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READING BETWEEN THE LINES

TURNING POINT Christian Worldview Series Marvin Olasky, General Editor

Turning Point: A Christian Worldview Declaration by Herbert Schlossberg and Marvin Olasky

Prodigal Press: The Anti-Christian Bias of the American News Media by Marvin Olasky

Freedom, Justice, and Hope: Toward a Strategy for the Poor and the Oppressed by Marvin Olasky, Herbert Schlossberg, Pierre Berthoud, and Clark H. Pinnock

Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics by Doug Bandow

Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity by E. Calvin Beisner

The Seductive Image: A Christian Critique of the World of Film by K. L. Billingsley

All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture by Kenneth A. Myers

A World Without Tyranny: Christian Faith and International Politics by Dean C. Curry

Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources and the Future by E. Calvin Beisner

More Than Kindness: A Compassionate Approach to Crisis Childbearing by Susan Olasky and Marvin Olasky

Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

For my students, who have heard much of this before

Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature.

Copyright © 1990 by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

Published by Crossway Wheaton, Illinois 60187.

Published in association with the Fieldstead Institute P.O. Box 19061, Irvine, California 92713 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechani cal, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the pub lisher, except as provided by USA copyright law. Cover illustration: Guy Wolek

First printing, 1990

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise noted, Bible quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: New International Version®, copyright © 1978 by the New York International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations taken from the Revised Standard Version are identified RSV. Copyright 1946, 1953 © 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the USA.

Library of Cnngress Cataloging-In-Publication Date Veith, Gene Edward, 1951-

Reading between the lines : a Christian guide to literature by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. p. cm. “Published in association with the Fieldstead Institute . . . Irvine, California”—T.p. verso Includes bibliographical references (. ). Includes indexes. ISBN 13: 978-0-89107-582-0 ISBN 10: 0-89107-582-8 1. Christianity and literature. 2. Literature and morals. 3. Literature, Immoral. I. Title. PN49.V45 1990 809'.93382--DC20 90-80623 Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. VP 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint material from the following:

Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach” from Matthew Arnold, ed. Miriam Allott and Robert H. Super (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976) by permission. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales © 1975, 1976 by Bruno Bettelheim. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage (London: Oxford University Press, 1903) by permission. Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm. Copyright © 1977 by Annie Dillard. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. T. S. Eliot, excerpts from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Gerontion,” “The Waste Land,” and “Ash Wednesday” in Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot, copyright 1936 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., copyright © 1964, 1963 by T. S. Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Faber and Faber. Thomas Hardy, The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, ed. James Gibson (New York: Macmillan, 1978). George Herbert, The Works of George Herbert, ed. F. E. Hutchinson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941) by permission of Oxford University Press. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Catherine Phillips (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). C. S. Lewis, They Stand Together: The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves

(1914-1963), ed. Walter Hooper. Copyright © 1979 C. S. Lewis Pte., Ltd. Reprinted with permission of Macmillan Publishing Company and Collins Publishers. _____, God in the Dock © 1970 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd., reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown, London. Flannery O’Connor, excerpt from “The Displaced Person” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, copyright © 1955 by Flannery O’Connor and renewed 1983 by Regina O’Connor, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. _____, excerpts from “The Fiction Writer & His Country” from Mystery and Manners, copyright © 1969 by the Estate of Mary Flannery O’Connor. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc. Neil Postman, Teaching as a Conserving Activity (New York: Delacorte Press, 1979). Reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, Inc. _____, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1985). Reprinted by permission. Walter Wangerin, Jr., excerpt from The Ragman and Other Cries of Faith. Copyright © 1984 by Walter Wangerin, Jr. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

T A B L E O F

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE 1 The Word and the Image: The Importance of Reading 2 Vicarious Experience and Vicarious Sin: The Importance of Criticism THE FORMS OF LITERATURE 3 Nonfiction: The Art of Truth-Telling 4 Fiction: The Art of Story-Telling 5 Poetry: The Art of Singing THE MODES OF LITERATURE 6 Tragedy and Comedy: The Literature of Damnation and Salvation 7 Realism: Literature as a Mirror 8 Fantasy: Literature as a Lamp THE TRADITIONS OF LITERATURE 9 The Middle Ages and the Reformation: The Literature of Belief 10 The Enlightenment and Romanticism: The Literature of Nature and the Self 11 Modernism and Postmodernism: The Literature of Consciousness and Self-Conscious 12 The Makers of Literature: Writers, Publishers, and Readers APPENDIX: A Reading List NOTES SCRIPTURE INDEX GENERAL INDEX

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Most books have their origin when the author has an idea and con- vinces an editor to publish the results. This book came into being the opposite way. Marvin Olasky, editor of the Turning Point Christian Worldview Series, had an idea of what he wanted and convinced me to write the book. He is therefore partially responsible for what you will be reading. I thank him for asking me, for his ideas, and for his timely help and attention throughout the writing process. I should also acknowledge two Christian thinkers who showed me the relationships between Christianity and literature. I stumbled upon Leland Ryken’s books at a critical time when I was studying lit- erature at graduate school and first discovering the possibilities of Biblical thought. His writings helped direct me on the course I have taken, and I appreciate his example and his influence. James Sire showed me how to read slowly (to allude to one of his books) and introduced me to the possibilities of worldview criticism. As an editor, he also encouraged me to write about these things and was responsi- ble for publishing my first book. Breaking into print for the first time is the greatest obstacle for a writer; after the first time, it gets easier. I will always be grateful to him for getting me started, both as a critic and as an author. The influence of Leland Ryken and James Sire will be evident on every page of this book. I am also grateful to Dr. R. John Buuck, president of Concordia UniversityWisconsin, and to the Board of Regents for granting me a sabbatical to work on this project. Thanks too, as always, to my wife Jackquelyn and to Paul, Joanna, and Mary.

P R E F A C E

This book is written to help people be better readers. The title, Reading Between the Lines , perhaps suggests a note of suspicion, that we need to scrutinize everything we read for sinister hidden mean- ings. My purpose is to promote critical reading, the habit of reading with discernment and an awareness of larger contexts and deeper implications. I will be attacking books that I consider morally, theo- logically, or aesthetically bad. I come, though, to praise books, not to bury them. The capacity to read is a precious gift of God, and this book is designed to encourage people to use this gift to its fullest. Nor does reading between the lines imply an over-emphasis upon mere interpretation of literature. Although I hope to show readers how to read closely and understand what they read, I resist treating a poem or a novel like a puzzle that has to be figured out. Once the meaning is deciphered, under this view, we can put aside the book, perhaps wondering why its author did not just come out and tell us the idea in the first place. I contend that the imaginative activity that takes place as the eyes scan the page provides both the pleasure and the intellectual value of reading. Interpretation is important, but appreciation and enjoyment must come first. Reading between the lines is a figure of speech. Attending to the empty spaces between the lines of print refers to what is left unsaid, to the values and assumptions that are an important dimension of what we read. We might also think of lines of demarcation, or even of battle lines. This book takes the reader between the lines of Christian and non-Christian literature, fantasy and realism, comedy and tragedy. Its method is to draw lines—distinguishing between words and images, the Greek and the Hebraic, the Modern and the Postmodern—and to show how Christianity intersects with them all. The habit of reading is absolutely critical today, particularly for Christians. As television turns our society into an increasingly image- dominated culture, Christians must continue to be people of the Word. When we read, we cultivate a sustained attention span, an active imag- ination, a capacity for logical analysis

and critical thinking, and a rich inner life. Each of these qualities, which have proven themselves essen- tial to a free people, is under assault in our TVdominated culture. Christians, to maintain their Word-centered perspective in an image- driven world, must become readers. This is often difficult. We live in a society which sponsors both a mass culture that minimizes reading and an elite intellectual culture which is highly literate but hostile to Christianity. This book is designed to help Christians recover the art of reading and to help them navigate their way through both the classics and the bestseller lists. Some Christians do not realize that they are heirs to a great lit- erary tradition. From the beginnings of the church to the present day, Christian writers have explored their faith in books, and in doing so have nourished their fellow believers. Some of the best writers who have ever lived have been Christians, working explicitly out of the Christian worldview. To their loss, many contemporary Christians are unaware of Christian writers—both those from past generations and those writing today. This book will introduce readers to these authors who can offer hours and years of pleasure and enrichment. Although the subject of the book is literature, a host of other sub- jects will also be addressed. This is because literature, by its very nature, involves its readers in a wide range of issues, provoking thought in many directions. Our discussions of style and literary history will lead to the abortion controversy. Our discussions of comedy and tragedy will lead into the theology of Heaven and Hell. Our discussions of fairy tales will lead to child psychology. Reading can break us out of the tunnel vision of a narrow specialty and lead us into many intrigu- ing and important avenues of thought, a process this book will try to model as well as to explain. As a “guide to literature,” this book may be read in different ways. I hope that it can bear a sustained reading from beginning to end. It can also be read in parts. Each section and each chapter is somewhat self-contained. Someone curious about how comedy works or what post-modernism involves can turn to those chapters. With its index to authors, movements, and issues, the book can function as a reference work. Several kinds of readers should find something of value in this book. Those with little background in literature, including students of various levels, will learn

about the techniques of literature and how to read with greater understanding and appreciation. Those with more experience in reading already know such things, but they may find other topics of interest: the contrast between the classical and the Hebraic traditions; the tragic sense of life as opposed to the comic sense of life; my analysis of the role of existentialism and fascism in Modernist and Postmodernist culture. I also address those who wish to take their place in the Christian literary tradition as poets or novel- ists. I try to show them how Christian authors in every age have used the writing styles common in their day to express the Christian faith. This book does not deal with all of the theoretical issues involved in the relationship between Christianity and literature. Other books do that well, and I highly recommend them.¹ I hope readers will consult the footnotes as well as the text and that some will go on to read the works of scholarship I cite. I have been free with my quotations in order to give readers a taste of what there is to read. My own approach is that of a literary historian, eclectic critic, and voracious reader for whom Christianity and literature have proven mutually illuminating.² The first chapter explores why reading has always been so impor- tant to Christianity. Words and images promote two totally different mind-sets. Christians must be people of the Word, although the old temptation to succumb to “graven images” is present in a new form in the television age. The second chapter describes the good and the bad pleasures that reading can promote. It discusses such topics as the dif- ferent kinds of “bad language” and the need to cultivate the art of crit- icism and to acquire a taste for excellence. The next section contains chapters on each of the major genres of literature: nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Each chapter explains the inner workings of the form and focuses on Christian writers who excel in each genre. The next section examines the diverse modes of literary expres- sion: tragedy, comedy, realism, and fantasy. Whether a work of litera- ture makes the reader cry or laugh, whether it imitates the world or creates a new one—each mode of literature can open the mind and the imagination in significant ways. The next section surveys literary history. Chapters on Medieval and Reformation literature, Enlightenment and Romantic literature, and Modern and Postmodern literature show how and why literature has changed, and how Christian writers have managed to be relevant in every age.

The last chapter explores the relationship between authors, pub- lishers, and readers. It examines the workings of the literary establish- ment and the Christian alternatives. It shows how Christian readers, by patronizing worthy writers, can have a major impact on the liter- ary marketplace and thus on the culture as a whole. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading a good book, but that was not enough. Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I . . . unless someone explains it to me?” (Acts 8:30, 31). Philip should perhaps be the patron saint of literary critics. The critic simply hopes to do the work of Philip, offering explanations and interpretations as he and the reader bounce along in the chariot. The center of attention should be the book—ultimately, the Book—through which the Living Word, “the author and finisher of our faith,” reveals Himself (Hebrews 12:2 KJV). This particular book, by the same token, is meant to call atten- tion to other books, and ultimately to the depths of truth and mean- ing expressed in the written words of Scripture. My central purpose will be served if through this book a reader discovers the poetry of George Herbert or the children’s stories of Walter Wangerin, gains insight into Scripture by noticing its parallelism or nonvisual imagery, or turns off the TV one night to settle down with a good book.

O N E

THE WORD AND THE IMAGE: The Importance of Reading

Will reading become obsolete? Some people think that with the Wexplosion of video technology, the age of the book is almost over . Television monitors, fed by cable networks and video recorders, dominate our culture today. Our fads and fashions, politics and morals, entertainment and leisure time are all shaped and controlled by what ever is transmitted on the diode screen. As electronic communication develops at an astonishing rate, who is to say that such arcane skills as reading and writing can or even need to survive? One thing, however, is certain: Reading can never die out among Christians. This is because the whole Christian revelation centers around a Book. God chose to reveal Himself to us in the most personal way through His Word—the Bible. The word Bible is simply the Greek word for “the Book.” Indeed the Bible is the primal Book, the most ancient of all literary texts and the source of all literacy. Reading the Bible tends to lead to reading other books, and thus to some important habits of mind.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

The centrality of the Bible means that the very act of reading can have spiritual significance. Whereas other religions may stress visions, expe riences, or even

the silence of meditation as the way to achieve contact with the divine, Christianity insists on the role of language.¹ Language is the basis for all communication and so lies at the heart of any personal relationship.² We can never know anyone inti- mately by simply being in that person’s presence. We need to have a conversation in order to share our thoughts and our personalities. By the same token, we need a conversation with God—two-way commu- nication through language—in order to know Him on a personal basis. Just as human beings address God by means of language through prayer, God addresses human beings by means of language in the pages of Scripture. Prayer and Bible reading are central to a personal rela tionship with God. Christians have to be, in some sense, readers. Creation itself was accomplished by God’s Word (Hebrews 11:3), and Jesus Christ Himself is none other than the living Word of God (John 1:1). The Word of the gospel, the good news that Jesus died for sinners and offers them eternal life, is a message in human language which calls people to salvation. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).³ God’s Word is written down in the pages of the Bible. Human beings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, have recorded what God has revealed about Himself and His acts in history. In the Bible, God reveals His relation ship to us, setting forth the law by which we should live and the gospel of forgiveness through Christ. As we read the Bible, God addresses us in the most intimate way, as one Person speaking to another. When we read the Bible, we are not simply learning doctrines or studying history—although we are doing those things. “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pen etrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). As we read the Bible, all of the senses of “The Word of God” come together—God’s creative power, His judgment, Jesus Christ, and proclamation of the gospel—and are imprinted in our minds and souls. In the Word, the Holy Spirit is at work. Certainly the Word of the gospel can be proclaimed orally and not in writing alone. In church we hear the Word of God preached, and even in casual witnessing, the Word of God is being shared. In cultures that lack Bibles or people who know how to read them, the church has managed to survive through the oral proclamation of the Word, although often with many errors and

difficulties. Still, the priority that God places on language and the idea that God’s Word is personally accessible to us in a book has meant that Christians have always val ued reading and writing. Even when books were rare and expensive, having to be copied out by hand, so that common people remained uneducated, at least the priests had to know how to read. The Reformation was providentially accompanied by the invention of the printing press, enabling books to be cheaply mass-produced. This meant that the Bible could be put into the hands of every Christian. Every Christian, therefore, needed to learn how to read. Universal literacy, taken for granted today, was a direct result of the Reformation’s reemphasis upon the centrality of Bible read ing, not only for theologians but for the spiritual life of every Christian. Missionaries to nonliterate cultures often begin by mastering the people’s language and giving them a system of writing. They then trans late the Bible and teach the people how to read it in their own language. The Word of God begins to transform its readers. Once people know how to read the Bible, of course, they can read anything. Tribes go on to dis cover modern health care and the need for social change, just as the Reformation Christians, empowered by Bible reading, went on to develop scientific technology, economic growth, and democratic institutions. When ideas and experiences can be written down, they are, in effect, stored permanently. People are no longer bound by their own limited insights and experiences, but they can draw on those of other people as well. Instead of continually starting over again, people can build upon what others have discovered and have written down. Technological, economic, and social progress become possible. The impact of writing can be seen plainly by comparing nonliterate cul tures, many of which still exist on the Stone Age level, with those that have had the gift of writing. Nonliterate peoples tend to exist in static, unchanging societies, whereas literate societies tend toward rapid change and technological growth. Christians, along with Jews and Moslems, are considered “people of the Book.” Such reverence for reading and writing has profoundly shaped even our secular society. Certainly, non-Biblical cultures have made great use of writing, but this was almost always reserved for the elite. The religious idea that everyone should learn how to read in order to study the Bible (a view implicit in the Hebrew bar

mitzvah and car ried out in the Reformation school systems) would have radical conse quences in the West. Universal education has led to the breaking of class systems, the ability of individual citizens to exercise political power, and a great pooling of minds that would result in the technological achieve ments of the last four hundred years. It is no exaggeration to say that reading has shaped our civilization more than almost any other factor and that a major impetus to reading has been the Bible.

ELECTRONICALLY GRAVEN IMAGES

Reading has been essential to our civilization, yet today its centrality is under attack by the new electronic media. If reading has had vast social and intellectual repercussions, we should wonder about the repercussions of the new media. Can democratic institutions survive without a literate—that is, a reading—populace, or will the new modes of thinking lend themselves to new forms of totalitarianism? Can edu cational and intellectual progress continue if visual imagery supplants reading, or will the new information technologies, ironically, subvert the scientific thinking that created them, resulting in anti-intellectual ism and mass ignorance? Such issues are critical for the culture as a whole, but they are especially urgent for the church. Is it possible for Biblical faith to flour ish in a society that no longer values reading, or will the newly domi nant images lead to new manifestations of the most primitive paganism? Ever since the Old Testament, graven images have tempted God’s people to abandon the true God and His Word. Today the images are graven by electrons on cathode ray tubes. Neil Postman is a media scholar and one of the most astute social critics of our time. His writings focus, with great sophistication, on how different forms of communication shape people’s thinking and culture. Postman says that he first discovered the connection between media and culture in the Bible: “In studying the Bible as a young man, I found intimations of the idea that forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a cul ture.” He found this concept in the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven

above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4 RSV).

I wondered then, as so many others have, as to why the God of these people would have included instructions on how they were to sym bolize, or not symbolize, their experience. It is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the qual ity of a culture.We may hazard a guess that a people who are being asked to embrace an abstract, universal deity would be rendered unfit to do so by the habit of drawing pictures or making statues or depicting their ideas in any concrete, iconographic forms. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture. People like ourselves who are in the process of converting their culture from word-centered to image centered might profit by reflecting on this Mosaic injunction.⁴

According to Postman, “word-centered” people think in a completely different mode from “image-centered” people. His distinction is espe cially important for Christians, for whom the “Mosaic injunction” is eternally valid. In an important book on education, Postman explores the dif ferences between the mental processes involved in reading and those involved in television watching. Reading demands sustained concen tration, whereas television promotes a very short attention span. Reading involves (and teaches) logical reasoning, whereas television involves (and teaches) purely emotional responses. Reading promotes continuity, the gradual accumulation of knowledge, and sustained exploration of ideas. Television, on the other hand, fosters fragmenta tion, anti-intellectualism, and immediate gratification.⁵ Postman does not criticize the content of television—the typical worries about “sex and violence” or the need for quality programming. Rather, the problem is in the properties of the form itself. Language is cognitive, appealing to the mind; images are affective, appealing to the emotions.

This difference between symbols that demand conceptualization and reflection and symbols that evoke feeling has many implications, one of the most important being that the content of the TV curriculum is irrefutable. You can dislike it, but you cannot disagree with it. . . . There is no way to show that the feelings evoked by the imagery of a McDonald’s commercial are false, or indeed, true. Such words as true and false come out of a different universe of symbolism alto gether. Propositions are true or false. Pictures are not.

Postman goes on to connect the newly emerging dominance of electronic images over words to habits of mind that are having monu mental social consequences: to the undermining of authority, the loss of a sense of history, hostility to science, pleasure-centeredness, and the emergence of new values based on instant gratification and the need to be continually entertained. The new media direct us “to search for time-compressed experience, short-term relationships, presentoriented accomplishment, simple and immediate solutions. Thus, the teaching of the media curriculum must lead inevitably to a disbelief in long-term planning, in deferred gratification, in the relevance of tradition, and in the need for confronting complexity.”⁷ The social acceptance of sexual immorality, the soaring divorce rates, and the pathology of drug abuse may well be related to this pursuit of instant pleasure at all costs. And yet, human beings—made as we are for higher purposes can scarcely live this way. The untrammeled emotionalism, the isolation, and the fragmentation of mind encouraged by the new infor mation environment lead to mental illness, suicide, and emotional col lapse. “Articulate language,” on the other hand, according to Postman, “is our chief weapon against mental disturbance.”⁸ If the trends he sees continue to develop, Postman foresees a future in which we have “peo ple who are ‘in touch with their feelings,’ who are spontaneous and musical, and who live in an existential world of immediate experience but who, at the same time, cannot ‘think’ in the way we customarily use that word. In other words, people whose state of mind is somewhat analogous to that of a modern-day baboon.” The impact of the TV mentality on politics is already clearly evi dent. Rational, sustained debate of issues has been replaced by “sound bites”—brief “media events” that can play on the evening news. Political campaigns are managed by “image consultants,” and candi dates are chosen for their charisma and the way

they appear on TV rather than for their ideas and policies.¹ American democracy was the creation of a word-centered culture and a literate populace.¹¹ Whether the traditions of freedom and democracy can be sustained without that basis is questionable. An easily manipulated population that cares mostly for its own amusement may be more ready for tyranny (which can keep the masses happy with “bread and circuses”) than for the arduous responsibilities of selfgovernment. The impact of the new mentality upon religion is even more significant. The appeal of the New Age movement with its almost com ical irrationalism is evidence that categories such as true or false, rev elation or superstition, have become irrelevant for many people.¹² The sophisticated and affluent pay large sums of money to hear the wisdom of ancient Egyptian warriors or extraterrestrial aliens purportedly tak ing over the bodies of the “channelers.” Welleducated socialites plan their lives by horoscopes. Trendy movie stars solve their problems by means of magical crystals. How can anyone believe such things? If peo ple stop thinking about religion in propositional terms (part of the her itage of “the Word”), abandoning truth or falsehood as religious categories, then belief hardly enters into it. Even among Christians today, religious discussions often focus upon “what I like” rather than “what is true.” Those whose main concern is self-gratification search in exactly the same way for religious gratification. Of course, Christians know that there is nothing “new” in the New Age movement, which the Bible terms demon possession, divina tion, and idolatry. The New Age movement is simply the paganism of the Old Age. Such primitive and oppressive superstitions squelched human progress for millennia. Ironically, our advanced technology is resulting in a new primitivism, in which the gains of thousands of years of civilization are glibly rejected by a post-literate culture that closely resembles pre-literate ones. Even infanticide, a commonplace practice of pagan societies, has become socially acceptable in the form of abor tion on demand. As Scripture warns, graven images can lead to pagan ism of the most horrific kind. And yet, evangelicals too have been seduced by the electrical graven images of television and the kind of spirituality that it encour ages. In his study of contemporary “TV ministries,” Postman is remarkably charitable towards television evangelists, but he shows how the medium itself inevitably distorts the Christian message:

On television, religion, like everything else, is presented, quite sim ply and without apology, as an entertainment. Everything that makes religion an historic, profound, and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no the ology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana.¹³

Postman quotes a religious broadcaster who admits that in order to attract an audience, TV ministries must offer people something they want.

You will note, I am sure, that this is an unusual religious credo. There is no great religious leader—from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther— who offered people what they want. Only what they need. But television is not well suited to offering people what they need. It is “user friendly.” It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex lan guage or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. Their featured players become celebrities. . . . I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.¹⁴

Since Postman wrote these words, we have seen the collapse of various television ministries. The moral and spiritual failures of the TV preach ers may well be a symptom of the shallowness of the TV theology, which lured them away from the spirituality of the Word. The problem, however, is not only for TV ministries. As evan gelicals, we too are tempted to conform to the world rather than to the Word, just as the children of Israel were tempted by their neighbors’ graven images and the thought-forms these embodied. We too often stress feeling rather than truth. We tend to seek

emotional religious experiences rather than the cross of Jesus Christ. Because we expect worldly “blessings,” we do not know how to endure suffering. We want to “name it and claim it”—instantly—rather than submit our selves without reservation to the will of God. We are impatient with theology, and we dismiss history, thus disdaining the faith of our broth ers and sisters who have gone before us and neglecting what they could teach us. We want entertaining worship services—on the order of a good TV show—rather than worship that focuses on the holiness of God and His Word. We want God to speak to us in visions and inner voices rather than in the pages of His Word. We believe in the Bible, but we do not read it very much. Like the ancient Israelites, we live in “the land of graven images,” amidst people who are “mad upon their idols” (Jeremiah 50:38).¹⁵ Also like them, we subtly drift into the ways of “the people of the land” unless we are rescued by the Word of God.

THE IMPORTANCE OF READING

Postman may well be exaggerating the dangers of television and its impact on our lives. He himself does not advocate the elimination of television, as if that were possible or desirable. Instead, he argues that its worst effects can be countered by a reemphasis upon language in our schools and cul ture, providing a stabilizing balance to the role of the media.¹ The electronic media still employ language. The gospel can be effectually proclaimed in a television or radio broadcast. For that rea son, Christians can and should become involved with the new elec tronic media. The radio is intrinsically an oral medium, and so is quite appropriate for the oral proclamation of the Word. Straightforward Biblical exposition and preaching can be effectually broadcast on tele vision, although presentations that feature people speaking instead of images are often derided as “talking heads” by media experts. Billy Graham does not stage “media-events”; rather, he broadcasts actual revival services in front of real people in real cities. Christian journal ists should by all means produce Christian news and documentary pro grams. Religious drama, a time-honored contribution of Christian literature, especially

deserves expression on television and film. The Word of God proclaimed orally has always been central in evan gelism and in the life of the church, and the electronic media can transmit that Word to the ears of millions of listeners. Nor are all “images” neces sarily in opposition to God’s Word. I have elsewhere written about what the Bible says about the arts, and I have found that sheer iconoclasm—the rejection of all artistic images as idolatrous—is not Biblical.¹⁷ However, God’s people have always had to be very cautious lest, without thinking, they slip into the ways of their pagan neighbors. The forms can distort the message—an evangelist broadcasting over the air waves is not exactly the same as a pastor addressing his congregation or a Christian personally witnessing to a friend. The intimacy, the per son-to-person presence is lost in an electronic broadcast, and the temp tation may be to manipulate the unseen audience or to entertain them by sub-Biblical teachings. This need not happen, but religious broad casters will have to struggle against the demands of the electronic media. Christians must become conscious of how the image-centered culture is pulling them in non-Christian directions. The priority of lan guage for Christians must be absolute. As the rest of society abandons languagecenteredness for image-centeredness, we can expect to feel the pressures and temptations to conform, but we must resist. One way to do this is simply to read. A growing problem is illit eracy—many people do not know how to read. A more severe problem, though, is “aliteracy”—a vast number of people know how to read but never do it. If we cultivate reading—if we read habitually and for plea sure, reading the Bible, newspapers, the great works of the past and the present, the wide-ranging “promiscuous reading” advocated by the Christian poet Milton¹⁸ —we will reinforce the patterns of the mind that support Christian faith and lead to a healthy and free society. Even if the masses sink into illiteracy and drug themselves by “amusement,” the influential and the powerful will still be readers, as they are today. In the ancient pagan world, reading was a zealously guarded secret for the priests and the ruling elite, who, because they had access to knowledge, had access to power. Postman explores the paradox of a society increasingly dependent upon its scientists but undermining the literate thought-forms science demands. “It is improb able that scientists will disappear,” he concludes, “but we shall quite

likely have fewer of them, and they are likely to form, even in the short run, an elite class who, like priests of the pictographic age, will be believed to possess mystical powers.”¹ Thinking, planning, imagining, creating—processes encouraged by reading— remain essential to society. Even television shows must have writers. Without people oriented toward language, very little would be accomplished. The point is, the wielders of influence will always be those who read and write, who still work within the frame work of language. If Christians remain true to their heritage, if they train themselves to be people of the Word and pursue the disciplines of reading and writing, their influence will be felt once again as it was in the formative moments of our civilization.

T W O

VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE AND VICARIOUS SIN: The Importance of Criticism

Turning off the television and picking up a book is a good begin ning. And yet Christians who pick up a typical best-selling paper back and read a few chapters might think it better to turn the television set back on. The cover depicts a handsome gentleman in period cos tume ripping off the period costume worn by the young woman swooning in his arms (this genre of historical romance is often referred to in the business as a “bodice-ripper”). Inside we are treated to a play by-play account of the characters’ sexual activities rendered in breath less prose. Or other covers might invite us to try other successful formulas: the evil child (a cute little girl with malevolent eyes stares out from the cover, holding a doll in one hand and a bloody axe in the other); the “epic saga” of a rich and powerful family (five hundred pages of social climbing, back stabbing, and consumerism); the angst ridden personal problem tract (about abandoning one’s family in a depressing quest for personal fulfillment); the action-adventure techno thriller (featuring spies, detectives, soldiers, or spacemen thwarting attempts to take over the world). Some of the most popular books are starkly bad—bad in their content, bad in their effect, and, in a related way, bad aesthetically. Television has at least a few restraints—books seemingly have none. Wrapped in the mantle of the Freedom of the Press, books seem to have no qualms about obscene language, pornographic or sadomasochistic displays, and tasteless, mindless sensationalism. Books can engage the inner mind more deeply than the external images of television and film; therefore, in some ways they might seem even more insidious, more corrupting.

But apart from their content, some of the most popular titles are badly written. The characters are predictable stereotypes; the plots are churned out according to a formula; the styles are ludicrous or inept. These books give their readers almost nothing of value for their invest ment of money and time. Such books cannot stand up to a second read ing—once we know what happens, there is no point in reading it again. They do not provoke any thought either during or after they are read. The most that even their biggest fans can say for them is that they kill time. As with other products of a mass culture, such as fast food and disposable merchandise, they are aimed at “consumers” who do not so much read as “consume” new titles.¹ Popular literature today has been profoundly shaped by the tele vision mind-set and by the larger dynamics of our contemporary mass culture. Just as television is an “attention-centered medium,” much writing today exists solely to win attention for itself. This is why so many books play with the obscene and the pornographic. Few of them are works of art, exploring the depths of human behavior. Most are simply trying to keep the readers’ attention by titillating them with sex ual fantasies, stirring scandals, and grotesque brutality. Such material is ridiculously easy to write—there is nothing to it. Original sin has great marketing potential. The answer to bad books is good books. Readers need to be able to tell the difference. The problem is not “reading for pleasure” or “recreational reading.” Pleasure and recreation are excellent reasons to read. Nor is the problem simply the content of certain books—sex, violence, or immoral subjects. Such topics may be explored with morality and taste. Nor is the problem with certain genres of books. First-rate authors old and new have written superb works of art in the various popular genres—romances (Emily and Charlotte Brontë), sci ence fiction (C. S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury), thrillers (Edgar Allan Poe and Graham Greene), and mysteries (Dorothy Sayers and P. D. James). The problem is the way bad books are written: badly. Good books—even those written by non-Christians or dealing only with sec ular themes—must be written according to the aesthetic laws that are part of the created order. As such, Christians can see them in the light of God, who is not only the source of all truth, but also the source of all beauty and all perfection (James 1:17). Conversely, books that are morally bad will tend to be aesthetically bad as well. Great works of literature may not always articulate an explicitly Christian worldview, but they will still usually be worth reading for their intrinsic merit

and will often give unwitting testimony to God’s sovereignty over all of life. In emphasizing “good books” and the importance of aesthetic quality, I am not being elitist nor do I intend to denigrate merely read ing for pleasure. Literature is supposed to give pleasure. Curling up with a good book on a rainy afternoon, going to the theater, singing a song, staying up late reading a mystery thriller that is too exciting to put down—these are precious human experiences. That reading is also beneficial, that it can instruct us in various ways, is a pleasant side effect. Bad books can give us superficial gratification; good books can give us far deeper pleasure. In fact, I am often suspicious of books that do not give me plea sure. The Victorian critic Matthew Arnold, convinced that modern people would no longer be able to believe in Christianity, thought that poetry would take the place of religion.² For many writers and readers in the “high culture” of the intellectual elite, this has happened. They turn to Art to give meaning and direction to life. Unfortunately, when literature and the arts substitute for religion, they become self-impor tant, pontificating, and dismal. Novels become world-weary philo sophical discourses on the meaninglessness of life; poetry becomes esoteric and pretentious; reading becomes an ascetic duty rather than an aesthetic pleasure. Thus we have a curious dichotomy in the modern literary scene. Whereas the popular culture gives us books that offer entertainment but no ideas, the “high culture” gives us books that offer ideas but no entertainment. There are many books—in my opinion the best books which manage to do both. Christian writers and readers may be in a position to help heal this literary schizophrenia. Those of us who know God are freed to enjoy literature on its own terms, without requiring it to be either overly “serious” or overly trivial. The pleasures of reading are, for the most part, good for us. We might even say that the reason we enjoy a book is that it is doing some thing good for us. We can benefit not only from a book’s themes and ideas; we can benefit from the very pleasures that impel us to keep turn ing the pages. Christians realize that although all pleasures are made possible by God and are thus good in themselves, human beings can turn every kind of pleasure into a sinful perversion. The quest for plea sure alone, outside of God’s provision, can violate the love we owe to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves. Literature likewise is often mis used for erotic, hateful, or egotistic ends.

This chapter will discuss the pleasures of the imagination, both the life-affirming and God-affirming ones that make us more sensitive and aware, and those which can deaden our hearts. Our reading habits, as well as the other pleasures of our lives, need to be disciplined. That discipline must be based on knowledge, understanding, and a cul tivated taste. Modern bookstores are filled with shallow, salacious, badly written books that are travesties of true literary art. Today more than ever, Christians need to learn how to discern the good and the bad in what they read, to recognize quality, and to train their sensibilities so that they enjoy what is excellent. In other words, they need to be critics and not simply consumers.

IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE

Reading—besides involving the mental disciplines of logic, critical thinking, and sustained thought—operates on our imaginations. As human beings, we have the capacity to picture things in our minds. We can conjure up memories from the past (a particular Christmas morn ing when we were very young) or plans for the future (what next sum mer’s vacation will be like). We can picture things that are real (the maple tree with its fall colors in the backyard) or things that have no reality in themselves (a maple tree with purple bark and plaid leaves). Today the term imagination has connotations of artistic creativ ity, so that some people lament that they have none. This is to misun derstand the term. Everyone can call forth complex mental images, rich textures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, and ideas. Nearly every waking moment and at night when we dream, we are using our imaginations. A carpenter must imagine what he is going to build. A scientist must imagine a model that would account for the data. An engineer must imagine the solution of a problem or the possibilities of a new invention. What goes on in our minds when we are daydream ing, making plans, or “just thinking” is imagination—an extraordinary gift of God, which we usually take completely for granted. When we read, the words on the page work upon our imagina- tions. Mental images are created in our minds. When we watch televi sion, the images are presented to us ready-made; we simply take them in passively. Reading,

however, merely offers us marks on paper; for them to mean anything, we must actively employ our personal imaginations. The result is that we construct and enter into a vast world of actions, feel ings, and experiences taking place nowhere else but in our minds. Reading exercises the imagination in a very literal way. Just as lift ing weights builds up the body’s physical strength, reading builds up the mind’s imaginative strength. The energy expended in lifting weights could be used for more productive purposes on a loading dock, but exercise is beneficial to one’s overall health and strength. In the same way, even reading inferior books is probably beneficial. When my chil dren read Nancy Drew or Tarzan or young romance novels, I am so happy that they are not watching TV that I seldom complain that they are not reading more substantial fare. A more sophisticated taste can come from more experience in reading, but I am glad that their imag inations are getting a workout. The imagination has a moral dimension as well. We are told to: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). Such empathy, identifying with the joys and sorrows of others, is a special application of the imagination. The ability to imagine what it would be like to experience what someone else is expe riencing, to project ourselves into someone else’s point of view, can be crucial to moral sensitivity. When we read a novel, we are ushered into the point of view of various characters and are gladdened by their vic tories and saddened by their tragedies. Reading provides mental train ing for empathizing with real people. Reading offers vicarious experience. We can have the sensation of experiencing something without actually having to experience it first hand. We can read a historical narrative about the Civil War, a novel about life on a whaling ship, or a poem about courtly love in a medieval castle. While we read, we imaginatively experience the battles, the mys teries of the sea, the fervor of love. Such vicarious experiences are plea surable because they allow us to extend ourselves into situations, times, and places that we could never enter apart from books. Reading satisfies our curiosity, our thirst for adventure, our delight in new phenomena, our need, in C. S. Lewis’s words, “to enlarge our being.”³ Vicarious experience can be more pleasurable than real exper ence. Reading about a Civil War battle may be exciting; actually being in a Civil War battle would be terrifying. Reading the novel Moby Dick may evoke the mystery of the

sea, but actually living on a whaling boat might seem boring and brutal. Reading a medieval love poem may con jure up the beauty of hopeless love, although no one enjoys having a broken heart in real life. Extreme sensations or dangerous undertak ings may be experimented with in safety. Our imaginations can launch off into hair-raising adventures or emotionally wrenching ordeals, while at the same time we enjoy the security of our own easy chairs. Just as we can learn from real experiences, we can learn from sec ondhand ones. People who have risked their lives in combat usually learn from what they have gone through. Reading The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, or The Iliad is not the same as actually facing an enemy on the battlefield, but the reader of these books can still learn something of what the combat veteran knows. Having a wide range of experiences can enlarge and deepen our per sonalities, which is why reading can enrich our lives. This is not to say that books are a substitute for real experiences. People rightly complain about those who know the world only through books. Books, though, can mediate real experiences that we may have later and can enable us to sample experiences that would be undesir able or even impossible to have in real life. Vicarious experience of the impossible—the alternate universes of fantasy and science fiction stretches our imaginations and thus builds our minds. Walter Wangerin has defined art as a “composed experience.” As a writer, he selects details and expresses them in language in such a way that the reader experiences something significant.⁴ Often we seek out “composed experiences” that are trivial—we are only interested in a momentary thrill, a literary roller coaster ride. Other times we can seek out more substantial literary experiences. What would it be like to live in ancient Greece? Histories, historical novels, and literary master pieces of the past can place us, vicariously, into another place and time. What would it be like to struggle through poverty, hopelessness, per secution, or other obstacles? What might war or atheism or mission ary work feel like, and how would my own faith respond to them? Books can provide access to all of these experiences.

VICARIOUS SIN

Some experiences, on the other hand, are forbidden. Too often readers turn to books so they can vicariously experience sin. They are inter ested in books that pander to their sexual fantasies, to their dreams of wealth and power , to their dark, secret obsessions with sadistic violence or occult nightmares. Many such readers would never actually carry out the sorts of depravity they love to read about (although some do). Reading the pornographic descriptions and the lovingly described acts of brutality gratifies their secret desires, giving them perverted pleasures in the privacy of their own imaginations. What takes place in the imagination has moral and spiritual significance. Jesus Himself tells us so in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already commit ted adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27, 28). Committing adultery is not a matter only of overt action. The inner passion of lust is what corrupts. The evil in the heart brings forth evil actions (Matthew 15:19, 20). If the action is hindered because of the con straints of law or opportunity, the inner sinfulness remains. Jesus makes the same point about violence: Being angry with your brother can make you guilty of murder, as far as God’s judgment is concerned (Matthew 5: 21, 22). The application is inescapable. Just as we must avoid sinful actions, we must avoid sinful imaginings. Jesus puts this in no uncer tain terms: If our eyes lead us into sin, it is better to gouge them out than to allow them to lead us to Hell (Matthew 5:29, 30). We must not water down these solemn warnings from Jesus Christ Himself. The Sermon on the Mount proves that sin is a condition of our inmost being; although our sinful nature is atoned for in the cross and our fail ures freely forgiven, we must never willingly cultivate habits that Scripture condemns. Lustful and angry fantasies are clearly forbidden by Scripture. It would follow that the imagination can be a source of evil as well as good. Indeed, Scripture says as much, speaking of the time before the Flood: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 RSV). Many experts extol the powerful impact of good literature in form ing moral values, strong minds, and healthy personalities. And yet when it comes to pornography, for example, they change their tune and deny that it has any impact. If good literature can have a positive effect on the individual and on society as a whole, surely bad literature can have a neg ative effect. The

imagination is an integral facet of our inner lives; as such it can be used to degrade our minds as well as to build them up. Does this mean Christians should not read literature that leads them into vicarious sin? I would say yes. If our Lord would have us go so far as to gouge out our eyes or cut off our hands to avoid sin, surely a limitation to our reading practices is not too severe. If His words are metaphorical, that does not diminish their force or their scope, but rather increases them. And yet, some distinctions should be made. The Sermon on the Mount does not imply that the subjects of sexuality or violence are for bidden for Christians to contemplate. Notice that our Lord’s own words—gouging out eyes and cutting off hands—are gruesomely vio- lent in their imagery. And yet, these words, imagined in our minds, are not equivalent to actually mutilating someone. Christ’s words certainly do not fill their readers with anger, hatred, or evil thoughts toward any one else. The Bible is never delicate when it comes to specifying sexual sin or sanctioning marital love. The Bible’s depictions of sexuality, however, are unlikely to induce immorality in their readers. To apply the principle to literature, what might render a work harmful is how it affects a reader. One reader may experience lust when he reads a particular novel. Other novels might provoke in a reader hate-filled fantasies of revenge or sadistic domination. Another reader may find that a book dredges up dark occult yearnings. Another reader may be tempted into covetousness, worldliness, pride, or other sins. In each case, the reader should “pluck his eyes” out of that book. And yet, another reader may be morally unaffected by a passage that is a serious moral stumbling block to someone else. As a trained and experienced reader with perhaps a jaded imagination, I find that I react to many of the “obligatory sex scenes” of contemporary fiction with boredom. My usual thought is, Here we go again, as the writing becomes more and more ludicrous and the author’s sexual fantasies rage out of artistic control. I do not think I am being harmed simply by reading them. Some readers are, though. Writers should be more careful, lest they incur the horrible judgment reserved for those who cause “a little one” to sin (Luke 17:1, 2). At the same time, some people are so tormented by lust that any mention of sex inflames them, even when the treatment of sexuality is morally and artistically legitimate (as in The Song of Solomon). This may not be the fault of

the author or the book, but a prob lem in the reader. Those so affected should avoid the occasion for sin, but they should not necessarily try to suppress the work for everyone. In evaluating the morality of a work of literature, we must real ize that to depict sin is not necessarily to advocate sin. As Susan Gallagher and Roger Lundin point out, we must consider the work’s purpose and its point of view. Does the work depict sin in order to show its evil (as the Bible does), or does it depict sin “in order to encourage its practice” (as pornography does)?

A story that contains an act of adultery is not necessarily immoral or obscene. If the perspective of the story implies that adultery is an acceptable social practice that harms no one, the story advocates an immoral position with which we would disagree.⁵

The Bible’s account of David and Bathsheba or the story of Lancelot and Guinevere depict adultery in such a way that the reader comes to understand why it is evil. Works that depict immorality in an honest way may help us to see through its superficial appeal and thereby arm us against it. Gallagher and Lundin also remind us that sexual immorality or profane language is only a small part of the moral universe:

Sometimes we get so concerned with offensive language or sex that we overlook many other kinds of depictions of sin that may prove far more tempting and harmful for us to read. If we think about the immoral acts depicted in literature that pose the most tempta tion to us, are profanity and sexual sin really the most dangerous? Aren’t we far more likely to be influenced by our society’s ideals of self-centeredness; the glorification of alcoholic or drug-induced irrationality; the importance of money, clothing, and physical pos sessions; the need to be beautiful and have a perfect body; or the assumption that cheating and manipulation are acceptable prac tices? . . . Some of the most dangerous immorality in texts today has nothing to do with sex or profanity. It lies instead in the accep tance of materialism, the encouragement of egotism, and the

glorification of violence.

Just as reading can exercise our moral faculties, it can also corrupt them. We must observe the effect that our reading is having on us. Some literature is abhorrent in itself. A song popular recently is entitled “Treat Her Like a Prostitute.” Its purpose and its point of view do nothing to redeem the message of its title. Slasher movies, pornog raphy, and “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” also seem to me to be intrinsically evil. Christians are right to condemn worldliness, porno graphic degradation of women, and violence that hardens our hearts to human suffering. Christians must scrutinize themselves in their read ing as well as in every other area of their lives, learning how “to dis tinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

BAD LANGUAGE

To that end, it might be helpful to define the terms often used to describe the evils in literature. Words such as obscenity, pornography, vulgarity, and profanity each mean something completely different and can help us understand the various issues that deserve our scrutiny. The word obscene can be thought of as meaning “out of the scene” or “offstage.”⁷ In ancient Greek drama, certain actions could not be performed onstage for fear of violating the decorum, the appro priate aesthetic effect, of the play. Specifically, Greek drama forbade presenting violence onstage. When the plot of a tragedy demanded that a character commit suicide or murder , the violent action was never shown. Rather, the characters affected simply left the stage; later a mes senger came to report the horrible news. Why this reticence? The Greeks were hardly prudish or moralis tic. The reason was a sound aesthetic one. When the audience is enthralled by a dramatic action, involved in the characters and their dilemmas, the spectacle of overt violence literally breaks the aesthetic mood. The audience may become totally involved

with the suffering of Oedipus, but if it then must witness the actor poking out his eyes, the reaction shifts from tragic pathos to shock and revulsion. The delicate evocation of vicarious experience is disrupted by grisly special effects. The same principle is evident in contemporary films. The audi ence is introduced to the characters and their situations; the story becomes more and more absorbing; the suspense builds—and then someone takes out a chain saw and splatters someone’s guts all over the screen. How does the audience react? Some viewers say, “Ooooh, gross!”; some cover their eyes; some try to figure out the special effects; some start to laugh. The aesthetic experience, at any rate, is finished. The violence could be considered “obscene”; that is, it should not have been shown on screen because it violates aesthetic decorum. The same is true of graphic sexual depictions. When an actor and an actress take off their clothes in a movie, viewers begin reacting sex ually instead of aesthetically. The dramatic effect is interrupted and dis placed by the sexual effect. Stimulating an audience artistically takes skill and craft; stimulating them sexually is far easier. The Greeks did not shy away from dealing with sexuality or vio lence. Oedipus Rex deals with incest, patricide, self-mutilation, and suicide. It somehow manages to deal with such scarifying topics while maintaining taste, dignity, and a serious moral tone. How? By main taining decorum, by presenting the characters’ actions and anguish in language of exalted poetry, but never explicitly presenting the horrors onstage. Obscenity is not only a moral fault; as the Greeks understood, it is also an artistic fault. Insensitivity to aesthetic decorum is perhaps one of the worst weaknesses of contemporary literature.⁸ The aesthetic problem of sexual obscenity can be seen in the his- tory of the way sex has been depicted in literature. What was once merely alluded to—whether discreetly or bawdily—gradually became more and more graphic, escalating to the point that many writers today seem to be attempting to create sexual pleasure in their readers rather than aesthetic pleasure. The skilled writers of the “high culture” led the way for the lesser writers of the “mass culture.” In the early part of the twentieth century, people were shocked at James Joyce’s Ulysses, which by current standards is extremely mild, and by the frank eroticism of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. These novels by admittedly great writers provoked court battles that cast down most legal restraints and made explicit sexual descriptions completely acceptable in literary circles. Pornography had

existed for centuries, but now it was in the mainstream. As writers began to appeal to readers’ sexual pleasure instead of aesthetic pleasure, the intrinsic limitations of the pornographic imagi nation cheapened their work. Characters became coarsened and stereo typed. Pornography depends upon sexual fantasies—beautiful, pliant women who eagerly satisfy the insatiable desires of the macho heroes. The result will be superficial characterizations such as are found every where in today’s literature—Mickey Spillane mysteries, “adult” Westerns, family-saga romances, and works by “serious” writers. Such one-dimensional and predictable characters inhibit realism, complex ity, and sophisticated aesthetic effects. As the readers’ threshold of stimulation keeps getting higher, writers of the erotic must always be going beyond the earlier bound aries. If the desire is to titillate the increasingly jaded reader, normal sexuality begins to seem too tame, lacking the “tang” of the forbidden. The sex described must become wilder, more exotic, and more per verse. The sexual imagination begins to rule over the aesthetic imagi nation. The moral problem with obscenity is even more significant than the aesthetic problem. We might think of the “obscene,” in the Greek sense, as portrayals of what should be kept private. Sexuality is for the private intimacy of marriage, not for public eyes. Striptease shows are obscene, not because nudity is wrong but because nudity is private. To pay a woman to take her clothes off in front of crowds of ogling men is to violate her in a very brutal way. Public sex is obscene, not because sex is evil but because sex is sacred. As William Kirk Kilpatrick says, “Unless you understand that Christianity considers sexual love to be a sacred thing, you can never fully understand why it insists that sex be set about with exclusions and restrictions. All sacred things are. It is not that it thinks sex a bad thing but a high thing.” Obscene violence is also a moral desecration. A popular video consists of actual footage of executions, automobile accidents, murder scenes, and autopsies. Renting this tape and sitting down with a bowl of popcorn for an evening’s entertainment is obscene. Taking pleasure in death is monstrous. Trivializing and enjoying our neighbors’ suffer- ing violates the love we owe them (Matthew 22:39). Such obscenity desensitizes its viewers, making them immune to normal

human impulses of compassion and love, turning their hearts to stone (see Zechariah 7:9-12). The word pornography, by the way, is derived from two Greek words which together literally mean “prostitute-writing.”¹ Pornography is a type of obscenity consisting of graphic sexual descriptions designed to arouse the reader with vicarious sexual expe riences. Satisfying one’s sexual cravings by patronizing prostitutes is very similar to using books or movies for that purpose. Both involve the buying and selling of sex. Both dislocate sexuality away from the personal relationship of marriage. Pornography, like prostitution, abuses women, rendering them as nonhuman objects of lust and con ditioning men to treat real women in this way. Pornographic films and magazines exploit sexually the real human beings who appear in them. Porn stars, enticed by their yearning for glamour and big money, are debauched, humiliated, and used. The writers of pornography are also prostituting themselves, selling their imaginations the way some women sell their bodies. Again, in order to keep its readers stimulated, obscenity and pornography must become more and more extreme. Heroin addicts after awhile become less and less sensitive to the drug. They require ever larger doses to achieve their high— until finally an overdose kills them. The same holds true for those addicted to pornography and obscene vio lence. Since the “tang of evil” is part of the thrill, and since these addicts become desensitized to ordinary pleasure, they must continually push the boundary. Pictures of naked women after awhile are not enough; pictures of people having sex come next. Then perverted sex. Then sadism. Then—children being especially innocent and thus providing a greater “tang of evil”—child pornography. Then what? Snuff movies (pornographic films that conclude with an actual murder)? Carrying out these vicarious experiences in real life? Those who ruin their lives by for nication and perversion often speak of having started with pornogra- phy. Many rapists tell the same story. So do serial killers.¹¹ Such obscenity and pornography is a social problem and not only an aesthetic issue. Human nature is filled with dark secrets and horrifically evil potential. Pornography and obscenity deaden the senses, the imagination, and the conscience. They tap into dangerous impulses. The issue is not simply the effect these have on children. I worry about the effect on adults. The vulgar is a much milder form of offensive language than obscenity. The

term literally means “the common people.” Reflecting the ancient social hierarchies, the implication is that the lower classes exhibit behavior and conversation that cultivated people would avoid. Vulgar talk would include references that are embarrassing, rude, or inappropriate for the time, the place, and the company. Mild sexual innuendos, allusions to having to go to the bathroom, and other “naughty” language (the sort of thing that children giggle at) are not necessarily obscene, but they are usually vulgar. Notice that in the original sense of the word, vulgarity is embar rassing not so much to the hearers but to the speaker. Someone who is vulgar reveals a poor education and subservient social position. Today, society has changed. Common people still tend to find certain words offensive; the upper classes are often the most foul-mouthed of them all. Thus the elite are now vulgar, revealing a “low” sensibility and an utter lack of taste. Vulgarity is not necessarily sinful, however. The degree to which one may refer to “bodily functions,” for example, varies historically. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is not really obscene, but its medieval lack of prudery means that it is occasionally vulgar by our standards. Even Christian writers of the past often seem startlingly coarse in their lan guage. Luther is enormously edifying to read, yet when he attacks abuses in the church or in society he pulls no punches. It has been said that some of Luther’s writings could not today be published in Lutheran periodicals. Certain Victorians even considered the Bible to be too embarrassing. Modern Christians should not mistake their post Victorian sense of propriety for moral purity. Vulgarity may exhibit poor taste and should be avoided by Christians on aesthetic grounds, but it is seldom sinful. More problematic for Christians is profanity. This word comes from another Latin construction meaning “outside the temple.”¹² If something were profane— that is, ceremonially unclean—it would not be allowed inside the Temple. Profane is the opposite of sacred. In the present context, profanity violates what is holy. Profanity uses religious language in a way that desecrates or trivializes its sacred meaning. The Bible says relatively little about obscenity, pornography, or vulgarity, but it condemns profanity in the strongest terms. “You shall not mis use the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold any one guiltless who misuses his name” (Exodus 20:7). Nor are we to swear (Matthew 5:34; James 5:12). Nor are we to curse our fellow human beings (James 3:10). To do so is a grave misuse of language. A Christian can never say, “those are just

words,” implying (with the modern view) that mere words have little importance. In the Christian consciousness, words are of staggering significance, underlying existence itself, defining person ality and enabling relationships to occur. God created by His Word; His Word became flesh in Jesus Christ; He reveals Himself to us through the writing and the proclamation of His Word. Moreover , “it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:10). Our con tinuing relationship with God is centered in the language of prayer. No wonder James excoriates those who profanely misuse such a monu mental gift as language: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father , and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s like ness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be” (James 3:9, 10). Profane language would include irreverent invocations of the name of God (“Oh my God!”); insincere promises based on holy things (“I swear on a stack of Bibles!”); the calling down of God’s wrath upon another human being (“God damn you!”). Apparently, God sees these expressions as prayers. He takes them seriously even if we do not. Ironically, such expressions seem mild and inoffensive today. We might be shocked at “bathroom language” or four-letter sexual obscenities, but not at an “oh God” when someone is surprised or a “go to Hell” when someone is angry. Here, as so often, our worldly standards and those of Scripture are turned upside down. What seems shocking to us may mean little to God, and what may seem minor to us may be a grave offense to God’s holiness. Profanity is not a matter of language alone. The violation of the holy occurs in other ways. The sex scene in the film The Last Temptation of Christ is profane. So is George Burns playing the role of God—ren- dering the Consuming Fire in terms of a domesticated nice guy spouting pop psychology and comic shtick. A corrupt evangelist using God’s name to swindle people out of their money is profane in a deeper sense. I won der whether some of the products sold in Christian bookstores might verge on profanity. Only what is religious risks being profane. Blasphemy—overt denigration of God—is an extreme case of pro fanity, and it is not uncommon in contemporary literature. Andres Serrano’s photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine was described by one critic as “a fairly conventional piece of post-surrealist blasphemy,”¹³ and there are many literary equivalents. Moslems consider Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses blasphemous, and they are

surely right, in that it ridicules Mohammed and their sacred Koran. Their response—to try to kill the author—is not an option for Christians affronted by blas phemy, who must bless and pray for their enemies and persecutors, over coming evil with good (Romans 12:14-21). And yet this sin is especially horrible. Dante placed blasphemers in that section of Hell that also pun ishes violence against nature and art.¹⁴ According to Dante, blasphemy is violence against God, although such violence is pathetically futile. It is profoundly unnatural to malign the source of our very existence. To lash out in hatred at the Person who created us, makes possible all of our joys, and sustains our very existence is vicious and perverse. If profanity is so evil, what does this mean for literature? In Shakespeare’s time, officials felt that the mere mentioning of God in a dramatic production was a violation of the commandment against tak ing the Lord’s name in vain. The characters in a play were not real, they reasoned. Therefore, for them to invoke God in a fictional context was insincere, false, and “in vain.” As a result, any explicit references to God were routinely censored.¹⁵ The playwrights would get around the injunc- tion (enforced more for stage versions than for written texts) in several ways. They would allude to pagan deities which were made to symbol ize the true God (Jove could not be profaned). They replaced the word God with an associated word such as Heaven (as in “Heaven forgive thee,” rather than “God forgive thee”).¹ And they used elegant language that tiptoes around the sacred name, as in these lines from Shakespeare:

Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made.

(Measure for Measure, 2.2.73-79)¹⁷

Such an extreme fear of profanity is surely going too far (although we might hesitate to question an age that was both more religious and more artistic than our own). It might remind us that purely “secular” writing may be more harmless than ostensibly “religious” writing, just as the Reformation was more suspicious of religious art than of purely secular art such as portraits and landscapes. In a society that has lost all sense of the sacred, we should not be too surprised to hear sacred language treated profanely. We who find this language meaningful should be offended at its misuse. The sin inheres in the speaking (or writing) of profanity, not in its hearing (or reading). A Christian should never use profanity, but I do not think hearing or reading profane language is necessarily sinful, just as wit nessing a sin is not necessarily condoning it. Encountering profanity in a book is unlikely to provoke vicarious sin in a Christian, except when its repetition starts to deaden our own reverence at hearing the sacred name of our Lord. As long as we wince at the profanity, it is probably not hurting us. The irritation we feel “when we hear one rack the name of God”¹⁸ is evidence that those words are not profane to us. Christians should excoriate profanity whenever they encounter it, but they need not be afraid of language which properly belongs to them. Nor should they miss the irony of godless people incessantly calling upon God. The Christian novelist Flannery O’Connor has a character in Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, who is trying to run away from God. He seeks out the company of the most depraved people he can find. Every profanity they utter, though, is a pointed reminder of the Person he is trying desperately to avoid. He goes to a used car lot. The operator’s boy is always cursing: “‘Jesus on the cross,’ the boy said. ‘Christ nailed.’” Such words make Hazel grow pale. As Hazel and the used car dealer bargain for a car, in the background the boy keeps muttering, “‘Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus.’” Finally, Hazel cannot take it anymore: “‘Why don’t he shut up?’ Haze said suddenly. ‘What’s he keep talking like that for?’”¹ In the fictional world of the novel, the boy is being profane. And yet, O’Connor’s novel is not being profane. She means the terms liter ally and in their most sacred sense. The boy’s profanity ironically reminds Hazel of the reality of Jesus Christ. Haze is wondering with the psalmist, “Where can I flee

from Your presence?” and he is dis covering that even in the depths of human sinfulness he cannot escape from his God (Psalm 139:7). Where Hazel least expects to hear them, the sacred words find him out. The apparent profanity in O’Connor’s novel is a brilliant and profound example of irony—the literary technique in which the sur face meaning is contradicted by the actual meaning. (As when the mes senger in Oedipus announces “Good News!” as he delivers the information that is going to ruin everyone’s lives. Sarcasm is another form of irony, as in, “That’s just great—I love to get stuck in traffic.”) Irony can exist on several levels, even when it is not intended. A car penter who hammers his finger and blurts out the name of Jesus Christ, a teenager who continually invokes the Deity in a conversation about a shopping mall, a man who prays that his lawn mower be eternally condemned to Hell because it won’t start—all of them display serious spiritual confusion, but they bear evidence that human nature at a very deep, instinctual level, recognizes God’s sovereignty and His connec tion to pain, pleasure, and judgment. The Scriptures clearly warn against “bad language” in all of its manifestations:

But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. Let there be no filth iness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting, but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheri tance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. . . . Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret (Ephesians 5:3-6, 11, 12 RSV).

This passage condemns not only sinful action but sinful language: speaking and deceiving through empty words.

CENSORSHIP AND SELECTIVITY

Should a book be suppressed for its sinfulness? Should Christians work to outlaw offensive writing? Christians must be very cautious here. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are precious rights and must be affirmed, if for no other reason than that the most censored book is the Bible and the most persecuted speech is proclamation of the gospel. The legal niceties restricting censorship must be respected as part of the God-ordained secular authority designed for our good (Romans 13:1-7). And yet, if certain books are truly evil in themselves and in their effect on others, condoning them would be an abdication of our responsibility to love our neighbors and to work for a healthy society. The legal remedies available against obscenity should be pursued. Child pornography, at least, is against the law, as is obscenity. “Adult bookstores” (a ludicrous name) should be harassed by zoning ordi nances and other legal means. Prosecuting illegal actions involved in producing pornography—for example, charging child pornographers with child abuse and charging the makers of pornographic films with prostitution—is another fruitful legal avenue that leaves First Amendment rights intact. Except in certain extreme cases, the state may not outlaw the publications of a free press. The selection of those publications, espe cially in schools and libraries, can be controversial. No one can buy every book, and it is not legally censoring a publication to refuse to buy it. A librarian, a teacher, a school board, or a parent chooses books for someone else to read. Is it censorship to refuse to select certain books because of their moral effect? Unfortunately, when Christians have tried to ban books from libraries and classrooms, they have often engaged in the wrong battles and fought them in self-defeating ways. Efforts have been made to ban The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, a Christian alle gory that clearly presents the gospel and through which hundreds of children and adults have been brought to Christ. Why would Christians object to such a book? Because the title has a witch in it and thus might be an entry point for occult powers. Obviously the protestors were sim ply skimming titles and had never read or understood Lewis’s novel. Other times would-be censors focus on relatively trivial issues. Should The Wizard of Oz be banned because it speaks of a “good witch”? Certainly the term is a contradiction (I have this conversation with my children every year), but the

error in terminology should not be exaggerated and turned into an excuse for banning a wholesome book. Nor should Christians waste their energies fighting books such as Tom Sawyer (because it shows disrespect for authority) or John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (because of occasional vulgar language). To do so shows a lack of perspective, a straining at a gnat (Matthew 23:24). Such efforts are never successful and only invite contempt for Christianity. Conservative Christians are not the only ones who try to engage in censorship. Liberal factions are probably the most successful cen sors, and their agenda seldom attracts the indignation of the American Civil Liberties Union. Whereas conservatives tend to focus on ques tions of personal morality, liberals tend to focus on questions of social morality. Huckleberry Finn is attacked not by conservatives (as the media often implies), but by liberals who believe it promotes racial stereotyping. Conservatives are offended by obscene language (which never fails to invite ridicule from the press). Liberals, by the same token, are offended by Mark Twain’s use of nigger. The word is indeed offensive, just as obscenities are offensive and for the same reason. To take the word out of its nineteenth-century context, when it was not as pejorative as it is today, is unfair to the author’s original meaning. Moreover, the theme that permeates every page of Huckleberry Finn is that racism is evil. Those who would ban one of the greatest American novels on the basis of these misinterpreted details betray the same type of closed-minded failure to read with understanding as the Christians who would ban The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In the same way, fairy tales are suppressed because they portray “sexual stereotypes.” “Cinderella” is censored because it “unfairly depicts nontraditional families”; in other words, it includes a wicked stepmother . Any sympathetic treatment of religion, of course, is purged out of textbooks and curricula with the thoroughness of the Inquisition. As Milton said, “if it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.”² Milton—a Puritan, by the way—makes that point in his great Christian defense of freedom of the press, entitled “Areopagitica” (which deserves close reading by contemporary Christians concerned with this issue). And yet both sides have legitimate concerns. The question in selecting schoolbooks is not necessarily one of censorship, but one of appropriateness. I would never censor or ban Huckleberry Finn, but if I were teaching junior high students, I would question whether they were sophisticated enough to fully understand it. If there were racial conflicts in the class already, I might avoid the

occasion for hurt feelings and derision that could arise from Mark Twain’s nineteenth-century racial epithets. I would pick something else. I do teach Huckleberry Finn in college and encourage younger readers who understand good litera ture to read it. Nor would I teach The Canterbury Tales, one of my favorite books, to people who would only giggle at its “naughty” lan guage. I do not believe in throwing pearls to swine—that is, in present ing something of value to those unable to appreciate it (Matthew 7:6). Christians should present their concerns in a temperate and knowledgeable way, addressing issues of appropriateness and educa tional levels rather than strident scatter-shot denunciation. They should also clearly affirm their commitment to freedom of the press and free dom of speech. To be successful, they will have to express their com plaints in other than theological terms. For example, when complain ing about a book that contains pornographic scenes, they might demon strate how the offending passages demean women. When complaining about the anti-Christian bias of a book, they might point out how it per petuates offensive stereotypes of religious minorities. (I agree that the ological language is far better than such social-science jargon, but the authorities must be addressed in a language they will understand.) Selectivity should not be confused with censorship. Parents and educators are right to use judgment in choosing literature for children, and they should consider moral implications no less than educational and psychological ones. They should also consider aesthetic implica tions. Poorly written textbooks— earnestly realistic and didactic primers that offer nothing more inspiring than the importance of brushing one’s teeth—can make a child hate to read. There are many reasons not to buy a bad book. Nor should criticism be confused with censorship. Christians affronted by a work of literature need not try to censor it. Outlawing the book, calling for its suppression, or attempting reprisals on its author are usually futile and illegal gestures. Christians can, however, bring to bear their powers of criticism, complaint, and derision. Professional critics are always excoriating worthless writing, while never denying its legal right to exist. Christians can do the same, counterattacking the assaults on their values and their aesthetic sensibilities. They can loudly take offense without calling for censorship. The moral outrage spurred by the civil rights movement and its offspring have meant that publishers now are very careful about the way they portray blacks, Jews, women, the hand icapped, and other minority groups. Perhaps the media moguls can develop the

same sensitivity in regard to Christians and their beliefs. The power of the marketplace is also formidable in influencing culture, especially for popular works (such as film and television) whose only reason for being made is to attract large audiences. Refusing to patronize scurrilous material (and its sponsors) is a way of voting with one’s wallet and confronting the mass culture in a way it understands. This does not mean that Christians should be overscrupulous. It does mean they should save their money for works of excellence. A well-written book or a wellmade film may deal with sex or violence, but almost never in a prurient way. Serious literary art tends to be hon est; as such, it often confronts realities—the search for love, the ugli ness of evil, the futility of life without God, the mysterious splendors of ordinary life—that Christians can recognize as part of the human condition and what God has ordained in the created order. Christians should make their presence known in the marketplace. This means refusing to waste money on worthless entertainment and actively supporting quality work. Perhaps we could start by renting classic videos instead of the latest slasher movie. We could also turn off the TV more often and read more good books.

GOOD BOOKS

What is a good book? Are not “matters of taste” purely subjective? Not completely. Our tastes, like other facets of our lives, must be trained. We must learn how to delight in what is good. Just as morally bad books are usually aesthetically bad as well, good books—even those by non-Christians—are usually in accord with God’s created order both morally and aesthetically. To fully recognize both excellence and mediocrity requires expe rience and knowledge. Mortimer Adler, writing about beauty, distin guishes between “the enjoyable” and the “admirable.” The enjoyable is subjective—what one person enjoys another might not, and there are many reasons why someone may find pleasure in a given experience. The admirable, on the other hand, refers to

objective qualities, to what Adler describes as “an intrinsic excellence or perfection appropriate to that kind of thing.”²¹ Many people find slasher movies “enjoyable,” but even their fans would probably not consider them “admirable,” either morally or aes thetically. A movie, to be objectively “admirable,” would feature among other “perfections” skillful acting, effective editing and cine matography, a well-written script, a thought-provoking theme. To rec ognize these “perfections” requires knowledge of the techniques and aesthetics of film-making. Once viewers attain that knowledge, they find themselves enjoying movies even more, although they are no longer satisfied by third-rate products. Similarly, people who do not enjoy classical music usually do not understand it. Once they are taught how to listen to classical music—understanding its techniques, its forms, its history, and its meaning—the enjoyment comes. This process of learning how to enjoy (subjectively) what is admirable (objectively) is known as the cultivation of taste. The rest of this book will explore the different forms and styles of literature with a view toward cultivating taste. Obscenity is “tasteless.” Preferring ugliness to beauty is “bad taste.” Solomon observes that “a fool finds pleasure in evil conduct,” whereas “a man of understanding delights in wisdom” (Proverbs 10:23). What we delight in has a spiritual dimension. For contemporary Christians, at sea in a mass culture, tak ing pleasure in excellence may be an important survival skill.

THE FORMS OF LITERATURE