Cramtastic!

Over at the SoMA Review you can read a review I wrote on an important recent book regarding the man who made Princeton a town people love to live in: Ralph Adams Cram.

More Orthodox Women

Some may not understand why, here at millinerd, the subject of medieval women increasingly comes up. Perhaps, as with the musical numbers in Grease, when the topic arises you look the other way and await resumption of the normal plotline. Yet there is a reason.

In the last several decades, outspoken historians have gone to the Middle Ages in search of fast and loose heretical women - women they wished to posthumously recruit to help subvert patriarchy. Fine as it may be to criticize patriarchy (or any other disordered archy), more recent historians have been waking up to the fact that this approach made for grossly unrepresentative history: most medieval women weren't burned at the stake for heresy (a fact accounted for by the perpetuation of the human race through the medieval period).

There were problems with the method besides its inaccuracy. Never mind that such behavior is uncomfortably similar to that of an unrestrained frat-boy on Spring Break (searching for fast-and-loose women); another problem with the method was that it left many orthodox women of the present assuming that church history is against them, when in fact it is heretical women of the present who are, historically speaking, so much more alone.

Corrections to the historical record, so lately warped, have not been coming from sideline scholars. I've already mentioned the esteemed Carolyn Walker Bynum. Also to be noted is Harvard's Jeffrey Hamburger, who has made a successful career out of correcting theoretical trend-mongering in medieval art history:

"Despite the temptation to enlist medieval women in modern struggles, they should not be interpreted exclusively in terms of the opposition between repression or resistance, authority and subversion. Some women, especially those outside religious orders, championed heterodox or heretical beliefs and paid with their lives. But to rehearse or even to romanticize the notion that heresy ran rampant among women is merely to reiterate the preferred charge of their most hostile critics. More often than not, female mystics, at least as idealized by their advisers, served (or were co-opted) as champions of orthodoxy and ecclesiastical reform. Moreover, many nuns were little interested in mysticism, if by mysticism we mean extravagant forms of piety beyond those prescribed by rules and liturgical rites. We should no more imagine enclosed women in a permanent state of ecstasy than we should give credence to the salacious stories of 'wayward' nuns so widely circulated during the later Middle Ages." (31).

Romanticizing heretical women (or men) is to parrot the charge of their most hostile critics. It's a thought worth considering.

Vanity, Vanity

Woody Allen's career has been subject to comment in the five years millinerd has been up and running. An early post (back when my writing style was unforgivably bloggish), posited the connections between Manhattan and Lost in Translation. And it should not go unremarked that Manhattan (bedding a teenager) has become a self-fulfilling prophecy in Allen's life. Yet, it was a necessary film, because Woody, while venerating the town with his black-and-white reverence, sees straight through Manhattan intelligentsia and cuts it perfectly to pieces.

However, Manhattan does not qualify as a pole of Woody's career. The poles are better located between Crimes and Misdemeanors, which brilliantly posits the question of meaning; and Match Point, a remake of the same film which definitively answers the question in the negative. (I suppose one needs there to be no meaning to justify sleeping with one's stepdaughter.)

Aside from some unconvincing acting from Scarlett Johansson, Match Point is one of Woody's finest films, as is it one of the finest atheist films imaginable. Not that I agree with the verdict of meaninglessness, but it's so perfectly expressed. If only Woody had swerved God-ward, what might he have done? Perhaps he still will. But in the meantime, screenings of Match Point might as well accompany Christopher Hitchens' book tour, while verdicts of meaning will depend upon lesser (but not awful) films such as M. Night Shyamalan's Signs.

Woody never had to preach in Crimes and Misdemeanors. Never, in that film, did he invoke the supernatural without a trace of humor. But in Match Point, for the first time in his career (correct me if I'm wrong), he introduces the supernatural with unmistakable seriousness, only to just as seriously dismiss it. This time, for the first time, Woody preaches. One senses in these deus ex machina tactics a fear that he might be wrong on the meaning question, which he is.

In Match Point Allen creates a vacuum-sealed, impenetrable universe with no possibility for meaning. Similar to the film's plot is the novel Crime and Punishment, which makes a brief appearance. But perhaps Allen should read it again, as Dostoevsky's novel and Allen's film come to completely opposite conclusions regarding redemption. Who knows? At the end of the age, Dostoevsky might arise and judge Woody Allen for daring to let Crime and Punishment into his film.

Consider a dinnertime dialog near the beginning of Match Point: "I think despair is the path of least resistance," someone chimes, only to be corrected by the main protaganist who calmly insists, "I think faith is the path of least resistance." But it is at the end of the film when [spoiler alert] the question raised so beautifully by Crimes and Misdeameanors is answered: "It would be fitting if I were apprehended," the perpetrator suggests. "At least there would be some small sign of justice. Some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning." But no apprehension, no meaning. It's all pure chance. We're left with the sentiment that it's better for a newborn child to be lucky than to be good.

The tragedy is that Woody, at the peak of his powers, is half right; and one does not have to give up on meaning to agree with him. Contained within the canon of Holy Scripture is the same idea:

"the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."

Indeed Solomon wrestled with the theme of Match Point already, but knew that such pockets of meaninglessness did not lead to the same overall verdict. Instead, meaninglessness is being slowly conquered by meaning, otherwise known as the Kingdom of God. Ecclesiastes submits Match Point moments to a God who brings meaning still, not to mention fitting apprehension.

Ahh... the Bible. Where one gets all the insights of atheism without having to subscribe to false premises. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Visitations

Church doesn't get much better than last night at Ocean Grove. It's good to go down to Jerusalem-by-the-Sea at least once a season to visit that Hagia Sophia of camp meetings, that Cane Ridge colossus, The Great Auditorium. Careful calculation however is necessary; as it's quite depressing to find that venerable holiness pulpit selling out to stale Seminary trends. Almost as depressing is seeing it host a Willow Creek simulcast to provide - gulp - long-term future direction. Not that there's anything wrong with what God is doing in suburban Chicago; but there does seem to be something wrong, perhaps very wrong, with thinking God must be up to the same thing everywhere else. For more on the heritage that Willow Creek will never have, consult this decent book.

But last night we hit it right. I knew so when the speaker opened her message with a story of a recent research stint at Harvard, not to show off that she'd been to Harvard, but to show that Christians have what Harvard, in this case, does not. Pippert related her psychotherapist professor describing the "psychodynamics" approach which was able to accurately diagnose that the source of a patient's problems. In the case under discussion, the patient hated his mother. Pippert raised her hand and asked what might we then do to help the patient forgive and love his mother. The professor said that was too much to ask, as diagnosing the problem alone is already much to ask. "If you want changed hearts, you're in the wrong department." Following Pippert's anecdote, she delivered a beautiful and intelligent message on Christ's encounter with his disciples in the resurrection, which did in fact change hearts. How encouraging (and rare) to find a Christian not whipped (read: dumbstruck, infatuated) by the Ivy League.

The service was closing communion for the 139th annual camp-meeting, and whoever is running the Great Auditorium is wise enough to lift their Eucharistic liturgy straight from the Book of Common Prayer. The Eucharistic minister who gave us the bread and (of course) grape juice, had the audacity to grab my wife and my hand after we knelt at the altar, look us dead in the eye, and vigorously charge us to rise in the name of Christ "and be well." It was a very Methodist audacity that... cut us both to the heart and ministered to us profoundly - a big risk in pastoral manner that, in this case, paid off.

Such was almost as powerful as the Eucharistic minister at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue last week. When she pointed me with a full-armed gesture towards the altar to receive communion, I felt like she was St. Peter ushering me into heaven itself. It didn't hurt that the Bertrand Goodhue's reredos at St. Tom's surpasses, according to one art historian, any Gothic sculpture in Europe, let alone the U.S.

Two Sundays, two opposite poles of the denominational spectrum: Grassroots Jersey holiness Methodism and the highest of high Manhattan Anglo-Catholicsm, merging thanks to the wisdom that gravitates towards time-tested Eucharistic liturgies. Exciting times these. Especially (perhaps only) when the aforesaid denominations can be caught offguard.

Tibersplashing

I received a most encouraging email. Seems someone was looking for a new church, and they went to a place that was talking about, wait for it... brace yourself... this is really going to get radical so deep breath please... here we go... are you ready? 3, 2, 1... Postmodernity! Oh blessed five syllables... hushed silence please. Alas, typing that sweetest of thirteen-letter combinations has caused me to suddenly transfigure. Down from the mountain, millinerd, come down. You are needed.

On first thought, what could be more certain to send scores of thirsting young minds into languishing churches than replacing robust theological claims with foam from a wave of academic style that crested in 1985? My correspondent, a young hipster, was indeed the target audience of this agenda, but strangely, was not impressed. Indeed, it had the opposite of the intended effect. He was not drawn, but repelled. Later that afternoon, he consulted millinerd, and was encouraged by some posts that remain in the "post-postmodern" left-hand sidebar, hence my encouragement. My work here is done.

However, after eye-rolling at the state of contemporary Protestantism, my correspondent's eyes - longing for truth - turned to Rome. And who can blame him? The unmodified Trinity, which Catholicism is reputed to promote, will always be preferable to the Father, Son and Spirit of the Age. Furthermore, were one not attracted to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, one would need a spiritual checkup. Admiring one's elder siblings is always preferable to ignoring or hating them. There may also come a time when one realizes that one is in fact the other sibling. But for the younger to wish to become the elder sibling would make for odd family dynamics indeed.

The words of Timothy George on Francis Beckwith's conversion in the latest First Things come to mind.

"A year or so before his decision, Beckwith remarked to one of his friends that he wished he had time to delve more deeply into the writings of Luther and Calvin. I, too, wish he had found time for such an encounter, together perhaps with long sojourns in Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Herman Bavinck, and Karl Barth. He might have found deeper resources and a sturdier faith than that on offer in much of the pop evangelical culture today. He would certainly have found there a way of thinking and a pattern of Christian life much more resonant with the apostolic witness and the orthodox faith he so clearly loves."

George continues by reminding us of an obvious reality: Catholic-Protestant conversion is a two-way street.

"An authentic commitment to religious liberty, together with a genuine respect for the truth, requires that we invite and challenge one another to a deeper discipleship to Christ across the historic divides that have separated us into different communions and denominations, even as we renounce un-Christlike attitudes and techniques of proselytism. As we work and pray for Christian unity, we sometimes face ecclesial choices that are difficult to make and even harder to explain to others. While I cannot follow the path Beckwith has taken, I respect the intellectual honesty that has led him to this point, and I bid him Godspeed for the journey ahead."

George concludes with the familiar words of C.S. Lewis: "I believe that in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes."

It may be that my correspondent is genuinely called to Rome, that is, "called to a deeper discipleship to Christ across the historic divides." But his background is sufficiently Protestant that he may need to further explore genuine Protestantism - to be the younger sibling - before becoming the other one. That is to say, he may need dwell in the "heart of [the] division," not on the postmodern fringe. Unfortunately, his "relevant" church experience was a lamentable red-herring, distracting from this more important agenda. Had he joined me at the heartbreakingly beautiful service at St. Thomas' Fifth Avenue in Manhattan this morning, where the sermon was (to my surprise and delight) impeccably orthodox, his Protestant coals might have been stoked.

Protestants, granted they don't forsake their Scriptural birthright, have a purpose. They are a troubled, younger sibling - but a beloved one - in the family of God. As speculated one Catholic,

"Could it not be that [historic church] divisions have also been a path continually leading the Church to discover the untold wealth contained in Christ's Gospel and in the redemption accomplished by Christ? Perhaps all this wealth would not have come to light otherwise..."

That italics-loving Catholic, by the way, was John Paul II (see p. 153), and he may have been onto something. It is almost certain that the Bible would not have been as fully explored had Protestantism never existed. One treasures something more when it's all you've got.

So, I would advise my correspondent, explore Protestantism; which is to say, delve deeper into the Scriptures like they're all you've got. If at all possible, avail yourself of what Mark Noll (see p. 245) called one of the rare "bilingual" options in the Pentecost of ecclesial languages - Anglicanism. In God's providence there happens to be a communion to worship in while one straddles the Protestant-Catholic divide, curdled as that communion may be in many, but not all, of its North American outposts. Or, if the Catholic urge is irresistible, find a place where the blessed sacrament is reserved. Protestants can't eat, but they can tarry with the Lord who is truly present there. It's almost as good.

Finally, consult some of the historic Protestant figures mentioned by Timothy George. But whatever you do, don't read John Henry Newman!

Biblicizing Transformers

Biblicizing movies is my custom. I'm beginning to realize it's less piety than the an attempt to avoid boredom. Fooled by good reviews, I found myself watching Transformers. I concede some good parts, but being bored, I biblicized. Using the fallen angels bit on this film would work, but it's too easy. Instead my one Bible verse review reads: "Get behind me Satan."

Consider that (spoiler alert) towards the end of the movie Optimus Prime says to the teenage hero, "If I can't kill Megatron, I will sacrifice myself," which Optimus solicits the boy's help to do. Then Optimus says something which is inexplicable apart from this millinerd-patented interpretation. He says to the boy emphatically, "Get behind me." Why not, "I'll protect you" or "Watch out." No, it was "Get behind me."

Like Peter, the kid doesn't listen. How is this not a reference to Matthew 16? I'm getting tired in my old age of films with teenagers who can do no wrong and who save the world. It was no different with actor Shiah LaBeouf in "Disturbia" which I was forced to see on a plane. Teenagers can do wrong. In Transformers, the kid's Petrine Messianic triumphalism kept Optimus Prime from becoming a Christ-figure who could sacrifice himself to save the world.