Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Stephen Leacock: Bred in the Bone by Ron Dart

He (Leacock) was more famous than this country -- Don Herron

It is the 100th anniversary in 2012 of one of the classics of Canadian literature. Many do not read Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town these days, but when the missive was published in 1912, Leacock had most Canadians holding both their sides in laughter. Leacock became, in many ways, a pioneer of the distinctive Canadian genre of irony and humour, and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town was published in many editions. When Leacock died in late March 1944, The New York Herald Tribune suggested that “Stephen Leacock, surely, was the First Citizen of Canada”--indeed, high words of praise for an Anglican, political economist, raconteur and literary genius.

Stephen Leacock: A Centennial Celebration by Ron Dart

 [Leacock] was more famous than this country. -- Don Herron

In Canada, I belong to the Conservative party. -- Stephen Leacock

At McGill, as at Ottawa Collegiate, I was blessed with teachers. Stephen Leacock, head of the department of Economics and Political Science, was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known. He was an ardent conservative and fierce Canadian nationalist. -- Eugene Forsey

Political Science, then, deals with the state; it is, in short, as it is often termed, the “theory of the state”. -- Stephen Leacock, Elements of Political Science (1906)

Who was Stephen Leacock, as a thinker and activist, before the publication of his best selling books of humour such as Literary Lapses (1910), Nonsense Novels (1911), Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), Behind the Beyond (1913) and Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich (1914)? There is no doubt that Leacock was launched in a certain direction with these bumper crop book sales. He established himself as the central writer in Canada with these slim missives. But, there is more to the tale to tell. Leacock was 41 years of age when Literary Lapses left the publishing tarmac in 1910. What had he thought and written before 1910?

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part IV - Ron Dart

            Deification expresses human salvation as in inward process

            of transformation experienced within the life of the Church

           and leading to mystical union with God. As St. Basil put it, man

           is nothing less than a creature that has received the order to

           become god.                                              Chris Jensen

                                                         Road to Emmaus:  Vol.VIII, No. 2 (#29)

Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture should be warmly congratulated and generously supported for their willingness to ponder the affinities between C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition. I have, in a previous article, reflected on the Road to Emmaus article-interview with Herman Middleton, ‘An Old Western Man: C.S. Lewis in Light of Orthodox Christianity’

(Vol. VIII, No. 1 # 28). I have also commented on the insights and problems of Timothy Ware’s article on Lewis as an anonymous or implicit Orthodox that was published in Sobornost (the same article was also published with much the same content in The Pilgrim’s Guide: C.S. Lewis and the Art of Witness: 1998). The fact Road to Emmaus has dealt with two articles on Lewis is more than worth noting.

Erasmus and the Fathers - with Ron Dart and Archbishop Puhalo

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part III -- Ron Dart

Again and again we have found that C.S. Lewis articulates a vision of Christian truth which a member of the Orthodox Church can whole heartedly endorse. His starting-point may be that of a Western Christian, but repeatedly his conclusions are Orthodox, with a large as well as a small ‘o’.

-- Bishop Timothy Ware 

Bishop Timothy Ware (Kallistos of Diokleia) gave a lecture to the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society on November 29^th 1994. The lecture was called ‘C.S. Lewis: an anonymous Orthodox’? The lecture was then published in Sobornost (the flagship magazine for the Society St. Alban and St. Sergius) in 1995. The idea that Lewis might be an anonymous Orthodox was, as Ware mentioned, suggested by a ‘senior Greek bishop from Constantinople’. The fact that Ware flags the pointer with a question mark is a hint and way into this lecture turned published article.

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition: Part II -- by Ron Dart

For the most part, I find he (Lewis) is very close to Orthodoxy….Through this honest search, he came to many positions that the Orthodox Fathers hold as well. --Herman Middleton         

ROAD TO EMMAUS is a Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture, and it began in 2000. Many is the fine article that have emerged from ROAD TO EMMAUS, and ‘An Old Western Man: C.S. Lewis in Light of Orthodox Christianity’ (Vol. VIII, No. 1: #28) is more than worth the read. The article is done in an interview style between the editor of ROAD TO EMMAUS and Herman Middleton. Middleton has walked a creative path—a graduate of Wheaton College (Vatican of the American Evangelical Tradition and home of Lewis archives), post- Wheaton life as a theology student in Thessalonica Greece, author of the Orthodox classic, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit’ and at the time of the interview, doing doctoral studies on C.S. Lewis from an Orthodox perspective. Middleton is the perfect person, therefore, to reflect on Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition.

What are some of the reasons those committed to the Orthodox Tradition might be interested in Lewis?

C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition (pt. 1) by Ron Dart

In Great Britain … in the bookshop of the Russian Cathedral at Ennismore Gardens in London there are basically two types of books on sale: Orthodox books and a huge array of the writings of C.S. Lewis.

- Andrew Walker

There have been, over the last two decades, a variety of articles researched, written and published on C.S. Lewis and the Orthodox Tradition. There are reasons for this, and in the next five essays, I will discuss and describe each of these approaches to Lewis and Orthodoxy, and reflect on paths opened up between Western and Eastern Christendom as a result of Lewis’ spacious and catholic understanding of the faith journey.

Philokalia - Pt. 2 - with Ron Dart and Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

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.

Intro to the Philokalia - Archbishop Lazar Puhalo and Ron Dart

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. 

Occupy Wall Street/Vancouver and Thomas More/Erasmus by Ron Dart

The Occupy Wall Street/Vancouver (and other cities) has garnered much media attention the last few weeks. The main concerns of the ‘Occupy’ movement have a great deal of legitimacy to them, and emerge from obvious injustices and imbalances of wealth and power. Are such issues new, though, and do they have a perennial ring about them? How have those in the past thought about such issues (that is those who saw them as issues rather than denying or justifying the problem)? Is in the street protest and advocacy politics the only and most responsible way to confront such inequities?

Thomas More was Lord Chancellor of England in the early 16^th century, and he was acutely aware of the disparities of wealth and power in his country. More had a tender and exacting conscience, and he did not flinch from asking and acting on the hard questions. More’s missive, Utopia (1516), pulls no punches nor does it flinch from probing to the core the larger justice and peace issues. More would, in many ways, have a great deal of affinity with the Occupy movement. Book I of Utopia is a must read--there is a poignant and not to be forgotten conversation between More and Raphael that is a keeper. The late 15^th and early 16^th centuries in Europe was a period of time in which many States in Europe were turning to the Americas to establish colonies. The empires were very much at work to extend their global reach.

The 16th Century Peace Tradition: Anabaptism, Erasmus and the English Vision by Ron Dart

There is a predictable tendency when reading the 16^th century to highlight the fact that the Magisterial Reformers of the Continent (Luther and Calvin), although breaking from the Roman Catholic tradition and initiating the Protestant Reformation, were still deeply catholic. What do I mean when I say this?

The mainstream of the Protestant Reformation (Luther, Calvin and followers) held to a magisterial notion of the relationship between church and state. The state was the political arms and legs of the church, and when the state had to use violence in war or repress political or theological dissent, most of the magisterial reformers supported the state in its use of violence to do so. It is significant to note that although the Protestant Reformers held high the authority of the Bible, they were quite selective in both how the Bible was interpreted and applied. The Sermon on the Mount became a crossroads criteria that highlighted the fact some texts had greater authority than others. The Sermon on the Mount has much to say about loving enemy, being peacemakers and living a prophetic vocation.

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.

The Gift of the Desert - Ron Dart and Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

Ron Dart and Archbishop Lazar discuss the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers in the context of our present era.

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.

Thomas Merton and Personhood -- Ron Dart & Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

John Stott: Evangelical Abba (April 1921-July 2011) by Ron Dart

The death of John Stott will be mourned by countless Christians around the world.

(Archbishop Rowan Williams)

I was young and keen to learn much about the Christian faith in the late 1960s-early 1970s, and high on my reading list were books by F.F. Bruce, C.S. Lewis and John Stott. I appreciated Bruce’s breadth and depth, Lewis is an ocean I’m still swimming about in, and Stott had a mild and gentle approach, as an evangelical, that was quite winsome and winning. Five Evangelical Leaders (1984), by Christopher Catherwood, listed John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Francis Schaeffer, James Packer and Billy Graham as dominant leaders in the Evangelical ethos. If I had to choose one of the five as my guide, Stott would be my choice.  

Time Magazine in 2005 listed Stott as one of the hundred most influential people in the world, and the ripple effect of Stott’s life has gone in many directions. I lived with Francis/Edith Schaeffer and the L’Abri community in Switzerland from 1973-1974, and in 1974 The International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland. John Stott was a mature Abba for the Evangelical tribe at the large Congress. In fact, there was moderate and discerning wisdom to Stott’s leadership that charted a solid and sane path for the evangelical family. If more had rightly heeded Stott’s gentle insights, the evangelical clan would have more credibility today.

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.

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.

Deuterocanonical Authority: The Real Authority by Ron Dart

Many within the reformed and evangelical traditions hold high the authority of the Bible, and such a tribe assents to the position that the Bible is the inspired, infallible and errant word of God. Those who uncritically accept such a position often fail to see that they dwell within an ethos that works, in fact, with two levels of authority. There is the Bible that acts as a formal and material source of authority (de jure) and there is the interpretive and factual (de facto) reality that is also authoritative. The Bible must always be interpreted, and it is in the interpretation (often not reflected upon) that a second or deuterocanonical form of authority emerges. There are many who naively assume that their interpretation of the Bible has the same authority as the Bible. In short, the Bible as authority (de jure) equals the authority of their interpretation (de facto).

An Orthodox Anglican Conversation (Pt. 1) - Dart and Puhalo

Thomas Merton and Nouvelle Theologie by Ron Dart

If I can unite in myself the thought and the devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russian with the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come a visible and manifest unity of all Christians…. We must contain all divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ. 

Thomas Merton -- Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander 

I

Historic Context

The centre of Thomas Merton Studies in Canada, since the historic 1978 ‘The Thomas Merton Symposium’ in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been on the West Coast. The Thomas Merton Reading Room is at Vancouver School of Theology (where the symposium was held), and most on the national executive of the Thomas Merton Society of Canada (TMSC) live on the West Coast of Canada. There is, therefore, a thriving interest in Merton on the West Coast of Canada.

There have also emerged in the last decade from the West Coast two challenging books from the probing mind of Hans Boersma from Regent College: Nouvelle Theologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (2009) and the more popular Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (2011). These two books have brought into sharp focus the essential role the 19^th-20 century New Theologians of the Roman Catholic church played in calling the church back to her grounding, rooting and ancient sources of renewal. The Roman Catholic tradition had become stalled and frozen, in many ways, in the Tridentine paradigm and confessional commitment, between the 16^th century and Vatican II. There was a narrowing between Trent and Vatican II within the much fuller and deeper Roman Catholic way. The earlier 16^th century humanists such as John Colet, Thomas More, Erasmus and Juan Vives, for example, had a broader understanding of their faith than Tridentine Catholicism. Erasmus was even put on the Index at Trent and remained there until Vatican II.

Stephen Harper, Conservative Evangelicals and Zionism by Ron Dart

Harper has backed Israel with such fervour that veteran scholars and diplomats rank it as the most dramatic shift in the history of postwar Canadian foreign policy.  

-- Marci McDonald, The Armagedddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada p.311

Let me tell you friends, our government believes those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada. We have stood with Israel even when it has not been popular to do so, and we will continue to stand with Israel just as we have said we would.

-- Stephen Harper 

The Fraser Valley has been aptly called the Bible Belt of British Columbia, and Abbotsford has been tagged the buckle of the Bible Belt. Many in the Bible Belt are conservative evangelicals, and there is a tendency amongst such a tribe to be pro-Zionist.  The publication of Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor in the summer of 2010 garnered poignant responses. Boosters and knockers of the tome were aplenty, but the knockers were vocal and eager to slam the book. Marci had done a couple of lengthy interviews with me as part of her research for the book, and her chapter on American-Canadian Zionism was guaranteed to get a heated response. I had read her book once off the press, and I arranged for Marci to give a lecture on The Armageddon Factor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford in the autumn of 2010.

Rowan Williams' 'Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert' -- Review by Ron Dart

I was in my 20s in the 1970s and eager to know, in a more meaningful way, what theology as wisdom, as insight, as a transformative journey was all about. I had studied a great deal of biblical, historic, systematic and confessional theology in England and Switzerland in my spiritual quest, but I realized that such an approach left much missing at a deeper and more significant level. I wondered whether I was the problem or whether the church had taken some questionable turns in the path in her recent history. I could, of course, stayed on the trail I was on, but I could see both a cliff’s edge and cul-de-sac not far ahead.

The Beats of the North Cascades by Ron Dart

A braid of circumstances ties the Beat Generation to the North Cascades. In the early 1950s, a weary America turned its attention to getting ahead after enduring the Depression and WWII---and in that era of the man in the gray flannel suit, a group of literary rebels hit the road and the trail. While the Lost Generation found its refuge and inspiration in Paris, the Beats found their safe harbour in the North Cascades as well as in San Francisco’s North Beach.                                                                   

   James Martin, North Cascades Crest: Notes and Images from America’s Alps (1999) p.58

    There is a historic tendency to date the origins of a deeper ecological awareness in North America to the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962. There is no doubt that Carson’s incisive missive woke many to troubling ecological issues, but there were sensitive canaries in the toxic mineshaft before Silent Spring left the publishing tarmac.

    On October 7, 1955, the poet Kenneth Rexroth orchestrated the most famous Beat Generation poetry reading in history, one that joined Columbia-educated, Greenwich Village Beat writers—Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac— with the ecologically minded “mountain Beats” of the West— Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder—at San Francisco’s Six Gallery. It was that night when Allen Ginsberg read his poem “Howl” for the first time in public. But for Kerouac, Whalen, and Snyder, a Western landscape far from that gallery touched their work deeply.

Reversing the Reversal: Contemplation and Action - By Ron Dart

George Grant was drawn to Martin Heidegger for the simple reason that Heidegger was, probably, one of the most severe critics of the modern way of doing philosophy and the western understanding of mind and what it means to think.  Heidegger was convinced that western philosophy had lost its way, and rationalism led to a cul-de-sac that diverted the longing pilgrim from a deeper notion of being. Heidegger’s commitment to philosophy had a great deal to do with returning to the ancient way marks and a pointing of the way to wisdom and contemplation. Grant was convinced that the clearing that Heidegger was a guide towards offered more possibilities than the sterility of modern philosophy.

Grant was not only drawn to Heidegger’s commitment to contemplation and wisdom as an antidote and corrective to rationalism and a hyper activism, but Heidegger’s turn to the ancient Greeks was a turn that Grant also made, but did so with a difference. Grant agreed with Heidegger that much modern philosophy was lost in a dark wood with few paths out, but he differed with Heidegger on what wisdom and contemplation might mean on the journey.

Hans Boersma's 'Heavenly Participation' -- Review by Ron Dart

Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry, Eerdman’s Publishing 2011.

Hans Boersma has done it again. Heavenly Participation is, in many ways, a compact, succinct and incisive synthesis of Boersma’s earlier books, Violence, Hospitality and Cross and Nouvelle Theologie and Sacramental Ontology. This third book continues the probes into the riches of the Patristic Tradition, and what such an unearthing can mean for a critique of modernity and postmodernity.

Janus, Terrorism and Peacemaking by Ron Dart

Janus, Terrorism and Peacemaking

For it was a witty and a truthful rejoinder which was given by a pirate to Alexander the Great. The King asked the fellow, ‘What is your idea, in infesting the sea?’ And the pirate answered with uninhibited insolence, ‘The same as yours, as in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate: Because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor’.

St. Augustine City of God (Book IV, Chapter IV)

I

Emperors and Pirates

Janus was, in Roman myth, the god who had two faces, one at the front and the other at the back of his head. Janus looked in both directions, and, being able to do so, could not be taken in by a single perspective. The language of terrorism is very much with us these days, and the political use of the term has certainly intensified since 9-11. Janus can very much be a guide for us in this paper, as we ponder how the language of terrorism is employed, who uses it and to what end. In short, it is essential to gaze in all directions as we dissect the functional use of the language of terrorism.

The apt and insightful passage from St. Augustine in City of God mentioned above can, if heeded, clarify some often ignored realities. Terrorists are usually defined as those that threaten and disrupt the national security of the state. This does beg an important and significant question, though. What have been the decisions made by a state, at domestic and foreign policy levels, that threaten national security? The terrorists, like the pirates, are usually seen as the problem, but the state, like Alexander, is exempt from such questioning and scrutiny. And yet, it is often the state, like Alexander, that has much greater capacity to silence opposition and use greater violence against the pirates-terrorists.  Many states often, in domestic and foreign policy, oppress and terrorize others through the use of death squads and the military, but when those who have been terrorized dare to fight back (with fewer arms and less sophisticated technology), they are branded with the terrorist term. Alexander can inflict massive hardships and brutality on people, but because he is emperor, he cannot be defined as a terrorist. The small scale pirates that oppose the emperor are called the terrorists. This simple yet often ignored point must be held front and centre in our understanding of how ‘terrorism’ is used. The large and vicious sharks are not seen as such, but the smaller fish, when they, in their limited sort of way, attack the sharks, are seen as the enemies of state security.  Let me offer a few illustrations of this point.

Compassionate Fire -- Review by Ron Dart

Review: Compassionate Fire: The Letters of Thomas Merton & Catherine de Hueck Doherty (Indiana:  Ave Maria Press, 2009) ed. Robert Wild.

I owe much to Catherine

 Thomas Merton

Father Louis, in some strange mysterious way I never quite understood, was in part my spiritual son.

Catherine Doherty

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was one of the most significant writers on the contemplative life in the 20^th century, and his life and writings continue to have a meaningful impact on the lives of many. Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985) was almost twenty years Merton’s senior, but when they met at Friendship House in Harlem (NY) in 1941, a friendship was birthed that lasted until Merton’s untimely death in 1968. Robert Wild edited two books on Catherine de Hueck Doherty in 2009: Comrades Stumbling Along: The Friendship of Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Dorothy Day as Revealed through Their Letters and Compassionate Fire: The Letters of Thomas Merton & Catherine de Hueck Doherty.   

Amos: the Lion Roars - by Ron Dart

The Jewish Tradition, at its noblest and finest, has bequeathed to the Western Tradition a high and noble ethical vision.   The oral prophets such as Elijah and Elisha never flinched from staring down power when those in power used it in a way that abused the weaker and less fortunate. The minor and major prophets embodied the best of the oral prophetic tradition and left the West a literate and passionate tale of faith and politics. Amos, like Jonah and Hosea, were active in the 8^th century BCE, and they initiated the path and passage of the Minor Prophets. There is no doubt that these Jewish prophets tell us a great deal about their understanding of who God is and the relationship between God, Israel, dominant empires and the social/political/economic/military conditions of the time.

Language of Fire: The Rhetoric of Hate and Violence - Symposium with Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, Ron Dart, and David Goa

A video symposium on religio-political incendiary language from the murder of Hypatia to our current crisis. David Goa asks, 'Is there a way to hold to a serious faith commitment without demonizing those that genuinely disagree with us?'

In this interview, Ron Dart refers to the movie, Agora (starring Rachel Weisz) that recalls the perpetually relevant life and death of Hypatia. Below is the trailer.

Thomas Merton: Peacemaker by Ron Dart

Thomas Merton: Peacemaker

I think that Thomas Merton could easily be called the greatest spiritual writer and spiritual master of the twentieth century in English speaking America. There is no other person who has such a profound influence on those writing on spiritual topics, not only on Catholics but non-Catholics, as Merton has.

Lawrence Cunningham, Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton p.183          

With Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton (1915-1968) personified the potential of the Catholic peace tradition in America. Merton stands out as one of the most brilliant peacemakers in the entire Catholic tradition.                               

 Ronald Musto, The Catholic Peace Tradition p. 249

Merton never fully embraced pacifism. Like Thomas More and Erasmus, he believed in the theoretical applicability of the just war. Yet, like the Renaissance Humanists, he looked at the horrors of contemporary warfare and concluded that the just war theory was irrelevant in practice. He was, in fact, one of the first “nuclear pacifists”.                                         

Ronald Musto, The Catholic Peace Tradition  p. 250

 

 I   Merton: War and Peace 

Thomas Merton began his best selling first autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), with these poignant and telling words:

On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of great war, and down in the shadow of some mountains on the border of Spain, I came into the world.

Merton, indeed, came into the world ‘in a year of great war’.  WW I dominated Europe when Merton was born, he lived through the carnage of WW II, the Korean War, McCarthy-Cold War years and the emergence and devastating nature of the Vietnam War. Merton’s social conscience became more public with the civil rights movement in the late 1950s, the nuclear threat, the rise of ecological consciousness and much American domestic violence in the 1950s-1960s. In short, Merton lived through a period in 20^th century history in which war and violence were the order of the day, and he sought, through a variety of means, to be a moderate and peacemaking voice and presence. How did Merton become the significant peacemaker that he did, and what was Merton’s understanding of peacemaking? This short paper will, in a suggestive and historic way, answer these questions.

Erasmus, the Eastern Fathers and the Great Tradition by Ron Dart

The name of Erasmus will never perish

John Colet (1516)

Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom than any which Europe has seen for ages.

Thomas More 

The chief aim of Erasmus in his life’s work as a humanist scholar was to restore theology. In his times this meant to replace the theology then being taught and practiced as a professional science by a more adequate study of Holy  Scripture and the Fathers of the early Church.

John Olin

Erasmus was a wild bird, willing to be caressed but refusing to sing in a cage.

Those who have dipped into the life and prolific writings of Erasmus (1466-1536) might be aware of the importance and significance of the Praise of Folly. Others know Erasmus well because of his Adages and Colloquies. The voluminous correspondence of Erasmus holds the attention of others. The clash between Luther and Erasmus is part of Reformation lore and legend.

The fact that Erasmus was put on the Index makes him an activist and writer of some interest. The peace theology of Erasmus makes him an anomaly of sorts in the war stricken 16^th century. Many 1^st generation Anabaptists cut their peace tradition teeth by sitting at the feet of Erasmus in Basel. Erasmus was front and centre in heralding and doing new translations of the Bible. But, Erasmus was deeply committed as a Christian humanist and renaissance scholar in bringing to the fore the Fathers of the Church.

Erasmus then and now -- by Ron Dart

 The name of Erasmus will never perish.

John Colet

Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom than any which Europe has seen for ages.

Thomas More

What would the Christian Church be like today if the guidance and wisdom of Erasmus in the early 16^th century had been followed rather than the reactionary protestant thinking of Luther or Calvin or the equally brittle response of the Roman Catholic stance at the Treaty of Trent? What is it about Erasmus that towers, Everest like, above the lesser peaks on all sides?

Erasmus was put on the Roman Catholic Index for raising hard questions about the tradition he refused to leave. Protestants were drawn to the incisive and prophetic like insights of Erasmus, but were irritated by the fact he would not break from Rome and the unity of the church.

What can Erasmus speak to us today across the long ridges of time? There are six areas I will briefly touch on in this brief overview.

Review of William Nicholls, 'Christian Antisemitism' and Don Lewis, 'The Origins of Christian Zionism' -- by Ron Dart

William Nicholls, CHRISTIAN ANTISEMITISM: A History of Hate,  (London: Jason Aronson Inc., 1993).

Don Lewis, The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

The Christian Tradition is a child of the much older Jewish Tradition, and as a youthful Christianity challenged and broke from its parent heritage, varied reactions and responses have been the order of the centuries. Many have been the books written on the Christian relationship to Judaism, but two tomes have emerged in the last twenty years that embody and reflect opposite views of the Christian attitude towards Judaism.

Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate takes a decided position on the issue. Nicholls unpacks, slowly and meticulously, the long and negative attitude that can be found within Christianity towards the Jews. There is no doubt that Nicholls is on a mission, and his task is unrelenting.

Déjà vu: Alexandria and Antioch

This past week the Lower Mainland in British Columbia has been abuzz with a visit by N. T. Wright. Wright has thoughtfully challenged the reformed and evangelical clan to be more deeply reformed and evangelical.

Wright’s more catholic approach to the reformed exegetical tradition has challenged a way of doing exegesis. But, has it? I will return to this question shortly. There is no doubt that Wright has taken to task the Packer-Piper position, and he has done so in an informed manner. All are agreed that the Bible is the foundation and authority, but it has become obvious that how the Bible is interpreted is another form of authority. Why are some books in the canon elevated and others subordinated, some texts prized and others demoted, some sections cherished and others ignored? There are, therefore, two levels of authority both within the Old and New Testaments: the Bible and its interpretation. It is this deutero-canonical authority that Wright is, rightly so, questioning. There are those that so equate Bible-interpretation that they do not know the difference between the authority of the one and the questionable authority of the other. But, let us move on.

Nouvelle Theologie & Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery by Hans Boersma -- Book Review by Ron Dart

The opportunity to spend an entire year Sabbatical year reading the theology of the ressourcement movement has been a sacramental gift. 

Hans Boersma (vii) 

Hans Boersma has already rendered exquisite and probing yeoman’s duty with Violence, Hospitality and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (2004). This groundbreaking tome made it abundantly clear that the historic and patristic church had five main ways of understanding the atonement, hence there is no need to be committed to one particular version of the atonement (particularly the penal-juridical theory). Hans’ turn to the breadth and depth of the Great Tradition signaled, for the alert, the larger project that he is engaged in -- a return to the ancient sources as a site of insight and nourishment for the mind and imagination, soul and heart. The modern and postmodern project are thin and lack a decided depth, hence the much needed and delayed return to the life giving wells of the waiting past.

The Red Tory Tradition by Ron Dart

The language of Red Toryism became popular in the mid-1960s when Gad Howoritz suggested that George Grant was a Red Tory. The publication and immediate success of Grant’s, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965), made it abundantly clear that there were historic forms of conservatism in Canada that could not be equated with American republicanism. Horowitz, in his classic article, ‘Tories, Socialists and the Demise of Canada’(1965), argued that there was a ‘Tory touch’ in the Canadian political tradition that leaned more towards the commonweal and socialism than did the free enterprise system of Blue Toryism. It was this ‘Tory touch’ that was more ‘Red’ than ‘Blue’ in orientation that distinguished the Canadian from the American notions of conservatism.

Political Ressourcement: Anabaptist Inaccuracies, Radical Orthodoxy, Red Toryism and George Grant by Ron Dart

"George Grant was Canada’s most significant public philosopher."             

Graeme Nicholson, Athens and Jerusalem:  George Grant’s Theology, Philosophy, and Politics  (p. 323)

1

The Constantinian Fall Myth  

There is a rather inaccurate and shallow read of Christian history that unfolds in this manner. Once upon a time there was the pure New Testament church that was faithful and true to the radical commitment to Jesus Christ. This period of time was short, and the fire did not burn bright and with much light for long. The 1^st century soon gave way to the post-apostolic era, and in the 2^nd-3^rd centuries, the intensity and spirit of the martyrs gave way to assimilation, many compromises and a thinning out of the faith journey.

The most serious distortion and compromise of the church took place when Constantine came to power in the early decades of the 4^th century, and Eusebius’ oration and adoring speech to Constantine made it clear that the church had now become a lapdog and dancing bear of imperial politics. The age of true prophets and genuine martyrs was over. It was just a matter of time before Theodosius and Charlemagne took control of the church and reduced it to a vassal of political power.

A. James Reimer and Anabaptist Anarchism: A Prophet to His People by Ron Dart

 A. James Reimer died August 28 2010. For those who have not studied with him or read any of his books, he was one of the finest Mennonite thinkers of the 20th century. We have lost two of the best this year with the passing of Clark Pinnock and James Reimer. What follows is an article on Reimer that was previously published on Clarion (June 9 2006). We are reposting it in honour of Reimer's life? Reimer's life was not long (1942-2010), but he lived well and leaves us a significant legacy of Anabaptist thought.

Among his works, he wrote or edited The Emanuel Hirsch and Paul Tillich Debate: The Political Ramifications of Theology (Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), The Influence of the Frankfurt School on Contemporary Theology: Critical Theory and the Future of Religion (Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), Mennonites and Classical Theology: Dogmatic Foundations for Christian Ethics (Pandora Press, 2001) and The Dogmatic Imagination: The Dynamics of Christian Belief (Herald Press, 2003).

* * * * * 

There is little doubt that James Reimer is one of the most articulate and thoughtful Mennonite theologians in North America, and he is certainly one of the finest in Canada. The publication of Mennonites and Classical Theology: Dogmatic Foundations for Christian Ethics (2001) and The Dogmatic Imagination: The Dynamics of Christian Belief (2003) positions Reimer at the very forefront and cutting edge of Mennonite thought in Canada and North America.

J. I. Packer and N. T. Wright: Charting the Evangelical Way -- by Ron Dart

I have always believed that scripture stands over all our traditions,

including our evangelical traditions.

N.T. Wright, Anglican Evangelical Identity: Yesterday and Today (p.11) 

I don’t think there can be any doubt that J.I. Packer (1926….) is one of the most significant puritan theologians of the latter half of the 20^th century and the early decades of the 21^st century. There has been a consistent track and path in thought, published and spoken word and deed in Packer’s life and writings from the 1950s to the present. I was fortunate to study systematic theology and spiritual theology with Jim Packer when I was at Regent College from 1979-1981, and I co-authored a booklet with Jim, In a Pluralist Age (1998), in response to Bishop Ingham’s Mansions of the Spirit (1997). I am certainly not reformed or puritan in my thinking, but I respect the way Jim Packer has taken plough to soil, dug deep, planted many a fine seed and participated in the producing of a bountiful puritan and evangelical harvest.

Renovare and Ressourcement: Deep and Deeper -- by Ron Dart

I did my Masters in Christian Studies (MCS) at Regent College from 1979-1981. I was a Teaching Assistant (TA) of Jim Houston, when at Regent, and we had many a lingering and searching discussion about the classics of the Christian contemplative tradition. Jim had lived with Nicolas Zernov (an important leader in Orthodox-Anglican Sobornost dialogue in England), and Jim met often with C.S. Lewis. The broad catholic evangelical tradition that Jim was shaped and formed by was grounded and rooted in the best of the classical and patristic tradition, and it was this sensitivity to both the riches of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions that was at the core of Jim’s commitment to the renewal of Christian spirituality.

I was quite taken, when at Regent College, by the publication of Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline (1978). I avidly read, absorbed and did my limited best to put into practice many of the leads Foster offered in his book. Celebration of Discipline was, in the late 1970s-1980s, one of the more important books doing the rounds in the spirituality circuit. The disciplines, if practiced aright, were meant to renew and deepen the faith journey. The sheer success of Celebration of Discipline launched Foster in a way he probably did not anticipate. I was, when immersed in the insights and recommended practices of the book, doing much study in the Classical languages of the Greek East/Latin West and the contemplative theology and  ascetic life style of the Fathers (Abbas) and Mothers (Ammas) of the church. I soon came to see that Foster’s traditions approach to the Tradition had a questionable and most modern and protestant read of the Great Tradition. I will return to this later.

Hadji Murad: A Tale for our Time by Ron Dart

War and Peace (1869) is the Mount Everest of all novels, and Anna Karenina (1877) and Resurrection (1899) stand tall and stately within the towering Himalayan peaks of world literature. It is 100 years this year since Lev Tolstoy died (1910-2010), and many is the event that is being put on to celebrate the life of this literary genius and prophetic visionary. Tolstoy is very much a man for all seasons, and the perennial themes he grappled with in his novels, short stories, plays and parables are as relevant today as they were when written and published.  

There is little doubt that one of the finest short stories that Tolstoy wrote in his latter years was Hadji Murad (viewable online). Hadji Murad was written between 1896-1904, and published after Tolstoy had died in 1912. The tale told is probing, evocative and apt. We often hear in the news about the clash between the Russian state and the Muslim Chechens and Grozny. The Chechens are viewed as the terrorists and the Russians the law abiding citizens. The contemporary clash between Russia and the Chechens has a much longer history, of course, and Hadji Murad tells part of that older tale. The young Tolstoy was in the Russian army in the 1850s when the Russian state and military had launched a campaign to colonize, dominate and control the Muslim Chechens. Needless to say, such an aggressive stance by the Russians created much opposition and resistance by the Chechens. The conflict led to the deaths of many lives, and one of the leading Muslim liberation fighters was Hadji Murad. It would have been natural for Tolstoy, as a Russian, to view Murad as a terrorist. But, did he? Murad led many attacks on the Russians, won many a campaign and was a living myth and legend to the Russians. He was the Osama Bin Laden of the time. The Russians hunted him down like a fox, and any true and patriotic Russian was expected to see Murad as a Muslim terrorist in the same way the West views the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.Tolstoy was never, though, an uncritical or patriotic Russian.

A Tribute to Much-Respected Maverick Clark Pinnock

Clark Pinnock passed away August 15. The controversial theologian impacted many in the Christian community – including Christian Info Society president Flyn Ritchie, who studied under him. Following are tributes by several noteworthy commentators. 

Doug Koop

Clark H. Pinnock’s life journey is over. The influential and often controversial evangelical theologian died unexpectedly of a heart attack. He was 73. In March, the long-time professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, had announced he was withdrawing from public life – and that he was battling Alzheimer’s disease.

It was a difficult admission for a man whose mercurial mind and openness to the Holy Spirit led him to stake out theological positions that challenged evangelical orthodoxies.

Renowned for exploring the frontiers of biblical truth, he was reputed to study carefully, think precisely, argue forcefully – and shift his positions willingly if he discovered a more fruitful pathway of understanding. He said he preferred to be known, “not as one who has the courage of his convictions, but one who has the courage to question them and to change old opinions which need changing . . .”

George Grant and the Orthodox Tradtion

George Grant was Canada’s most significant public philosopher. 

Graeme Nicholson[1]

George Grant has been called one of the most important public intellectuals in Canada in the latter half of the 20^th century. He had a wide ranging mind and imagination that covered and touched most aspects of the Western and Eastern traditions. Grant was a Christian renaissance humanist in the best sense of that compelling term. The fact that Grant was drawn to the best of the Western theological, philosophical and political tradition meant that he encountered the riches of Orthodoxy in his many probes. This brief essay will touch on Grant’s encounter with Orthodoxy. I will ponder his encounter   and engagement with the Orthodox tradition in five unfolding phases.

First, Grant’s initial encounter with Orthodoxy was through the marriage of his sister, Alison Grant, to George Ignatieff. Grant had studied with George Ignatieff’s brother, Nicholas, who taught History at Upper Canada College in the 1930s. But the meeting of George Ignatieff and Alison Grant and their marriage in November 1945 brought Grant into the centre of the Russian Orthodox way as it was embodied in England and Canada in the WWII period. George Ignaitieff had this to say about his Russian Orthodox heritage in his classic book, Memoirs of a Peacemonger:

The Orthodox church gave me a sense of belonging, of being in touch with my roots, of safety and stability in an otherwise confusing world. Even in early childhood I derived great comfort from prayer and from the familiar Orthodox liturgy, and I have remained a devoted member of the church ever since. p. 33.

J. I. Packer or Donald Dayton? Sanhedrin Elder or Prophetic Witness -- by Ron Dart

J.I. Packer and the Evangelical Future: The Impact of His Life and Thought. Edited by Timothy George (2009).                          

From the Margins: A Celebration of the Theological Work of Donald W. Dayton. Edited by Christian Collins Winn (2007).

The Post-WW II Evangelical ethos has been largely dominated by a decided Reformed and Puritan theological tradition. Luther, and even more Calvin, have set the stage for how St. Augustine and St. Paul are to be read and interpreted. Those that dare to differ with the Reformed Sanhedrin are often banished from the clan or fated to live from the margins.

There is no doubt that J.I. Packer is one of the most significant leaders of the Reformed and Evangelical Sanhedrin, and J. I. Packer and the Evangelical Future demonstrates why this is the case. All of the contributors to this tidy and hagiographical tome walk the extra mile to clarify how and why Packer has provided guidance and leadership for a new generation of reformed-evangelical theologians, pastors and academics. Packer’s biographer, Alister McGrath, sets the tone for the book by highlighting how Packer has been a lighthouse and gatekeeper for ‘The Great Tradition’ in an age of fragmentation and Christian capitulation to the liberal agenda in both the church and society. Charles Colson is yet another voice that lauds the contribution of Packer as do many other worthies in J.I. Packer and the Evangelical Future. The obstinate fact that the post-WW II evangelical ethos has been dominated by the reformed way has meant that those who see themselves as standing within such a tradition find it hard to have a voice if they question such a merging of evangelical and reformed thought at the highest levels of leadership, education, politics and ecclesial direction.

Ron Dart and the Red Tory Alternative -- by Brad Jersak

Those who follow Clarion with any regularity will note some common themes among many of our regular contributors. These include a concern for the link between spirituality and justice, a Christo-centric ethic promoting nonviolent social action, a critique of any empire's tendencies towards foreign and domestic oppression, and a healthy suspicion of Christian schemes to bring in the Kingdom of God by grasping for political power. These subjects permeate Clarion essays by Eric Janzen, Wayne Northey, Bob Ekblad, Brian Zahnd, Archbishop Lazar Puhalo and of course, Ron Dart. 

Even the faithful subscriber may infer from the anti-empire, peacemaking rhetoric that our cadre of writers are all left-leaning anarchists, disciples of Noam Chomsky, or Anabaptists in the tradition of Yoder, involved politically only as far as prophetic protest and advocacy work. For some time, this was my [mis]understanding of Ron S. Dart, our political science and religious studies expert from the University of the Fraser Valley. Herein, I will share my observations re: Prof. Dart's unique and poignant perspective.

John Chrysostom & Olympias: Soul Friends by Ron Dart

The Christian Tradition has many a heart rending tale to tell, but one of the most vivid and compelling dramas is the endearing relationship of John Chrysostom and Olympias (both leaders and visionaries of the highest calibre). Chrysostom (349-407) is well known within the Orthodox tradition as one of the most respected Biblical exegetes, theologians, public activists for justice and Archbishop. Constantinople was one of the primary urban centers of Christianity in the Classical world, and Chrysostom was consecrated bishop of Constantinople in 397. It did not take long for Bishop John Chrysostom, the eloquent and golden mouth social reformer, to locked horns with the indulgent and wealthy class of the city.

Olympias (360- 408) lost both her parents when she was young, and she married the prefect of Constantinople when she was 18 years of age. Gregory of Nazianzen sent her one of the earliest Christian poems, ‘Mirror for Women’, and her husband died within two years of their marriage. The emperor (Theodosuis) insisted Olympias remarry, but she refused to obey his command. Instead, she slowly built up, with her wealth, the largest convent in Constantinople. Olympias was consecrated a deaconess by Archbishop Nectarius (there were many women in the early church that played significant roles as leaders), and in her role as spiritual mother to a community of more than 200 women, she was active in works of charity, generous with her wealth to the marginalized and built a hospital and orphanage.

Anglicanism and Orthodoxy by Ron Dart

The centre cannot hold—mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.                       

W.B. Yeats 

so that they may be one as we are one. 

Jesus

My theological journey, as a young man in my early twenties, took me to L’Abri in Switzerland from 1973-1974. I was quite taken by Francis Schaeffer, but I was never fully convinced by his brand of an updated version of Calvin and the Calvinist tradition. In short, I was never held by the Reformed tradition. The Reformation is the womb of modernity, and much of the fragmentation we face today is the consequence of the reformation. The children are out of the womb, now adults and each doing what is right in the sight of their own eyes (and few agree on what the right is).    

I had been reading a great deal of C.S. Lewis in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I was quite aware that Lewis and Schaeffer dwelt in different environs. Lewis was grounded in the classical way, a Medieval-Renaissance scholar, a catholic Anglican and he had serious doubts about both the Reformation tradition and puritan Calvinism. Schaeffer was a true believer in the Reformed read of the reformation, and its implications for the church and society. Lewis could argue the case for mere Christianity, but there comes a point in the trail when Schaeffer and Lewis part paths for substantive theological, ecclesial and cultural reasons.