All posts by weldonturnercom

The Screwtape Letters

The Screwtape Letters
By C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in what is now Northern Ireland and died on November 22, 2963, in Oxfordshire, England.  He was a ‘a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University’ [1]  He wrote more than thirty books including The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity.

The Screwtape Letters was originally published serially in a British religious newspaper, The Guardian, in 1941 [2]. It was then published as a novel the following year.  Another version, expanded to include the essay ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’, was published in 1962.  The work is dedicated to Lewis’ friend and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and other works.

The Screwtape Letters is a classic in Christian literature. It is written as a series of instructional letters by an experienced demon, Screwtape, to his neophyte protégé and  nephew, Wormwood, who is tasked with securing the soul of his ‘patient’, a man who has recently converted to Christianity.

The novel is ironic, often funny, sometimes difficult, and always insightful.  Insightful in its examination of  human behavior,  in its observation of the  myriad ways in which human beings are constantly buffeted by gusts of good and evil, in the ways in which we succumb to temptations  and are victorious  when deciding on the good. In the 209 pages of The Screwtape Letters and the addendum, ‘Screwtape Proposes a Toast’, it is safe to say that there is not a phrase, not a word that is wasted or superfluous.  Like another masterpiece, Mere Christianity, this novel is densely packed with penetrating intuition and practical suggestions for fighting the daily battles faced by everyone who has made a decision to live a Christian life—as well as those who haven’t.

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The Business of Violence

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.  Romans 12:18,19 (NIV)

Background

We are inundated with images of violence from the time we are able to watch a television program, or play a video game. According to a 1999 report for the U.S Senate Committee on the Judiciary entitled, ‘Children, Violence, and the Media’, an American child will see 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence on television by their eighteenth birthday [1].

‘Action’ films as they are often called, and cop shows, with a steady drip of fisticuffs, gunplay and explosions into the culture’s bloodstream, have dominated Western—indeed world-wide entertainment–for years.  If repetition is a marker of success, then violence in entertainment is undoubtedly one of the most successful business models in history, comparable, probably, only to the sex industry.  But there is a significant difference between the two. While titillating images of scantily clad women abound on film, on television programs, commercials, and even news programs –the ‘real’ sex industry, pornography, is still taboo, primarily consumed in the privacy of one’s home.   ‘Action films’ –I’m using the term to describe films that not only contain lots of physical stunts or car chases, but significant beatings, gunplay and/ or high body counts–are distributed openly in movie theatres and in your neighbourhood department stores, as acceptable forms of entertainment anyone can consume.

Why?
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Selma

 

In the News

It was a wildly unexpected and incongruous rant, head-snapping from its bizarre perspective.   The host of a primetime show on the left-leaning U.S television news network, MSNBC,   publicly excoriating a film by an African-American director and boasting a primarily black cast, Selma—a film that presented the story of one of the pivotal chapters in the American struggle for civil rights.  [1]  Continue reading Selma

Tolstoy’s Confession

A Confession
By Leo Tolstoy

The Man Behind the Icon

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is regarded as one of the world’s greatest writers, and his most famous works, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877) are considered two of the greatest novels ever written, [1].  Authors as diverse as Anton Chekov, William Faulkner, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky have acknowledged his literary contributions. James Joyce has called his story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need’ the greatest story in world literature, [2] and Virginia Woolf regarded him as the greatest of all novelists, [1]  Continue reading Tolstoy’s Confession

Science and Faith

Reports on such issues as evolution, the origin of the universe, and climate change, are literally covered daily in the mainstream press, often with a self-confident undercurrent that relegates anyone who dares questions the scientific community’s conclusions on these issues as ‘backward’, ignorant, blinded by archaic, repressive and downright dangerous religious beliefs.

One may even venture to say that science, at least for some, has become a new religion. These scientists, newscasters, pundits and the like see science as somehow unassailable, due to the logic, replicable experimentation, and peer-review standards that are key to scientific legitimacy. This of course is in stark contrast to faith, which cannot be measured like a scientific experiment, and which does not lend itself to verifiable testing and the like.

The current great divide between science and faith was not always as wide as it is today. Dan Graves’ book, Scientists of Faith, published by Kregel Resources, 1996, presents forty-eight short profiles of scientists who have made enormous contributions to their respective fields, while maintaining a strong personal faith.  Continue reading Science and Faith

St. Francis of Assisi

Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a film by Franco Zefirelli

The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi, translated with an introduction and notes by Father Paschal Robinson, and edited by Paul A. Boer, Sr.

Intro

With his election to the papacy in 2013, the Argentinian cardinal, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has become a pioneer in a number of capacities: the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, the first Jesuit, and the first from the Americas.  He is also the first, in the almost 900 years since the death of the Italian saint, Francis of Assisi, to take the name, Francis. And judging from the media coverage he has certainly lived up to the reputation of the 12th century saint–known for his simple lifestyle and identification with the poor–by pursuing a life of relative humility (living in the papal guest house instead of the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace) and displaying an uncommon empathy for the marginalized and the sick (washing the feet of the disabled and the sick).

The Pope, to many (myself included), is truly inspiring. He has piqued my interest in his namesake. And so, here is an extremely high level view of the original Francis, as seen through a biographical film and a translation of his own writings.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

In 1972 the motion picture Brother Sun, Sister Moon was released. Produced and directed by the renowned filmmaker, Franco Zefirelli (Romeo and Juliet, Jesus of Nazareth) it presents the early life of the Italian saint, Francis of Assisi, 1181/2-1226.  It follows ‘Francesco’, Continue reading St. Francis of Assisi

Wilberforce and Real Christianity

Real Christianity

A Paraphrase in Modern English of a Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christianity in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Century, Contrasted with Real Christianity

Published in 1797
By William Wilberforce
Revised and Updated by Dr. Bob Beltz, 2006
203 pages
Published by Regal Books

William Wilberforce was born in August of 1759 into a prosperous British merchant family. He entered the British House of Commons in 1780, and three years he was elected a Member of Parliament and later went on to a career in politics that lasted almost forty five years.

He converted to evangelical Christianity in 1784 to 1785 but was beset with doubts about his political future not knowing how a Christian could serve God in politics.  With the friendship and guidance of John Newton, the former slave ship captain who converted to Christianity and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, Wilberforce came to see how  his Christianity could not only coexist with  his political life, but could  influence it.

One of the areas in which his Christian beliefs was put to work, if not the preeminent cause for which he would fight, was in the abolition of the British slave trade, and subsequently, the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire itself.  The battle to abolish the slave trade was not neither easy quick, requiring a full twenty years before success was finally achieved.

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935 Lies

935 Lies
The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity
By Charles Lewis
364 pages
Published by PublicAffairs, 2014

‘[I]n the two years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials made at least 935 false statements about the national security threat posed by Iraq.’  This statement, taken from a report published by a team of reporters and other contributors headed by Charles Lewis,  the author of this book,  is the starting point of this thought-provoking, meticulously researched examination of the lack of truth and integrity in the corridors of power:  in government, private industry and in the commercial media.

Mr. Lewis structures his thesis in three major sections. First, significant lies in the recent past, including deceptions about the Vietnam War, the American Civil Rights Movement, and the business community are explored. The second is an examination of commercial journalism today, and how changes in that arena have affected the ‘quality and quantity’ of news coverage. The third is his vision of the ‘future of truth’, how the telling of truth through the vehicle of investigative journalism–to the masses of readers, listeners and viewers–can be preserved, given the tremendous pressures to the contrary.

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The Mountaintop

The Mountaintop
By Katori Hall
Presented by the Shaw Festival
In association with the Obsidian Theatre
July 16 — September 7, 2014

Katori Hall was born in 1981 and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. As a child her mother related stories of the Civil Rights Movement and of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in particular. She is a graduate of The Julliard School, with an MFA in playwrighting. Before she turned 30 The Mountaintop had been performed in London, England, and in several cities in the United States.

The Mountaintop is a one-act play set in Martin Luther King’s room at the Lorraine motel, in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before he was assassinated. He had just delivered the speech in support of the city’s sanitation workers, the speech where he famously and presciently spoke of the ‘mountaintop’, where he said he ‘might not get there with you’, but he is not afraid of ‘any man’, because ‘mine eyes have seen the glory of the promised land’.
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