Work in Progress

Last night, a friend asked me what I was working on these days. I told him, "A piece about Philippians 3:12-21, a piece about questions and answers, and a piece about Proverbs 1-9."

I thought you might be interested to see where I'm at with at least one of these... here's my current 1/3-finished Proverbs piece.


(Click image for the bigger, better view.)
+David

Reading Fiction to Understand Culture

Those who care about culture often mourn its absence in America. The land of big bucks and Big Macs has never been so big on some of the other things that make life richer. Way back in 1836, Alexis de Tocqueville observed how America's democratic impulses steered the young nation away from fine arts and the higher things. His words have proved a key to understanding American culture (or the lack of it) ever since.

There is an exception to every rule, and the South is America's exception. There is a distinctively Southern culture, which has produced distinctively Southern fiction. Christianity Today just published this review of Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction, by G. Lee Ramsey, Jr., who explores the South and its fiction by studying the many examples of the preacher in Southern stories.

Ramsey holds up ministers both good and bad from Southern fiction as illustrations of the pastor's calling and responsibilities. He chooses this genre because he considers the South "particularly fertile soil for both religion and fiction." And he is adamant that every minister lives out his or her calling within a particular congregation in a particular place. To be effective, clergy must know their people and the culture in which they serve. As a minister and seminary professor of the South himself, Ramsey calls on Southern fiction to help him explain what churches there look for in a pastor.

Ramsey uses the fictional examples to help real pastors (and seminary students) understand what Southern churches want from their pastor. Authors have the freedom to explore the patterns of pathology, and Southern authors have plenty of opportunity to detail the dysfunctional churches and pathological pastors that make up such a prominent part of the Southern landscape.

But not all pastors are pathological--and Ramsey makes that point. Southern fiction provides rich examples of very human leaders who still intercede for their very human flock. These flesh and blood priests are just as real as the all-too-human scoundrels who use the power of the pulpit for themselves. Father Tim in Jan Karon's Mitford series is as sweet a saint as anyone could ask--who struggles day by day with donuts and diabetes and the thousands small temptations of real life.

Hat tip: Kevin at After Existentialism, Light.