Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Review of Nicholas Wolterstorff's 'Justice in Love' - by Henry Smidstra

Nicholas Wolterstorff. (2011). Justice in Love. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011. A review. Henk Smidstra. Feb. 14, 2013

Wolterstorff’s latest book, Justice in love, is written in his usual philosophically logical style.   This book follows his recent book, Justice: Rights and Wrongs; he now explores and philosophically parses the concept of agapic love as it relates to justice. At times I thought he was splitting hairs of moral philosophy, but then I would have an “aha” moment and discover a significant insight. The book is certainly worth the time of reading and pondering over. He is challenging at times, and quite courageous in critiquing  lex talionis, and the  popular use of Anselm’s  view of atonement influenced by that code of reciprocity (especially the negative, the lex, side of returning evil for evil), rejecting also the attendant necessity of retribution and its conclusions about justice and forgiveness.  As if that Challenge is not enough, he reframes the orthodox Calvinist doctrine of election, and makes helpful distinctions upon a thorough discussion of the meaning of justification as found in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. He, like me, comes from the reformed (CRC) tradition, and I recommend this book for wide reading and dialogue to enrich and broaden dialogue on justice.  Justice talk in Christian circles is common, but is often partially informed and parochially understood; and, we need to develop capacities to think outside the box in our dialogue regarding justice and love issues in our churches, society, and our personal lives to be congruent in our calling as Christ followers. In public, pluralist, settings, there are many opportunities to act as salt and light that can help to build a better world rather than add to its burden of judgment, exclusion, and violence.

To read the rest of this review, click: Download Jinlove2

West-East Divan / Goethe - review by Ron Dart

West-East Divan -- The Poems, with “Notes and Essays”: Goethe’s Intercultural Dialogues (2010), with commentary by Martin Bidney.

Goethe’s book is a pathbreaker, a boundary-crossing intercultural poetic dialogue—one of the most notable and far reaching visions of East-West understanding achieved in modern times.   Martin Bidney p. xxv

I would count Goethe among the wisest well-instructed admirers of the Middle-Eastern cultures he non-dogmatically, entertainingly, and thoughtfully presents. Martin Bidney p. Li

The catastrophe of 9/11 brought the fact and complex reality of Islam closer to those in North America than had been the case in the history of those living in Canada and the USA. Many were baffled, confused and angry about the aggressive nature of Islam. Most, sadly so, know little about Islam other than exotic and romantic tales of the East or the demonized image of the militant, suicide bombers. Is there more to the West and Islam than two cultures waged in a clash of civilizations?

The European Tradition has, since the early Middle Ages, pondered the relationship of Islam and Christianity, Orient and Occident, and there can be little doubt that Goethe’s West-East Divan is one of the crowning achievements of that lengthy intercultural dialogue. Goethe (1749-1832) died 180 years ago this year (2012), so there are plenty of good reasons to turn and heed this icon of German culture. The publication of East-West Divan and Goethe’s “Notes and Essays” is a plough to soil cultural breakthrough. The “Introduction” and ”Commentary Poems for Goethe’s West-East Divan” by Martin Bidney makes for an exquisite dessert after a literary feast from a well prepared table. Goethe would be more than pleased and delighted with Bidney’s palate pleasing literary insights and poetry.

The Journey to the East by Herman Hesse (1956) - Ron Dart

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was one of the most conscious spiritual seekers in his time and one of the finest and most consistent European doves in an age of two world wars and an ethos of overt hawkishness and militarism. Hesse fled Germany to Switzerland because of his opposition to German aggressiveness in WWI, and his many poignant anti-war writings were collected and summed up in If the War Goes On. Hesse settled in Montagnola (near Lugano in the Italian part of Switzerland) and he won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1946 for his classic and probing novel The Glass Bead Game. My wife (Karin) and I had the good fortune of spending time at Hesse’s home/museum in Montagnola in June 2012. It is 50 years in 2012 since Hesse died, and there is a variety of events celebrating Hesse’s prolific and committed life being put on in various parts of Europe in 2012.

Ron Dart's 'The Spirituality of John Cassian' - Reflections by Denys Scully

The Spirituality of John Cassian was written by Ron Samuel Dart, an Anglican layman from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada.  Dart’s 2006 book is a published rework of his Master’s thesis, earned from Regent College in 1981.  (After his first M.A. Dart earned a second from the University of British Columbia, completing then a thesis on “Origen and Anthony,” two men who played a key role in Cassian’s life and ministry.)  Dart is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at University of the Fraser Valley in BC.  He is a prolific writer and teacher who regularly engages the “politics” of church and society in a refreshing but classical manner.  In his personal life Dart commonly exerts his Anglo-Catholic belief and commitment through his mentoring and ecumenical efforts as well as his contemplative practices.  He is also a Thomas Merton scholar, a poet and a mountaineering expert and instructor.  He says clearly in the Preface that he wrote his book out of a commitment to the Church Fathers’ “…more mystical, contemplative and existential way of doing theology in opposition to a more rationalist, confessional and scholastic way of doing theology that dominated much of the Western Tradition” (1).  He was also drawn to Cassian’s “…wise, sane and ecumenical…” thought and theology that brought together the best and wisest of the patristic East and West “…in a transformative way” (2-3).

How One Book Can Change Our Contemplative Posture in the World -- Review by Jeff Imbach

F.S. Michaels’ book, Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything, is a small, very accessible, yet profoundly moving description of the impact of the ascendancy of the Economic Story over other stories we have always taken for granted in our society.  A resident of B.C., Michaels was succinct and clear enough to be the 2011 winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.  I mentioned the book in a previous essay  and thought it might be helpful to come back to the book more carefully. 

A monoculture is the underlying belief structure and values for decision-making that is based on one over-arching master story. Medieval Europe was a monoculture based on religion.  Religion determined decisions that affected all areas of life.  We now live in a Economic Monoculture that determines everything on the basis of economics. 

Review of Anna Yin's 'Wings Toward Sunlight: Poems' -- by Ron Dart

Anna Yin,  Wings Toward Sunlight: Poems, 2011

We had the experience but missed the meaning. -- T.S. Eliot

There is poetry that speaks to the head but never touches the deeper recesses of the heart, and there is poetry that massages the heart but does not really challenge the probing and questioning mind. There is poetry that is so abstract that the seeking soul can become lost in an inner or historic maze, and there is poetry that evokes and awakens, in a tender and suggestive way, the deeper longings of the human soul. Wings Toward Sunlight is poetry of the latter kind. But, there must be an inner quietness and attentiveness to receive the insights offered.

Review of Milton Acorn: In a Springtime Instant -- by Ron Dart

Milton Acorn: In A Springtime Instant: Selected Poems, James Deahl (ed.), 2012.

Milton Acorn (1923-1986) was the most dynamic, controversial and prophetic Canadian Anglican political poet in the latter half of the 20^th century. Acorn was a poet who spoke to the people of Canada and did so in an accessible and not to be forgotten manner. The fact that Acorn was awarded by significant Canadian poets, the Peoples Poet Award in 1970 and the GG Award in 1975 speaks its own convincing language. Who was this poet who offended the trendy left by taking a definite stand on the Pro-Life issue yet offended the political right by opposing capitalism, militarism and American imperialism? Who was this unique Canadian nationalist who flirted with the ideological left but when day was a done was a conscious Red Tory?  Who was this High Church Anglican that was convinced that the purpose and end of the grandeur of the liturgy was justice and peace in the streets and for the working class people? Who was this herald and pioneer in the 1950s of the ecological movement?

Review of Dennis Gruending's 'Pulpit and Politics' -- by Ron Dart

Review of Dennis Gruending, Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life, 2011. By Ron Dart.

I have taught Ideology and Politics for many years, and the dominant ideology that has often shaped how politics and ideology is taught at university is secularism. Such an approach to the teaching of ideology and politics tends to either ignore or marginalize religion. There has been a decided turn by some in the last few years (text books are catching up with such a reality) to both recognize the importance of religion and politics and how ideology, religion and politics inform one another. Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life takes plough to hard soul in this emerging area of research and reflection within the Canadian context. Needless to say, there has been plenty of work done in this area in the USA.

Review of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s "Justice, rights and wrongs" by Henk Smidstra

Book Review by Henk Smidstra on Nicholas Wolterstorff’s book, Justice: rights and wrongs, Princeton University Press. 2008

I found this book by Nicholas Wolterstorff truly relevant in its discussion of the topic of discussion: justice, justice as inherent rights; it was at the same time difficult to read, often abstract and philosophical. The author writes the book to give clarity to this theory of justice, moved by memories of unresolved pain and suffering of injustice that he has seen on many victims’ faces as he worked on international human rights projects.  Wolterstorff is a well published author and professor of Philosophy of a Reformed tradition of thought (Reformed epistemology) that I embrace; this of course added motivation for my delving into this book.  Wolterstorff wishes, not to argue from certitudes, but to encourage dialogic pluralism on this vital topic of justice central to Scripture, and central to human experience. Wolterstorff explains: “My speaking up for the wronged of the world takes the form of this book, of doing what I can to undermine those frameworks of conviction that prevent us from acknowledging that the other [human being] comes before us bearing a claim on us, and offering an alternative framework, one that opens us up to such acknowledgment (p. IX).  Wolterstorff’s book is thus an elaboration of his framework for justice which he names, justice as inherent rights, and he wishes to “undermine” confidence in a popular understanding of justice as right order.  Wolterstorff will put his emphasis for the grounding of his theory of justice on the inherent value of human beings; and right order theorists place primary grounding on a “matrix…. of divine, natural, and human laws or objective obligations  for the ordering justice of political community” (p.29). The issue of grounding is in focus throughout the book.

AN IMPOSSIBLE BIBLE? Review by Joe Beach

AN IMPOSSIBLE BIBLE?   by Joe Beach

I recently read a book that I just couldn’t put down. Book lovers know what I mean.  You glance at a book, you pick it up, peruse it, start reading it, and simply cancel all other reading until you’ve finished. Worse, when you do finish, you’re, sort of, sad that it ends – the same way you feel at the end of a great movie or a great meal.  Sometimes, though, these same books (or movies or meals) surprise you by being somewhat uncomfortable at first. Later, you end up enjoying them – even if you’re still not totally “sure” about what you think. 

That book was Christian Smith’s, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. You can probably already tell that I liked the book and, for the most part, agreed with its proposal. You can also probably tell, from the subtitle of that book, that Dr. Smith’s book is a critique and that the target of his critique is something called “Biblicism.” The subject of this book is, obviously, the Holy Bible – the Holy Scriptures of the Christian Church – and how we should read it. 

Bos and Forest's 'For the Peace from Above' - Review by Ron Dart

Fr. Hildo Bos & Jim Forest (eds.), For the Peace from Above : An Orthodox Resource Book on War, Peace and Nationalism, 2011.

My wife asked me a couple of weeks ago when we were on a retreat in the desert a leading question. ‘If I was on a deserted Island for a few years, what three books would I want with me?’ I pondered the answer to the question for a few days. Our answers to such questions often tell us much about the state and orientation of our soul. My answer emerged after some listening: Bible, Tolstoy’s War and Peace (of the six editions, the longest and complete one) and the Adages (all 4151 of them) of Erasmus. What do all three books have in common? All deal with both the subtle inner and outer dimensions of war and peace. The Bible constantly returns to the war-peace motif, Tolstoy’s War and Peace is the finest novel ever written on the theme, and Erasmus is, probably, one of the most important Christian theologians of peace within the Christian Tradition. So, it was with much delight and anticipation that I received and read For the Peace from Above: An Orthodox Resource Book on War, Peace and Nationalism.

Rowan Williams' 'A Silent Action: Engagements with Thomas Merton' - Review by Ron Dart

November 18 2011

Dear Ron,
A quick word of thanks for your wonderfully generous and stirring review. I’m specifically glad that you flagged up the ecumenical character of the book as it emerged. Thanks so much.
Yours Ever
Rowan Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury     

Review of R. Williams' A Silent Action - by Ron Dart

There are books that thread together, in explicit and implicit ways, a variety of themes and ecumenical connections. There are missives that are compact in their words said and thoughts articulated that need to be read not for information but wisdom and insight. There are contemplatives, intellectuals and theologians that both challenge a dated and waning way of knowing and being and point the way to paths with forgotten yet evocative clearings-----A Silent Action: Engagements with Thomas Merton is a book of such calibre and note.

I was introduced to Thomas Merton in the 1970s and read most of his writings then. I attended Regent College on the West Coast of Canada from 1979-1981 and when there wrote more than fifteen papers on Merton’s life and writings. I have been on the national executive of the Thomas Merton Society of Canada (TMSC) for almost ten years. So, I have some interest and commitment to Merton’s significant role in the renewal of contemplative theology, an ecumenical ecclesiology and a prophetic public witness via prose and poetry. 

Thomas Talbott's, 'The Inescapable Love of God' - Review by Ron Dart

C.S. Lewis wrote his evocative missive, The Great Divorce: A Dream, in response to the universalism of one of his mentors, George Macdonald, and as a reply of sorts to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Lewis walked the extra mile in The Great Divorce to probe the multiple nuances of human choice and freedom and how, when push comes to shove, humans can subvert and sabotage the very freedom that is held so high. There is, at core, the generous grace of God (that comes by many means) and there is human response (or lack of it) to such grace and love. What is the ultimate and final fate (if such an answer can be given ) of humans that chose to say No to Divine grace? Or, can a definitive No ever be the final word?

There are those that argue through the use of certain Biblical texts that eternal punishment and the flames of hell await those that turn their backs on God. Others hold to an annihilationist position. Many are not sure how to make sense of the trying tension of God’s persistent love and human responses to it. There are many hot button issues within the Christian exegetical, theological and philosophical tradition, but there has been a tendency to insist that those who hold to a position of universalism are either heretical or heterodox---such a position is certainly not orthodox for many. Needless to say, there are many Christians (from various traditions within the Tradition) that have held to different types of universalism. The Inescapable Love of God, by Thomas Talbott, stands within such a line and lineage. Talbott is, in many ways, one of the most literate and thoughtful universalists of our time, hence his insights and arguments need to be closely heard and heeded.

Brad Jersak - "Her Gates" Nexus Interview part 1

Brad Jersak on "Her Gates Will Never Be Shut" with Peg Peters 

Peg Peters of Nexus interviews Brad Jersak (listening prayer guy) on his book, 'Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell and the New Jerusalem.

9/11 and Brueggemann's 'Disruptive Grace' -- Joe Beach

Well, I got through 9/11...   I preached on Eph. 1:10 (as scheduled) about God's Wonderful Plan to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth under Christ...

I tried to somehow tie this to "remembering well" - with insights from Miroslav Volf.

But what I should have done is prophesy. 

What I should have said was what Brueggemann would have said:

We are situated, as prophets most often are, in a national security state that imagines itself to be autonomous and ultimate, an act of distorted imagination that puts us on a path to death...

The national security state MAKES PROMISES it cannot keep, promises of well being and safety;

The national security state invites systemic and PERVASIVE ANXIETY from which it offers no respite;

The national security state breeds efforts at a RELIGION OF CERTITUDE that is sure to be idolatrous.

Prophetic ministry is to expose such a state of mind and such an ideology of public life, to name the false PROMISES, the pervasive ANXIETY, and the ill-gotten CERTITUDE. Prophetic ministry, in the face of such lethal practice, offers a world of fidelity that is alternative to the ersatz world of security and certitude.

Against such formidable claims, prophetic ministry proceeds one text at a time - 

one oracle, one poem, one narrative, one metaphor -

that leads to VULNERABILITY and SURPRISE.

Such practice is not carping; it is not scolding; it is not confrontation.

It is, rather, a TRUTH that makes free, a HOPE that heals.

There is a desperate waiting among us for such a performance.

Amos, in justifying his venturesome vocation, did so with two statements and two rhetorical questions (Amos 3:8):

Statement: The lion has roared;

Question: Who will not fear?

Statement: The Lord God has spoken;

Question: Who can but prophesy?

From Amos to us, the question lingers and haunts, Who indeed?

Excerpted from Walter Brueggemann, Disruptive Grace (Fortress Press, 2011), 154.

 

 

Thomas Merton's, The Behavior of Titans -- 50 Year Review by Ron Dart

Thomas Merton, The Behavior of Titans (New York: A New Directions Book, 1961).

St. Justin Martyr refers to Herakleitos, along with Socrates, as a “Saint” of pre-Christian paganism…the logos of Herakleitos seems to have much in common with the Tao of Lao-tse as well as with the Word of St. John.  (Thomas Merton)                             

Fools, when they do hear, are like the deaf: of them does the saying bear witness that they are absent when present. (Herakleitos)

He that is awake lights up from sleeping. (Herakleitos)     

There is a kind of self-fulfillment that fulfills nothing but your illusory self. (Br. Steindl-Rast)             

I have recently been rereading the rather informed and amusing The Way it Wasn’t: From the Files of James Laughlin (2006). Laughlin was the energy and inspiration behind A New Directions Book Press, and he published many of Thomas Merton’s books. Laughlin has a few tantalizing tidbits about Merton in The Way it Wasn’t.  It was Laughlin that published Merton’s The Behavior of Titans in 1961, and to this Perennial relevant and compact missive (50 years later) we now turn.

John Watson's 'Listening to Islam' -- Review by Ron Dart

John Watson, Listening to Islam with Thomas Merton, Sayyid Qutb, Kenneth Cragg and Ziauddin Sardar: Praise, Reason and Reflection (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005).

 How is the post-secular pluralist west to make sense of Islam? There has been, of course, ongoing interaction between Christianity and Islam since the 7^th century of the Common Era (CE). But, in the last few decades Europe (and even more so North America) has had to deal with the increasing reality of Islam. Europe has been much more at the forefront of engaging Islam than has been North America, but since 9/11 North America has had to face the growing presence of Islam in a much more thoughtful manner.

Response to Larry Dixon’s “Farewell, Rob Bell” by Wayne Northey

Larry Dixon and I were once friends and colleagues doing evangelism together on the streets of West Berlin in the early seventies. I eventually wrote a novel based on that experience (http://chrysaliscrucible.blogspot.com/) that treats in part this theme.  One may in fact detect an uncanny likeness to Larry in one of my novel’s characters.  

This response to his latest book, Farewell, Rob Bell, is an invitation to renew our dialogue. Perhaps Larry would also be open to discussion around Kevin Miller’s upcoming documentary, Hellbound?

The book is the author’s second go at hell.  Larry argued in his first book on the doctrine of hell that there is not Good News, period, but there exists as “gospel” supplement “The Other Side of the Good News”, the book’s title.  I believe Larry is right: there is another side, and it is indeed “hell”.  Only this is not a hell of God’s doing, but of human postulating.  As C.S. Lewis expressed it in The Screwtape Letters: “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’ ”  It seems Larry would “have it his way” and hold out for a teaching on a “hell” of “eternal conscious torment”.

To Hell or Not to Hell - Ron Dart (with Kevin Miller and Archbishop Lazar Puhalo)

Thomas Talbott. Universal Salvation? The Current Debate. Ed. by Robin Parry & Christopher Partridge. Foreword by Gabriel Fackre. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003

In this work evangelicals are talking to one another about the controverted question of universalism. It’s a conversation worth overhearing by the wider theological world. Indeed, the authors are much in dialogue with those reaches already, for careful attention is given to the history of the issues in the church universal, and to the contemporary debate in circles beyond, as well as within, evangelicalism. -- Gabriel Fackre

The reason that mature thinkers root and ground themselves in the fullness of the Great Tradition of Christian thought is simple yet often ignored. There is an animated and thoughtful dialogue that has taken place within the history of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ about a variety of perennial issues, and the means used to reach conclusions and conclusions reached are not always one and the same.

The Great Tradition has many traditions, and each tradition can, sadly so, slip into a sort of mindless traditionalism. Many are either born into a tradition or come to the faith journey within a tradition that is merely part of the Great Tradition. The danger, of course, and it is a perennial one, is that many often shrink their understanding of the Great Christian Tradition to the tradition that they assume is the fullness of faith. This is like taking a leaf on a branch on a trunk on a tree in a forest and calling the leaf, branch and tree one sits under the forest. Or, to change the metaphor, many assume the watery stream they sit beside is the only river that flows from the great ocean of faith.

Review of Ron Dart and Brad Jersak's 'George P. Grant: Canada's Lone Wolf' by Robert Martens

Ron Dart and Brad Jersak, George P. Grant, Canada's Lone Wolf: Essays in Political Philosophy. Abbotsford: Fresh Wind Press, 2011. 120 pp.

What is liberalism, and what conservatism? Over time, these terms have degenerated into clichés useful mainly for mudslinging and fingerpointing. George Grant, in his brief and enigmatic Lament for a Nation, articulated a vision of what "liberal" and "conservative" essentially mean. His open, suggestive style of writing, however, leaves room for a wide and healthy variety of interpretation. In their new book of essays, George P. Grant, Canada's Lone Wolf, Ron Dart and Brad Jersak help clear the air by introducing and then analyzing the ideas, or perhaps more accurately, the proposals of Canada's great philosopher.