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Celebrating Middle-earth by John G. West Jr, ed.
Chesterton Day by Day by G. K. Chesterton
The Life of Toussaint L'Overture by John R. Beard
The Manhood of the Master by Harry Emerson Fosdick
Theism and Humanism by Arthur J. Balfour
Untangling Tolkien by Michael W. Perry
Celebrating Middle-earth: The Lord of the Rings as a Defense of Western Civilization
John G. West Jr., Editor with articles by Janet Blumberg, Kerry Dearborn, Phillip Goggans, Peter Kreeft, Joseph Pearce, and John G. West Jr
In this book six Tolkien scholars comment on the literary,philosophical, political, and religious foundations of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The chapters are based on speeches given at the "Celebrating Middle Earth" conference, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington on November 9-10, 2001 and adapted by their authors for this book.
In an age when writers and artists routinely scorned the
wisdom of the past. . . . Tolkien's epic arrived like a
bracing mountain wind, for it introduced modern readers
to forms of literature that are unafraid to explore truth
as well as ambiguity, beauty as well as ugliness, good as
well as evil, and heroism as well as cowardice. -John
West
This is our story. It is a mirror. We are fascinated by
it most deeply because of its truth. . . . It is eternal
truth made flesh. Only a great myth can do that
astonishing feat, can translate the eternal truth of good
and evil into the radically other medium of a temporal
story. It makes the abstract concrete, the invisible
visible, the Word flesh. -Peter Kreeft
Tolkien argued that, far from being lies, myths were the
best way of conveying truths which would otherwise be
inexpressible. We have come from God and inevitably the
myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a
splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth
that is with God. -Joseph Pearce
ISBN: 1-58742-012-0 (paperback) and 1-58742-013-9 (hardback), 107 pages
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Chesterton Day by Day: The Wit and Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton
by G. K. Chesterton
For any author, much less a 'rolicking' journalist often caught up in the passing controversies of his day, the writings of G. K. Chesterton have shown remarkable staying power. During his life, this talented British writer was the private friend and public foe of writers such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. Two-thirds of a century after his death, the ideas of Shaw and Wells seem curiously quaint and dated, while Chesterton's writings remain fresh as the day they were written. That's why many of Wells later and more political writings are out of print while more and more of what Chesterton wrote is finding its way back onto the shelves of bookstores.
The reason simple. Chesterton is one of the most quotable writers of the twentieth-century. He has an incredible knack for capturing in a few concise and memorable words what other authors labor and groan to say over many pages. Lengthy books have been written to explain the essence of Fascism and its close kin Nazism. Few have come as close as Chesterton did when he remarked that, "The intellectual criticism of Fascism is really this: that it appeals to an appetite for authority, without very clearly giving the authority for the appetite." That is Hitler's Fuhrer Principle in a nutshell, and it also why so many followed the German dictator into madness.
For this book, Chesterton selected a reading from his writings between 1900 and 1911 for each day of the year and for each of the "moveable" Christian feasts.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried. -January
13
"Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty
has settled upon the organ of conviction where it was
never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about
himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been
exactly reversed. . . The old humility was a spur that
prevented a man from stopping: not a nail in his boot
that prevented him from going on. For the old humility
made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make
him work harder. But the new humility makes a man
doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working
altogether. -April 2
It is not by any means self-evident upon the face of it
that an institution like the liberty of speech is right
or just. It is not natural or obvious to let a man utter
follies and abominations which you believe to be bad for
mankind any more than it is natural or obvious to let a
man dig up a part of the public road, or infect half a
town with typhoid fever. The theory of free speech, that
truth is so much larger and stranger and more many-sided
than we know of, that it is very much better at all costs
to hear every one's account of it, is a theory which has
been justified upon the whole by experiment, but which
remains a very daring and even a very surprising theory.
It is really one of the great discoveries of the modern
time; but once admitted, it is a principle that does not
merely affect politics, but philosophy, ethics, and
finally, poetry. -May 9
It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who
brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my
mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were
quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the
Freethinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled
mine horribly. The rationalists made me question whether
reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished
Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the
first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I
laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic
lectures, the dreadful thought broke into my mind,
'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' --December
21
ISBN: 1-58742-014-7 (paperback) and 1-58742-015-5 (hardback)
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The Life of Toussaint L'Overture: The Negro Patriot of Hayti
by John R. Beard
This book was originally published in 1853, while millions of slaves still labored in the fields of the United States. It describes the life of Toussaint L'Overture, a man who would play much the same role in Haitian history as George Washington played in the history of the U.S., serving as both a military commander and the nation's political leader. And he was undoubtedly brilliant at both, defeating the same French generals who had no trouble conquering most of Europe.
I am about to sketch the history and character of one of
those extraordinary men, whom Providence, from time to
time, raises up for the accomplishment of great, benign,
and far-reaching results. I am about to supply the
clearest evidence that there is no insuperable barrier
between the light and the dark-coloured tribes of our
common human species. I am about to exhibit, in a series
of indisputable facts, a proof that the much
misunderstood and downtrodden negro race are capable of
the loftiest virtues, and the most heroic efforts. I am
about to present a tacit parallel between white men and
dark men, in which the latter will appear to no
disadvantage. Neither eulogy, however, nor disparagement
is my aim, but the simple love of justice. It is a
history--not an argument--that I purpose to set forth. In
prosecuting the narrative, I shall have to conduct the
reader through scenes of aggression, resistance, outrage,
revenge, bloodshed, and cruelty, that grieve and wound
the hear, and exciting the deepest pity for the
sufferers, raise irrepressible indignation against
ambition, injustice and tyranny--the scourges of the
world, and specially the sources of complicated and
horrible calamities to the natives of Africa.
But chiefly, when he meditated on the words and the
objects of the Saviour of the world, did Toussaint feel
how incompatible slavery was with Christianity. Had he
not, in those impressive words, "where the Spirit of the
Lord is there is liberty." (2 Cor. iii. 17,) found the
enunciation of a great Christian principle, and the
announcement of a great Christian power, which must of
necessity, as it was designed, break asunder every
outward bond and emancipate every slave on earth? And in
what terms did the Lord himself announce his mission?
Toussaint, in thought, made one of his auditors in that
small synagogue at Nazareth, where the Redeemer of men
astounded his townsfolk and relatives by declaring, in
words of the widest import, as he ushered in the grand
spiritual jubilee, and so gave to all the subjects of His
new kingdom liberty of body in giving them liberty of
soul: "The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me, because He hath
anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor, He hath
sent me to declare deliverance to the captives, and
recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty those
that are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of
Jehovah." "To-day is this Scripture fulfilled in your
ears." (Luke iv. 18, et seq.) Unmistakable must Toussaint
have found the import of these words. The great year of
jubilee had come--the slave was free--slavery was
abolished; not only that corporeal slavery which Moses
tolerated, but the heavier slavery; which man, in
consequence of sin, endured;--slavery of soul and,
consequently, slavery of body was abrogated and
destroyed. The blow was struck, and the dark edifice
would inevitably fall.
ISBN: 1-58742-010-4 (pb), 159 pages, 14 tables, 2 graphics
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The Manhood of the Master: The Character of Jesus Christ
by Harry Emerson Fosdick
Here is a classic in devotional literature. It's a twelve-week, day-by-day study of the character of Jesus Christ by someone who was once numbered among the nation's best-known pastors. Harry Emerson Fosdick was for many years the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City. For some twenty years, from 1927 to 1947, he preached to the nation on NBC radio's "National Vespers." This is his 1913 bestseller, newly typeset and brought back into print for modern readers. It is as relevant today as it was almost a century ago.
When he told the story of the good Samaritan, he let us
know the moral or religious state of every character in
it, save one. The robbers were bad; the priest and Levite
were Jews; the Samaritan was a heretic; but the victim on
the road, who was he? Was he a Jew, a Gentile or a
Samaritan? Was he good or bad? Was he grateful or
churlish? No one knows. Jesus did not describe him save
thus far, that he was a man who needed help. Wherever
humanity was in want, no matter what the creed or race or
character, there Jesus' good-will sought a chance to
serve. Such is the magnanimity of Jesus and it ushered in
a new era in human brotherhood.
At the other extreme from those who call the Master an
ascetic are those who insist that he was a poet. "His
lovely character and doubtless one of those transporting
countenances which sometimes appear in the Hebrew race,
created round him a circle of fascination," says Renan.
"Tenderness of heart was in him transformed into infinite
sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm." Now the
difficulty with accepting this idea of Jesus is that it
takes a man nineteen centuries after Jesus, to suggest it
first. Nobody who saw the Master seems to have suspected
anything like this about him. The moneychangers, beaten
by his stinging whip, the Pharisees, castigated by his
scathing words, were not impressed by his "infinite
sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm." When the
Pharisees send soldiers to arrest him and those hardy and
unimpressionable men join rather the circle of his
listeners and go back to report failure because never man
spake as he spake (John 7: 46); when his fellow
villagers, angered at his preaching in the synagogues,
take him out to slay him, and he walks unharmed through
their midst, none daring to touch him (Luke 4: 14-30);
when Hebrew fishermen, hearing him say, "Follow me,"
leave all to go after him, until at last even the
sceptical Thomas says, "Let us also go, that we may die
with him" (John 11: 16); when John the Baptist, stern,
severe and strong, seeing him cries, "There cometh he
that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am
not worthy to unloose"; how of all this shall "vague
poetry" be the explanation?
The leaders of a nation do not give themselves to anger,
suborning witnesses and gathering mobs to cry, "Crucify
him," to be rid merely of a "lovely character with a
transporting countenance." It has been the lot of poets
to be neglected, starved, derided, but to be hated
because they proposed to turn the world upside down, to
be crucified with a superscription, "The King of the
Jews," this is not for those who are content merely to
see visions without executing them. The enemy of the
Pharisees was no dreamer, but a soul of prodigious power,
with twelve young men around him, to whom he was saying
that the present age must pass away and a new order come,
that Jerusalem would be destroyed and they be persecuted,
but that the Kingdom would arrive, and that at all costs
and hazards they must be loyal to the Cause. Jesus was
not a Hegel, philosophizing unmoved within sound of the
guns of Jena; he was a Leader planning the transformation
of the world, and calling men to be patriots for his
Kingdom. "I came to cast fire upon the earth," he said,
"and what do I desire if it is already kindled?" (Luke
12: 49); "Think not that I came to send peace on the
earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:
34). The complaint of the chief priests against the
Master was no charge to make against a dreamer: "He
stirreth up the people" (Luke 23: 5).
ISBN 1-58742-017-1 (pb), 155 pages, 2 graphics
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Theism and Humanism: The Book that Influenced C. S. Lewis
by Arthur J. Balfour
In 1962, Christian Century asked the well-known writer, C. S. Lewis, to name the books that had most influenced his thought. Among the ten he listed was Arthur J. Balfour's Theism and Humanism (1915). This was no passing whim. Almost twenty years earlier, in 1944, Lewis had lamented in "Is Theology Poetry" that Theism and Humanism was "a book too little read."
Others shared Lewis' enthusiasm. When Balfour gave the original lectures on which the book was based, some 2,000 people crowded into Bute Hall at the University of Glasgow on a weekday winter afternoons to cheer and laugh. Even more telling, they kept coming back, week after week for all ten speeches. Even the staid The Times of London covered every lecture, commented on the "wildly enthusiastic" audiences, and noted the great diversity of those attending from ordinary citizens and students to professors.
Unfortunately, until now the book hasn't been easy to find. Copies have only been available on the used market and were thus rare and relatively expensive. This newly typeset and enhanced edition makes the book inexpensive and widely available.
Balfour was a talented writer and perhaps the most intelligent British Prime Minister of the twentieth century. He was also well-respected in the scientific community and in 1904 served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. During World War One he replaced Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty and went on to become Foreign Secretary. In the latter office he was responsible for the 1917 Balfour Declaration committing Great Britain to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It is no exaggeration to say that Israel owes its existence to Balfour.
Theism and Humanism is based on a 1914 Gifford Lecture that Balfour gave at the University of Glasgow. All the original text is included along with over 50 pages of additional material. There are 11 sketches of Balfour adapted from political cartoons in Punch magazine. There are four appendices taken from his other writings, including the marvelous "A Catechism for Naturalism" (which sent the arch-agnostic Thomas Huxley, better known as "Darwin's Bulldog," into a fit of rage). There's also a glossary of people and terms mentioned in the book and a detailed index. Finally, this new edition includes brief quotes from Balfour's other writings to highlight what he is saying. The second edition improves on the first by adding to each chapter in the original, the extensive coverage that The Times of London gave to Balfour's original speech. It also includes in an appendix three letters by C. S. Lewis on themes closely related to Balfour's book.
Balfour's topic is naturalism, the belief that all that exists are natural processes. He challenges those who believe in it to come up with a rationale for what they hold dearest--human reason, human rights, and the importance of art--based solely on naturalism. He believes that cannot be done and summarizes his book in these words: "My desire has been to show that all we think best in human culture, whether associated with beauty, goodness, or knowledge, requires God for its support, that Humanism without Theism loses more than half its value."
If you like philosophy and provocative ideas, this book is perfect for you. The Cambridge-educated Balfour was very knowledgeable about science. (His brother is considered the father of modern embryology.) That makes this book a useful complement to the Oxford-educated Lewis whose specialty was literature.
ISBN: 1-58742-005-8 (pb), 198 pages
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Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings
by Michael W. Perry
Here is a book that’s been needed for half a century--a detailed, book-length chronology of J. R. R. Tolkien's complex tale. Whether you are a serious Tolkien fan or simply someone who enjoys reading the story over and over again, this is the book for you. It's the first totally new reference for The Lord of the Rings since the 1970s.
Beginning over 1400 years before the major events in Tolkien's epic, it describes, year-by-year, the amazing and imaginative background history that Tolkien created for his masterpiece. Then for the main narrative, it becomes a day-by-day reference, describing what each character does on that day and all the places where those events are described in Tolkien's writings. You can find out, for instance, what Merry and Pippin are doing as Sam prepares rabbit stew on the morning of March 7.
Probe deeper into Tolkien. See why someone as serious as Gandalf was interested in fun-loving Hobbits. Discover an exciting new plot, based on Tolkien's notes, that begins when Aragorn captures Gollum. Follow along as the Black Riders and Gandalf race for the Shire. Decide for yourself whether Sauron and the Ring have any ties to Hitler and Stalin. Explore what Tolkien believed about nature and technology.
A few facts illustrate how helpful this chronology is. Most of narrative is a deliberately confusing sea of next days and third days that leave readers as confused as the tale's main characters.The middle 60 percent of The Lord of the Rings gives the current date only once. In the narrative as a whole, the date is given only 23 times, or once for every 43 pages, and most of those come when the plot is moving slowly. That's why those who want to dig deeper and understand better what Tolkien was saying will find this book a must-have.
C. S. Lewis said it best. The Hobbit was "a fragment torn
from the author's huge myth and adapted for children,"
but with The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien gave
us all that vastness, "in their true dimensions like
themselves." "You can hardly put your foot down," he
noted, "without stirring the dust of history." In this
chapter, we look at that history.
Tolkien needed a rationale for the great trust Gandalf
later places in Hobbit resourcefulness. (Their
easy-going, day-to-day lives are not impressive.) He
found it in the Long Winter. After the War of the Ring,
Tolkien has Gandalf describe how impressed he was with
the courage and compassion Hobbits displayed during this
long, cold winter, as so many of them were dying of cold
and starvation. At that time he reached the conclusion
that their one great lack was a forgetfulness about the
past which kept them from understanding the world outside
their little home and the possibility that they might
play a major role in it.
According to the Unfinished Tales reference,
before leaving Bag End on April 5, Bilbo hinted to a
neighbor that he was traveling in the hope of meeting
Elves. For Elves, April 6 in the Shire calendar is either
New Year's Day or the day before or after it (depending
on the point in the 12-year leap-year cycle of the
Elves), so it is likely Bilbo had gone hiking in the hope
of encountering Elves celebrating in some meadow. That
would lead Gandalf to assume (wrongly) that Bilbo longed
for adventure.
Along with that came an idea about what the art of
writing meant. Tolkien's term for the process was
"sub-creation." With his tales he was imitating, ever so
feebly in literature, what God did on a much larger scale
in history. God created true myth. Tolkien was creating
myth that, while not strictly true, was intended to have
the ring of truth, hence his obsession with detail and
accuracy.
ISBN: 1-58742-019-8 (pb), 251 pages, 15 graphics
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