Jazz, entrepreneurship, and tradition

As an enthusiastic jazz fan and an appreciator of business entrepreneurship, I enjoy watching folks make it up as they go along. Nothing affirms my sense of human beings as “co-creators” with God (a favored term of that great co-creator, J R R Tolkien) more than listening to the swooping, soaring melodic lines of a skilled jazz musician. Nothing hits me more powerfully with the great practical power of creative thinking than seeing an entrepreneur take the germ of an idea and spin it out into products, services, jobs that turn raw materials into something of value to the world.

But as a historian, I am reminded that when true jazz musicians hear an improviser who has not studied the traditions handed down through generations of jazz men and women . . . they shake their heads and turn away. And when veteran businesspeople see a young wannabe rushing out to potential consumers without proper understanding of their needs, or building financial castles without grounding in economic knowledge and financial principles . . . they wince, knowing the inevitable failure that will follow.

So why can’t the American church learn this lesson? Why do we keep rushing to and fro launching all our creative ministries, church growth strategies, and grand “missional” plans, unequipped with even a basic acquaintance of those giants whose shoulders we are standing on? What is it that, unlike any other craft or business on earth, leads us to think that we can ignore history and still succeed? Why do we think we can bypass 2,000 years of wise thinking (and lessons learned the hard way) about the Gospel, about what it is to Be The Church, and bring our fevered plans about how to “Do Church” to fruitful reality?

OK, flame off. As you were. I’m going to go think about New Years Resolutions . . . AND the Great Cloud of Witnesses.

And by the way: R.I.P. Dave Brubeck–one of the greats. And long live Keith Jarrett (pictured above), a living legend and influencer of a whole new generation of skilled, creative players.

The Intuitive Medievalism of C S Lewis (Kalamazoo 2011 paper)

Finally this year, I earned my keep at the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, MI by presenting a paper. For as long as some folks remember, there have been slews of sessions on J R R Tolkien, and a resounding silence on C S Lewis. This seems passing odd, given that Lewis contributed more to the field of medieval studies than did Tolkien. My theory for the many Tolkien sessions is that so many medievalists first got into their field under the influence of the grand master of fantasy.

In any case, two sessions of three papers each were presented at Kalamazoo 2011 on the subject of Lewis’s and the “Discarded Image” (the medievals’ worldview as he presented it to his Cambridge students, published posthumously in the the book of the same name). Here is my contribution to the second of those sessions. As always, reproduction of all or any part of the following without prior written consent by me is strictly prohibited.

The Intuitive Medievalism of C. S. Lewis

Paper given May 15, 2011, International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI

Two words in my title require some explanation. “Medievalism” is the easier of the two, I take it to denote the ways people since the Middle Ages have appropriated, reframed, and selectively highlighted medieval culture, to fit their own questions and agendas. Lewis was, professionally, a professor of literature, and he spent much time reading, teaching, and producing scholarly works on the Middle Ages, both its literature and its culture. And of course we needn’t go far in the work of Lewis, or of such of his modern friends as Tolkien, Williams, and Sayers, to find that the varied versions of “the medieval” plied by these authors were full of distinctly modern, or more accurately, anti-modern, concerns.

Story, the imagination, the sacramental: J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis, and Charles Williams

A fine essay in Colin Duriez‘s J. R. R. Tolkien Handbook (Baker, 1992) opens up the topic of the theology of story. Though the handbook focuses on Tolkien, this particular essay ranges richly between Tolkien, Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and even a bit of G K Chesterton. (Again, the following uses my typical abbreviations; “xn” is Christian, “xnty” Christianity, “T” is Tolkien.)

I appreciate in this essay especially Duriez’s keen grasp of the romantic underpinnings of the theological meaning of story and imagination for the Inklings, as well as the sacramental element in Williams’s and Tolkien’s thought (what Williams identifies as “the Affirmative Way”). My overall comment on the usefulness of this essay to my “Medieval Wisdom for Modern Protestants” project follows, and then the essay itself sprinkled with a few of my notes

[Duriez's essay on Tolkien and Christianity, from the same book, is here.]

Tolkien’s Christianity: An insightful essay

If you are a J R R Tolkien fan, you owe it to yourself to pick up one of the several excellent Tolkien & “Inklings” reference books by my friend Colin Duriez. Colin has great insight into Tolkien, Lewis, et al. Here I’m posting his essay “Christianity, Tolkien and,” from the wonderful J. R. R. Tolkien Handbook (Baker, 1992) (the following uses my typical abbreviations; “xn” is Christian, “xnty” Christianity, “T” is Tolkien):

[If this topic interests you, may I also recommend the issue of Christian History & Biography I edited on Tolkien. It's available here. You can also browse previews of the issue's articles here. For Duriez's equally fine essay on the "theology of story" implicit in the work of C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, and Charles Williams, see here.]

Christianity, Tolkien and

“According to Paul H. Kocher, T was inspired and guided on his way by the mythology of Denmark, Germany, Norway and especially Iceland (see MYTH; IMAGINATION). The Norse pantheon of gods was headed by Odin. This is particularly clear as embodied in the Icelandic Elder Edda and Younger Edda, and the Icelandic sagas. As a Christian, T rejected much of the Norse world outlook, but admired its imaginative power. Those elements that he could transform into xn meaning, he kept.

Beyond C S Lewis: Glimpses of 20th-century British literary Christians from biographer Joseph Pearce

A Christian literary feast

One of the more fascinating books I’ve read in the last 10 years is a sort of group biography by the prolific Catholic writer Joseph Pearce. Called Literary Converts (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000), this sprawling account leads us through a surprisingly large and varied network of 20th-century British literary Christians. Here are G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ronald Knox, T. S. Eliot, Dorothy L. Sayers, and many more. They all play their part in the spread of Christianity in English literary culture after the spiritual doldrums of the 1910s and 20s.

Pearce weaves themes and connections that will grip any fan of those writers who shares their faith. His keen eye for the telling detail, the revealing vignette, and the colorful anecdote make this book both a rich resource and a pleasure to read, if you can forgive the Roman Catholic triumphalism that emerges here and there along the way.

Re-rooting our understanding of the Reformation in medieval and classical thought: A website worth visiting

Tim Enloe is “a professional educator involved in the classical Christian school movement.” This already warms my heart, as several of our children have been going to a classical charter school for a number of years. Yup, learning Latin and the whole nine yards. What warms my heart even more is that Enloe is convinced, as I am, that to be a good Protestant one must recover the goodness from which the Reformers drew: the goodness of the medieval and classical traditions.

Enloe works this theme out on his website The Discarded Image, which is well worth visiting, though right now it contains only a few articles and a number of audio talks–check out his “Setting our Minds To the Track” talk. The Discarded Image is a continuation, in a different format, of his now inactive WordPress blog Societas Christiana: Adventures in Medieval Protestantism–also worth browsing.

Moreover Enloe, who is completing an M.A. in Humanities at the University of Dallas, is also interested, as I am, in the work of those great scholars of the medieval period C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. He has (self-)published a book on Lewis & Tolkien and the uses of the imagination in Christianity (as well as another book on the impact of medieval Catholic conciliarism on the Reformation). Descriptions of the two books may be found here.

Here is Enloe on the mission of his website (the site’s name comes from the title of C. S. Lewis’s book of Cambridge lectures on the medieval worldview):

The “image” that we as Modern Protestants have “discarded,” then, is the full-orbed view of the Christian life as being aimed at salvation, but as encompassing the whole of the world as well.  One excellent way to do this is to become acquainted with the cultural context of the Reformers, to learn about the things that made them the kinds of men they were, the things that helped them to do the world-changing deeds that they did.

While it is possible to gain a generalized familiarity with the outlines of the thought of the Reformers as it appears “in black and white” on the pages that they wrote,  I do not believe it is possible to appreciate their work in a full-orbed sense without also understanding the roots of their thought.  This necessitates gaining familiarity with the Renaissance, and behind the Renaissance, with Medieval Christendom, and behind Medieval Christendom, with the classical heritage upon which the Christian society which the Reformers ultimately sought to reform had been built.

What does Cicero have to do with Calvinism? Why should Reformed people be interested in Plutarch’s Lives and Herodotus’ Histories? Who were Wessel Gansfort and Nicholas of Cusa? What was Nominalism, and how did it affect Luther’s and Calvin’s approach to the Bible? What do Medieval canon law, Petrarch, conciliarism, and the Devotio Moderna have to do with the Protestant Reformation?  Why shouldn’t we just stick with our traditional heroes, Gottschalk, Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, and the like? Why should we bother learning about Peter Martyr Vermigli or about complicated issues like Natural Law theory and the rather Medieval dualist political theory that was enshrined in the Reformed Confessions? Why can’t the “the five solas,” “the doctrines of grace,” and traditional polemics against Romanists and Arminians be enough for us?  Why can’t we just “preach the Gospel” and let everything else fall into desuetude?

The answer is because this is not what the Reformers themselves did.  Since Protestants today frequently debate the question of how far we should follow the Reformers’ own examples, this website aims to help the debate along by means of closely interacting with the sources and context of the Reformation.  Whatever your own position on how far we ought to follow the Reformers’ own examples, this website aims to increase your appreciation for what is too often simply discarded in Protestant talk about the Reformation.

Getting an “Inkling” of the medieval world

My forthcoming book Medieval Wisdom for Today’s Christians will use C S Lewis and “the Inklings” (including Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, and by extension others such as G K Chesterton) as guides to a usable medieval past. This is a good thing, because I myself am not a medievalist! So I’m having to do a LOT of reading on the period, and it’s good to have guides on this sort of journey. I’ve also traveled to the gargantuan Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo (and hope to do so soon again). Yesterday I re-posted my anticipatory Christianity Today history blog post on my first trip to that conference (“The monks did it: Mining medieval resources“). This is my follow-up to that post.

Oh, and, in case you’re interested, here are some other posts dealing with the same theme of “the Inklings and the medieval”: A piece on how Lewis, Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers were all inspired (in very different ways) by the great medieval poet Dante Alighieri. A piece on the medievalist work and thought of G K Chesterton. A posting of the summary of the introductory chapter from my Medieval Wisdom book proposal. A consideration of how the “Inklings” hated modernity and used medieval ideas against modern malaises. A summary of the medieval historian Norman Cantor’s assessment of C. S. Lewis as medievalist.

Now to the post at hand . . .

Getting an “Inkling” of the Medieval World

How to excavate a usable medieval past.

by Chris Armstrong | June 3, 2009

Well, I promised to report back on the Kalamazoo Congress on Medieval Studies, and so I will, at least for a moment before turning to another set of lenses on a “usable medieval past.”

In a word, the congress was overwhelming. With over 3,000 scholars and over 600 sessions (averaging 3+ papers each) stuffed into a few days, many of them on topics very esoteric and technical, my head was swimming. Navigating the sessions became an exercise in close reading and careful exegesis of the program-book. Fortunately, more often than not I did manage to hit pay-dirt.

The monks did it: Mining medieval resources

My, how time flies. (In the words of the immortal Groucho Marx: “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” But then again, in the words of the immortal Douglas Adams: “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so.”) Last May my Patron Saints for Postmoderns was not yet published, I was hoping against hope that my book proposal Medieval Wisdom for Modern Protestants [maybe Medieval Wisdom for Today's Christians?] would be accepted by a publisher, and I was posting a blog entry over at Christianity Today’s history blog eagerly anticipating my first Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

Now Patron Saints has been out for many months, Medieval Wisdom is due to the publishers (Baker Books) next December, and the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo is again just around the corner as May approaches. Here’s my CT blog post from last year anticipating my first Congress:

The Monks Did It

If we move beyond a piecemeal approach to medieval Christianity, we can mine the rich vein of its spiritual, intellectual, and practical resources.

by Chris Armstrong

This weekend I am attending the 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. This is the largest and most prestigious international gathering for medievalist scholars, convening over 3,000 scholars in over 600 sessions of papers, panel discussions, roundtables, workshops, and performances.

Frankly, though I am no medievalist, just thinking about being there is making me drool.

What’s an American church history geek doing attending a meeting that will feature hundreds of highly technical papers in a field I hardly know, based on texts in languages I’ve never learned – Latin, Old English, Old Norse?

The Inklings: The Oxford literary circle of C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien

What was C S Lewis’s and J R R Tolkien’s Oxford circle, The “Inklings,” really like? In the Tolkien issue of Christian History & Biography, my friends Jennifer Woodruff (now Jennifer Woodruff Tait) and Edwin Tait (now Edwin Woodruff Tait) contributed to a “group portrait” of the Inklings. Here, after a brief introduction from me, Jenn gives the texture of Oxford and the Inklings group, and Edwin highlights an oft-forgotten Inkling, Owen Barfield:

J.R.R. Tolkien: The Gallery – The Inklings
Tolkien relished his weekly meetings with this club of remarkable friends.

Thursday evenings in Lewis’s Magdalen College rooms and Tuesdays for lunch at the Eagle and Child public house, Tolkien joined C. S. Lewis and a revolving cast of others in a beloved ritual.

Over tea—or ale—and pipes, these Oxford thinkers and writers read aloud from their works, traded anecdotes and jibes, and engaged in what Lewis called “the cut and parry of prolonged, fierce, masculine argument.” Many passages of The Lord of the Rings found in the Inklings their first—and unfailingly appreciative—audience, much to the delight of their author.

J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: What harvest?

It was impossible to do a Christian History issue on J R R Tolkien without paying some notice to the flourishing genre of fantasy writing. Essentially, Tolkien created the genre with his The Lord of the Rings. Where has fantasy writing gone since Tolkien? What are some worthy members of the genre? We asked writer Aaron Belz to look into this matter, and he came back with the following fascinating report:

Christian History Corner: The Lord of the Rings: What Harvest?
A reader’s guide to the best of epic fantasy
Aaron Belz, introduced by Christian History managing editor Chris Armstrong

Early one morning last week, a Christianity Today International executive joined thousands of other Americans by driving out to a major retail chain to snag a newly advertised $15 copy of the The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD. He arrived to find the bins already cleaned out.

Had he then headed to his local bookstore, our colleague would likely have found a similarly brisk trade in Tolkien’s trilogy itself. Not that those books needed Peter Jackson’s help: They long ago entered the rarified ranks of the blockbuster bestsellers.

But the millions of DVDs and books sold represent only the “camel’s nose” of Tolkien’s influence under the tent of popular culture.