxicity levels, and now I need to add another--Philip Rieff. Truthfully, he is the most challenging in both the way he writes and at times what he says. Sometimes what he says is difficult to mentally grasp and other times I fear I understand him all too clearly.       Rieff is best known for his superlative scholarship on the life, writings, and influence (helpful and destructive) of Sigmund Freud. Rieff is one of those rare contemporary authors who is conversant with ideas and authors well beyond...

      "His was no Enlightenment mind, Kirk now became aware; it was a Gothic mind, medieval in its temper and structure.                         Russell Kirk, The Sword of Imagination , 68      As J.R.R. Tolkien assisted many with his most informative essay, On Fairy Stories , Russell Kirk provides a short, but helpful primer into the genre of "ghost stories." Now, of course, reading the essay, "A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale," the reader realizes that "ghost stories" are not merely about "ghosts" just as "fairy-tales" are not merely about "fairies."      As with G.K. Chesterton's assertion in his "Ethics of Elfland," fairytales are inherently moral as they reflect a universe of moral order and consequences when good is dismissed and evil embraced. Russell Kirk writing of his own ghost stories says, " What I have attempted, rather, are experiments in the moral imaginatio...

This work is thoroughly grounded in Christian theology and biblical reflection. At the very heart of Zimmerman's case is the incarnation of Christ. Possibly the most explicit assertion defended throughout the book is “True humanity is the heart of the Gospel and the goal of Christ's redemptive work…” This is a truth that is sure to give some Christians, and certainly secularists, pause. Another point that all fundamentalists (Christian or atheist brand) would find troubling in this work is the argument that, “all human knowledge is always interpretive.” Again Zimmermann addresses an important issue without lapsing into relativism. “Objectivity in theological science, like objectivity in every true science, is achieved through rigorous correlation of thought with its proper object and the self-renunciation, repentance and change of mind that it involves.” In this sweeping work, Zimmerman also explores the relationship between science and religion, but more than that, the ...

NOTE: An Article I authored recently published St Austin Review, S/O 2012 V. 12, N. 5 On all lists of the best science fiction and fantasy writers of the twentieth century, Ray Bradbury is always present, and usually at the top. However, popular acclaim does not always translate into high literary craft. The discerning reader should carefully look at the full body of Bradbury’s writings to determine if all, or even some of his works, merit scholarly attention. He sub-created worlds that explored the widest range of human experiences and humane themes. Often he spoke about his dislike of being classified in genres he believed were artificial. As an author that transcended and sometimes blended narrow genre classifications, Bradbury saw himself merely as a writer. While his stories have the common features of science fiction and fantasy, these characteristics were simply functional toward the greater end of telling a fine tale about human beings being human. Even though there ...

As a number of books from important thinkers (Etienne Gilson, Jeffrey Burton Russell) have sought to educate open-minded readers to a most enlightened Middle Ages, Zimmermann seeks, in part, to challenge some misinterpretations and terrible damage done to a most Christian era--the Renaissance. According to Zimmerman, the roots of secularism and secularization are not to be found in the Renaissance, but at a later time and in different soil. At worst, there were some bad seeds planted here and there that later produced mixed fruit even during the Renaissance, but not all the bad seed can be be attributed to that age.     This book is difficult to specify the type of analysis it offers. Zimmermann moves in a most erudite manner from one discipline to another, is conversant with a breadth of primary sources, and clearly familiar with the secondary and therefore derivative and sometimes misguided sources. Structurally, the work is a survey of the Western intellec...

     Among the many words penned or spoken by the late and truly great Jacques Barzun, my favorite came in an interview where he gave his defense and definition of a Liberal Arts education. In truth, Barzun's words stand as a refutation to all who would pervert the Liberal Arts and all who would strive to extinguish the Liberal Arts. Cultural historian Jacques Barzun, in an interview with Charlie Rose (May 29, 2000), addressed the question of the value of a liberal arts education that is specifically grounded in the Great Books and the Great Tradition of the West. Barzun responded as follows:     Properly taught, and learned—acquired—a liberal education awakens and keeps alive the imagination. By the imagination, I don’t mean fanciful things, but I mean the capacity to see beyond the end of your nose and beyond the object in front you. That is to see its implications, its origins, its potential, its danger, its charm. All the things ...