Member: cstebbins

Hello there,

Sorry to take so long to respond.

Anyway, your question is probably more difficult to answer than it should be. You may know that by the early 20th century the Stone-Campbell Movement had split three ways. Most all of the general histories available are told from the perspective of one of the three resulting groups: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the independent Christian Churches, and the a cappella Churches of Christ. For the last of the three -- the Churches of Christ -- the group in which I was raised -- I would heartily recommend Richard Hughes' Reviving the Ancient Faith. A serious general history has yet to written, although there is one in the works from a group of scholars, scheduled to be released in 2012. In the meantime, the best general resource is The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, a work that contains a very wide range of articles on all aspects of the movement as a whole.

Hope this helps,

Chris Cotten

posted by ccotten at 10:13 pm (EST) on Aug 21, 2009

I'm originally from SC and used to holiday on Jekyll Island. I heard about the Fort in Darien and had to stop. I think I picked up the book in their gift shop. Cheers!

posted by Scaryguy at 7:04 am (EST) on Aug 10, 2009

Hello. What I liked most about the Genesis series was hearing a couple of different kinds of readings of Genesis in particular. First, what generic pagans think. Those not raised in the church. How do they read it? Second, how does the Jewish tradition read? I found that interesting. Less doctrine and more story. If they run into trouble, they embellish the story. Which is very different from what I would do. But worth pondering. Moyers has some odd opinions, but I do like the discussion he provokes.

Just noticed Mutiny on the Bounty in your collection. I read it when I was in junior high (after my grandmother had talked about the impression the story made on her serialized in the Saturday Evening Post). Loved it. Have you read it?

posted by solarblogger1 at 9:10 pm (EST) on Jul 24, 2009

Dear cstebbins,

My book budget has also been afflicted with a case of austerity.

Most glad to hear from you!

Yours,
Kushana

posted by Kushana at 7:34 pm (EST) on Jun 17, 2009

Thanks for your comment (and sorry for the slow answer) - I own The Rage of Islam in Swedish translation. I did, however, read The Rage of Islam in English (the language in which it was originally written). The reason my LibraryThing catalog is so strange is because it actually is a partial list of books I've read (mostly over the past 3 years). I don't necessarily own the books listed. I think we would have more books in common if I entered my backlog of books I read pre-2007.

posted by RachelMB at 11:14 pm (EST) on Jun 7, 2009

Hi, so nice to hear from you. The reason that I am not reading and reviewing books by Trollope is that I have read them all in the 80's. Same with George Eliot, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins and others. I also must admit that my reading goes through phases. For example, for many years I read more history books than novels. Right now I am on a modern fiction kick and I am trying to sample many different authors from around the world.

The common thread however with respect to 2008 and 2009 books is that they are mostly British, European and Canadian. That was not intentional but just how it worked out. British books are far more available in Canada than the US and that is why you are not recognizing many of them. My background is also a little different in that I minored in French literature (in French) during my undergraduate degree so I also have that body of literature to keep an eye on. And to complicate things further I am of Norwegian descent and I also read some Scandinavian books (in English)as I speak and read only very basic Norwegian.
I suppose I am an example of a uniquely Canadian experience. In July I will be spending two weeks in a summer home in Quebec and will speak nothing but French and enjoy our wonderful French Canadian culture including it's literature.

Best wishes and than you for your interest.
Bhowell

posted by bhowell at 12:23 pm (EST) on May 30, 2009

You asked
That's certainly a legitimate question and I would never maintain that a strong historical pedigree should outweigh Biblical considerations - that might leave us in opposition to the Reformation itself. However, I'm not so sure that the establishment of the modern state of Israel was so "surprising" given the work of Zionist groups for decades prior to even World War 1 and the active measures taken by mostly British and American authorities to bring about the establishment of the state of Israel. Many even worked for it, not out of care for Jews, but rather in hope that Jews would leave and return to Palestine.
Unlike dispensationalists, I have trouble believing that Jehovah God is pleased with the restoration of a religious system that was responsible for most of the persecution of the early church and was judged severely in AD 70. The Holy Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is the true God and any religion that fails to recognize Jesus Christ as True God is a false religion.
The Scriptures clearly teach the growth of the Kingdom of God and the elect will be from every nation and tongue. Our sole duty then is to preach the gospel to everyone and allow God to grow His Kingdom as He sees fit. Man's kingdoms and empires will ebb and flow, but the Kingdom of God is the mountain that will fill the earth.

thanks for your comments,

Doug Stephens

posted by dougstephens at 12:07 pm (EST) on May 26, 2009

The picture is taken looking north from the town of Pangnirtung up the Pangnirtung Fjiord which is a fjiord on the north side of Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island.

posted by Northlaw at 10:51 pm (EST) on Apr 12, 2009

Right, some of the theological work I do is ecumenical, and some is inter-religious. My dissertation I am working on is a comparative analysis of the idea of perdition from Hans urs Von Balthasar with Asanga the Yogacarin; what most do not know is that some forms of Buddhism have the idea of the one who will never attain Nirvana (icchantika); I find it an interesting point of contact between the two traditions. As a strong Catholic, I do find one can learn from others -- I provide the example of St Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle as an example, though there can be many others (in the modern age, we learn much from science as well).

And yes, putting them up on the net, I have no problem with people looking through them -- or contacting me!

Pax

posted by HornOrSilk at 2:10 pm (EST) on Mar 14, 2009

You wrote to me -- at once holding my feet to the fire of verifiability, while making the effort to be kind and taking the time to be careful:

"Gosh. how to reply without seeming hostile, which I am not. I can't see that the quotations from Macauley say anything at all about religiously inspired mobs hunting out Shakespeare's works and burning them. Of course I understand you recognize they are entirely secondary, but even so they don't even say that."

Macauley does describe the Puritan soldier, conscripted from the zealous mobs, in some detail. I did not quote those sections, but only the repeated result: "Theatres were closed".

"I understand that R.C. religious institutions were sacked, and possibly the one across the street from Shakespeare's home was, although that sounds a lot more like Elizabethan times than Commonwealth times."

The monastery/rectory/church certainly changed hands a number of times since Henry VIII. At the time of my visit, I assumed there were mendicant monks still there in WS day. In my imagination, entirely. The sight of its immediate physical proximity set me to wondering if WS had the occasion to visit with some of the continental story-tellers. And the rumors that WS was a "secret" Catholic would perhaps support the association.

"I don't remember about the minister when I was at Stratford, but again I grant that his action occurred as Macauley says. I can also agree that under Cromwell theatres were closed and possibly actors flogged. I don't see anything in your quotations, though, to support your picture of mobs howling through the street looking for copies of Hamlet."

True. The Puritan powers did seem to exercise themselves more through the most powerful Army yet raised on Albion, and not in a howling mob in the streets. Still, the theatres were put to the torch. Looking at the dates, it appears The Globe was burned before Cromwell's ascension.

"I've just never heard of such. You're right, of course, that one might google it, but if it never happened, I doubt that google would turn it up. Maybe I'll try."

Now I recall...I think my reference is in some biographical bits of British biography, a piece on Cromwell. I will keep looking.

Thanks again. It is an interesting question -- for me the point is that the English ALMOST lost the literary remains of WS. WS did not see a publication of his writings in his lifetime, and within a generation after his death, the collections published by surviving actors were systematically consigned to the flames (if not by a mob, by order of the State). You are right that we will not find a Roundhead mob looking for copies of Hamlet -- which would have been exceeding rare. Still, there was howling in the streets...!

posted by keylawk at 3:01 pm (EST) on Feb 15, 2009

Thank you for your interest and your question: "I see that in your review of the Five Foot Shelf you say that Shakespeare's plays were hunted out by religiously inspired mobs of Roundheads and burned. Can you provide a reference for this statement?"

A fair start would be with the Whig historian, Thomas Macaulay.

Quoting from The Works(1866), Vol I, p. 311-312:

"From the Reformation to the civil war, almost every writer, gifted with a fine sense of the ludicrous, had taken some opportunity of assailing the straighthaired ["Round-heads"], snuffling, whining saints...who thought it impious to taste plum porridge on Christmas day. At length a time came when...the rigid, ungainly zealots, after having furnished much good sport during two generations, rose up in arms, conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod down under their feet the whole crowd of mockers. The wounds inflicted by gay and petulant malice were retaliated with the gloomy and implacable malice peculiar to bigots who mistake their own rancour for virtue. The theatres were closed. The players were flogged."

Quoting from Vol V at p. 100:

"The works of Shakspeare, which were not appreciated with any degree of justice before the middle of the eighteenth century...But the Puritans drove imagination from its last asylum. They prohibited theatrical representations, and stigmatized the whole race of dramatists as enemies of morality and religion."

From Vol VI at p. 501-502: "The theatres were closed."

I interject: In my visit to Stratford-on-Avon, I was struck by the fact that Shakespeare's home, and its famous pear tree, were physically removed by the Puritan Minister who bought his house after his death, so as not to encourage revenant spirits of his muse. Across the street, the Catholic monastery of mendicant monks was sacked and emptied.

Vol. VII at 324 ff, recounting the life of Samuel Johnson (1856), not to be confused with Shakespeare's contemporary, Ben Jonson, who barely noticed Shakespeare and did not consider him important. But for the grubby, outcast, bookseller's hack, Samuel Johnson, undertaking to locate and publish WS's manuscripts (at 340,342), which sold miserably by subscription, most of the Shakespeare ouvre would have been lost to woodworm, fire and mold.

I know of no controversy over the stated fact, although the single source I started with and provided here is not the definitive or even best documentation of the point. Googling would take you deeper. But I am not anxious to salt that wound.

posted by keylawk at 11:55 pm (EST) on Feb 13, 2009