Many, many, thanks go to my colleague, Jason Fowler, and my new friends at The Association of Librarians & Archivists at Baptist Institutions (ALABI) for inviting me to give a presentation on Patron-Centered Spaces in Nashville last week. I enjoyed my brief time with them, and look forward to attending as a member in the future. They have graciously posted my manuscript for all who are interested.
I argued for Augustine’s definition of community from
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G. K. Chesterton’s fantastical works of fiction such as his extensive use of fairies, according to Alison Milbank at the University of Nottingham, had an apparently large influence on J. R. R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings. Alison argues that Chesterton’s attempts at using fiction to cause his readers to engage the real world in new ways resulted in Tolkien’s appropriation of a thoroughly fictional world — so fictional, in fact, it takes on a sense or reality — in order to engender a theology that is both practical and artistic. They both openly and intentionally created a fictional tradition of sorts in order to render a theological purpose more accessible, and in so doing foster relationships between people and God. She writes in Chesterton and Tolkien As Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real (London/New York: T and T Clark, 2007):
If Chesterton and Tolkien are theologians, as the title of this book claims, it is because they offer a theology of art as practice. Practical Theology as it is taught in seminaries and theological colleges in very often the taking of theological ideas and realizing them in practical activity, or reflecting upon experience with theological tools. …As a gift it likewise cements social relations and draws attention to the exchanges between people, and with the sacred. (p. 166)
Much no doubt remains to be said both in response to Milbanks’s appraisal of Chesterton and Tolkien. On the same cart of new books to be added to our library, however, was another treatment of fictional traditions: The Invention of Sacred Tradition, Lewis and Hammer, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2007. From the introduction:
In the domain of religion, we find an analogous situation, where historically verifiable traditions coexist with recent innovations whose origins are spuriously projected back into time.
Among these recent innovations which have invented traditions for themselves and which are given chapters in this book are Scientology, Castenada’s don Juan, Mormonism, Sun Myung Moon, Rosicrucianism, and Zoroastrianism. As it typical of much contemporary scholarship, however, they also attribute a false tradition to the New Testament due to supposed authorial “inauthenticities,” and thereby label most the New Testament to be forgeries (as well as the Pentateuch).
The combination of these two books in my thoughts did make for an interesting contrast, though. One looks at Chesterton’s and Tolkien’s fictional traditions as a positive source of good theology, traditions so fantastical and metaphorical that their place in both literary and theological history is certain. The other looks at the fictional traditions of Scientology, Mormonism, and the like as dubious sources which are not bases for truth. The combination raises a good discussion about how and when to appeal to tradition as a source — whether that tradition is real, fictional for instructive and artful purposes, or just plain fictional and delusive.
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It’s time to grab a bucket and start bailing.
I think it was D. L . Moody who famously quipped that the Church is like boat: in order for a boat to be what it was created to be, it must be in water. But if too much of the water gets in the boat it will sink. Similarly, in order for the Church to be what she was created to be she must be in the world. But if too much of the world gets in the Church, she will sink. Okay, so this analogy only goes so far and is admittedly flawed. Don’t miss his point, though.
James Twitchell’s Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From In Your Heart To In Your Face (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007) traces part of the problem to an idea conceived by a man named Mel Stewart. Actually, Mel just capitalized on an idea he saw while driving one day: a moveable type sign in front of a church. Heretofore churches did not typically have large signs since religion was considered private and signage was too public.
He added flourescent lights. He added larger letters. Twitchell thinks he turned American churches on to the idea of branding, the topic which the remainder of the book seeks to address. A fascinating study of the business of church marketing in America.
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