“What were the hidden springs of imagination, high up in the hills, that were to feed the broad river of the Reformation?” (Peter Matheson, The Imaginative World of the Reformation, p. 4).
Don’t Staple the Moral Onto the Last Paragraph
“Anyone who can write a children’s story without a moral, had better do so: that is, if he is going to write children’s stories at all. The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author’s mind” (C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds, p. 33).
Tradition As Servant
[Speaking of tradition as servant] “But notice how this leaves us with room for a necessary doctrine of subordinate spiritual authorities. The elders of a local church, Christian parents bringing up children in the fear of the Lord, and convocations of theologians three centuries ago are all lawful authorities, deputized as such in Scripture. They …
Deconstructing Criticism of the Puritans
“The number of good Puritan poets, as I have attempted to suggest in this study, is far larger than has been realized” (Daly, p. 222).
Sound Reading for Children
“Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker. Nor do most of us find that violence and bloodshed, in a story, produce any haunting dread in the minds of children. …
A Reformed Magisterium
“On the other side of things, we have the ‘exalted tradition’ contingent. The traditions of men are frankly acclaimed as the requirements of God. This may be held with doctrinal consistency, as the Roman Catholics do, or furtively, as inconsistent ‘strict subscriptionists’ within the Reformed tradition do. This is the ‘tradition as monarch’ school. The …
Mud and Stone of This Earth
“But we have also seen that he [Taylor] was a Puritan after all, that like his fellow Puritans he practiced his religion through metaphoric poetry linking earth and heaven. Like them he saw God’s glory immanent in the world and the flesh, and he never presumed to ignore either or to abjure metaphor. Like them …
False Impressions
[Fairy tales are] “accused of giving children a false impression of the world they live in. But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression. I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world …
Tradition is Contrary to Our Historic Practice
“The unthinking fundamentalist wants to reduce the whole problem to a very simple equation — ‘just stick to the Bible.’ His belief is that fooling around with traditions in the first place is what cause the problem. We may call this the ‘tradition as demon’ position. ‘We don’t believe in tradition. We have never believed …
Metaphors as Means of Sanctification
“Holy living is associated here with writing in metaphors, though the association is only metaphoric, and Taylor is urging his congregation to ‘turn poets of righteousness’ . . . For Taylor, then, writing in metaphors was part of his imitation of Christ” (Daly, p. 184).