“We are victims of anachronistic slander if we think that the Puritans were in any way, well, puritanical. That term came to be applied to the bluenoses and wowsers well after the Puritan party had brought back into Christian discipleship an incarnational embrace of all material things” (Writers to Read, pp. 65-66).
Like a Seed
“Every culture has a religious center, and every religion, like a seed, given water, sunlight, and nutrients, grows up into a particular plant” (Writers to Read, p. 62).
On Its Own Level
[About Wodehouse] “In this age of instant gratification, fast food, fast-lane commuting, and tele-right-nowing, it is wonderful to find great literature that is capable of doing exactly the same thing. Some great lit just competes with other great lit. But it takes extraordinary lit to compete with drivel—and on its own level, too” (Writers to …
And Soon to be Pope
“For we are not just doing battle with the powers of darkness; we are also engaged in mortal conflict with the theology of Madeline Bassett, resident theologian and high priestess of pop evangelicalism” (Writers to Read, p. 57).
True But Shrill
“The besetting sin of many cranky, conservative Christian types is their inability to make any good point whatever without sounding shrill. And the better the point, the shriller the making of it can be” (Writers to Read, p. 55).
A Design Feature
“There is a logical bedrock upon which the entire cosmos is built. We do not live in a house built on sand. Metaphor works for a reason. The walls in this house are straight for a reason. The corners go together and fit for a reason” (Writers to Read, p. 53).
Clearer and Crisper
“When we move from word to referent, we think we are leaping from crag to crag, across and abyss below. If we slip, we have had it. But this description is itself dependent upon a metaphor, as though meaning has to get increasingly smudgy every time we make a xerox copy of it. But suppose …
What to Read First
“Wodehouse was merciless to pretentiousness, and aspiring writers are the most pretentious fellows on the planet. So there’s that spiritual benefit” (Writers to Read, p. 50).
Not a Quantitative Thing
“True, there is an occasional stray hell or damn, and this is unfortunate, because many modern Christians do all their worldview analysis through the simple process of counting them” (Writers to Read, p. 48).
Interested and Interesting
“First-rate writers are more interested in what they are writing about than in the fact that they are writing about it. That is why they are interesting” (Writers to Read, p. 39).