Kirk Cameron is not a good actor...and other things

Liberal media bias has become a hot topic for conservative pundits to bash around. From Michael Coren to the lastest article by Lorrie Goldsten there has been ample evidence to speak to this phenomena. Of course, it should come as no surprise. Universities, where most decent journalists are trained, most often lean to the left...the very far left. Conservative and specifically christian viewpoints (they are not the same thing) are not well-represented at that level. One also has to wonder if conservative and christian thinkers are not only underrepresented in the faculty, but also in the student body.

Are we encouraging our children to tackle careers that put them in places of influence? One has to wonder. Could it be that there is such a preponderance of opportunities for christians to work in very insulated environments that we are ceasing to be an influence on the culture around us. Type "christian careers" into google and you decide.

I also suspect that anti-intellectualism, which has seeped into the evangelical landscape, is also liable. For the past 40 years, we've been dumbing ourselves down. The monolith of cheesy christian romance writing and the unending torrent of end-times tomes speaks volumes to this problem.

(Isn't it interesting that we seem to be obsessed with hiding in our houses reading (and probably praying for) this fiery cataclysmic end-of-the-world scenario rather than working to redeem, not only people, but also the culture around us. I smell a self-fulfilling prophecy...)

I don't expect that we will all become academics and scholars, but why do we always seem to aim so low.

Flannery O'Connor and Mars Hill Audio

Below is an excerpt from an introduction to Hillbilly Thomist: Flannery O'Connor & the Truth of Things published by Mars Hill Audio. Check them out, they will send you a free sample CD of their audio journal. It's good stuff.

...
Flannery O'Connor strongly disliked fiction that attempted to be uplifting or improving. She complained in one of her essays about fellow Catholics who wanted "positive literature," a desire that she felt was rooted in "weak faith and possibly also from this general inability to read." O'Connor was always nervous about fiction that was concerned about right belief but indifferent to the actual shape of lives being lived. She lamented that "When the Catholic novelist closes his own eyes and tries to see with the eyes of the Church, the result is another addition to that large body of pious trash for which we have so long been famous."

But Flannery O'Connor held herself and other writers to a high standard rooted in her religious convictions; she once wrote that for novelists, "Our final standard will have to be the demands of art, which are a good deal more exacting than the demands of the Church. There are novels a writer might write, and remain a good Catholic, which his conscience as an artist would not allow him to perpetuate." Art, in O'Connor's view, is rooted in the stuff of reality, and thus being a bad artist while trying to be a good Christian is no more excusable than being a bad plumber or a bad accountant or a bad driver while trying to be a good Christian. In all of these vocations, one can only be ethically responsible before God and toward one's neighbors if one is properly engaged with reality as it is, whether it be leaky pipes, arithmetic, traffic patterns, or story telling.
...

We should take heed of these words in evangelical circles and encourage fiction that is well written. We are becoming far too well-known for poorly written saccharine fluff.

Three can keep a secret if two are dead – Benjamin Franklin

This image came from this site.

www.gdevitt.com

I have finally overcome my web design inertia and created an online portfolio of my work. Feel free to check it out at www.gdevitt.com. I'll be adding more to the "portfolio" section in the near future, but I thought it was complete enough to launch the site. If you notice any problems or strange things please let me know. I'm especially interested to know if it works well on Windoze machines :)

cheers,
greg.

Gilead and Byzantium

I had the opportunity to do a bit of reading this summer. Below are two books that I thoroughly enjoyed.



Gilead: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson

From Publishers Weekly
...Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense. There is no simple redemption here; despite the meditations on faith, even readers with no religious inclinations will be captivated. Many writers try to capture life's universals of strength, struggle, joy and forgiveness—but Robinson truly succeeds in what is destined to become her second classic. ...

This book is wonderful and has great depth.



Byzantium
by Stephen R. Lawhead

From Publishers Weekly
...[Stephen Lawhead] now tells the story of Aidan, a 10th-century Irish monk sent to take the Book of Kells to the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. Separated from his fellow pilgrims, Aidan undergoes various exotic adventures, including capture by and life with Vikings, political intrigue in the Byzantine court, enslavement in a caliph's mine and loss of his all-important faith in God. Lawhead is a Christian writer, and here the Christian themes are integral and well developed...

This book is not as heavy as Gilead, but is very well-written and engaging.

Don't blame only feds

Don't blame only feds By Michael Goodwin
...
The charge of racism-inspired foot-dragging isn't just nonsense. It's pernicious nonsense, as in destructive and malicious. You know that's a fact because loony Howard Dean, the Democratic Party boss, is now peddling it. He's joined by Jesse Jackson, who said the squalor in New Orleans "looks like the hull of a slave ship." Oh, please.
...