C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

The Horse and His Boy is the fifth book in the Narnia Chronicles (the third book by the newer, chronological reckoning, coming after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). It takes place while Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are reigning as kings and queens over Narnia. In a land to the south of Narnia, Calormen, a young boy, Shasta, finds himself about to be sold into slavery to a Calormene warrior by his "father," and makes a break for safety on the warrior's horse. But as he prepares to escape, he discovers that the horse, Bree, can talk. Bree is a Narnian talking horse, who was captured many years ago, and has been blending in until a time when he coud make his escape. And this is that time. So the two of them set off North through Calormen in the directin of Archenland and Narnia. While they make their way through the countryside, they are chased by lions, and in their flight meet up with another horse, Hwin, and another rider, Aravis. Aravis, like Shasta, is trying to get away from Calormen, and Hwin, like Bree, is a talking horse from Narnia. So they decide to travel together, and continue to make their way North. But they must first go through the Calormene city of Tashbaan, before they can escae the land. While they try to make their way through, they get separated, when Shasta is mistaken for one of a party of Narnians that happens to be in the city, and is brought with them to the palace where they are visiting. It turns out that Shasta looks just like Prince Corin, who had been traveling with King Edmund and Queen Susan to Tashbaan.

The Narnians were in Tashbaan because the Calormene Prince, Rabadash, was courting Susan for marriage. But the Narnians quickly realized that he wasn't the sort that Susan would wish to marry. So they planned a secret escape by boat at night. But after making their plans, Corin, the boy for whom Shasta had been mistaken, returns, so Shasta takes off. Meanwhile, Aravis has also encountered some trouble, as she is recognized on the street by one of her friends. So she hides in her curtained litter and goes back with her to the palace, along with the horses. She sends the horses, with a groom, out to the tombs outside of town, the arranged meeting place for the group, and schemes to go out herself through a gate in the palace gardens and cross the river. But as she sneaks down to escape, she sees the king coming, and hides behind a couch in one of the rooms. While there, she overhears that Prince Rabadash has discovered that the Narnians have made an escape, and that he plans to make a surpirse attack on Archenland, and then move on to attack Narnia. She then escapes, and carries this news to Shasta when they all meet back up at the tombs. They immediately set out across the desert toward Archenland. It is a tough trek, but they make it to a canyon that Shasta heard about from the Narnians. And following that canyon, they made it to the river, and the edge of Archenland. They could see Rabadash and his armies making their way across the desert, and searching for a ford of the river. So they hurried toward Anvard, the capitol of Archenland. But while they made their way through the mountains, they found a lion at their heels, and they rushed forward, taking refuge in the home of a magician. He urged Shasta to take the news to Anvard, so Shasta set out. He encountered the king, and passed along the news of the impending attack. They all set out for Anvard, to sound the alarm, but Shasta got separated in the fog, and found himself alone on the road. While wandering in the fog, he met Aslan, who told him that he had been the lion they had seen the two times before, guiding and hurrying them along so they could save Archenland. He also told Shasta that he had guided the boat to the shore when he was a kid, saving his life and puttin his life on its present course.

Shasta met up with some talking creatures from Narnia, as he found himself across the pass from Archenland in Narnia after his walk in the fog, and told them of the impending attack. They quickly got word to Queen Lucy, and Narnia gathered forces to help Archenland. Shasta met up with them as they headed back toward Anvard, and joined with them. When they arrived in Anvard, they stopped Rabadash's attack, and defeated his warriors. Shasta was met with a warm recetion by King Lune of Archenland, who told him that he was his long lost son, Cor. Corin was in fact his twin brother. And Cor was the elder, and thus the heir to the throne. They invited Aravis to come live in the palace as well, and some day she would marry Cor. The two horses made their way back to Narnia, to live happily as talking horses again.

This is another great story from Lewis. He builds great characters and an interesting story line. And again, he does it with some great depth. In The Horse and His Boy, he explores the theme of God's guidance, by looking at how Aslan guides the story, from helping the boat Shasta was afloat on to shore, to scaring Shasta and Bree into meeting up with Hwin and Aravis, to scaring and urging them on to hurry toward Archenland, to meeting up with Shasta and saving him from a treacherous fall as he walked over the pass in the dark. In various and unlikely ways, Aslan had been guiding the story the whole way. He never made up anyone's mind for them, nor did he overcome their wills to do it, but he still guided and directed events to their best outcome, though even in unexpected and sometimes painful ways. It is a great exploration of God's sovereignty and guidance.

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a tragicomedy about human existence. In the play, two tramps wait by a tree for a Mister Godot. While there, they go through a series of comedic episodes involving boots that are too tight, carrots, and other unimportant objects. While they are waiting, another pair of characters, Lucky and Pozzo, come along. Lucky is essentially a human animal, walking on all fours, whom Pozzo has on a leash and makes carry all of his things. Pozzo is an almost unfeeling taskmaster who takes pride and pleasure in torturing and abusing his slave. The two tramps don't quite know what to make of this pair, as they come along and provide some "entertainment," as Pozzo makes lucky dance, and then "think" for them. The scenes bring an unmistakeable sense of nonsense and futility. The day ends as Lucky and Pozzo head off, and no Mister Godot appears.

Day two starts rather like the first, with the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting under the same tree. They're not sure they were there the day before, but Vladimir at least has a sense that yesterday was much the same. The only change he notices is a few leaves on the tree. As they wait, the repeat many of the same comedic routines as they day before. Then Lucky and Pozzo happen by again. Though this time Pozzo claims to be blind. Again, no one is quite sure if they've met before, though Vladimir is rather certain that they had come by the day before. After more confused exchanges, Posso and Lucky finally head off stage again. And the two tramps are left to contemplate their future. They know they are waiting for Godot, but aren't quite sure why. Then a boy arrives to inform them that Mr. Godot would not be coming, but would surely come tomorrow. Despairing of the news, the two contemplate hanging them selves from the tree, but realize they don't have any rope that would work. So the play closes with them resolving to return to the tree tomorrow, and to bring along some good rope.

Beckett's play is really a fascinating and poignant statement of the seeming futitilly of life. The characters are set in an almost featureless world, and they are seemingly with out purpose, waiting, but they're not sure quite what they are waiting for. Pozzo and Lucky demonstrate exploitation and victimization, a sad state of affairs. And Vladimir and Estragon don't come across much better, lost and senseless, aimlessly making their way through life. Their conclusion is that life is really just the moment between birth and death, and paint a picture of a woman squatting over a grave to give birth. It is a picture of hopelessness and purposeless ness.

The play seems to leave a bit of room for hope, that this Mister Godot (God?) would come and put the pieces together for them. But we are far from certain, when the curtain falls, whether Godot will arrive or whether they will hang themselves, or whether the next days will continue like the last.

Beckett has captured well the tragic and comedic elements of modern life, with the searching after purpose, the waiting without a clear sense of what for, the futility of seeing life as merely a flash in the pan before death.

J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind

J. P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, has written an absolute must-read in his book, Love Your God with All Your Mind Moreland's basic argument is a simple but profound one: modern evangelicalism in the West has become largely anti-intellectual, and has lost much of its cultural power. The church needs to revive Christian intellectualism in order to engage the world and fulfill its vocation.

Moreland starts out by making the argument that since the Enlightenment and the Awakenings, evangelicalism has become largely anti-intellectual. In response to intellectual and cultural assaults from without (philosophical critiques, higher-critical critiques on the Bible, evolution), the church largely withdrew from the arena of ideas. Instead of engaging at an intellectual level, Christians grew suspicious of the whole idea of science or philosophy, and withdrew from the conversation. This has had a number of implications for the church: the misunderstanding of how faith and reason are related, the separation of secular and sacred, a weakening of missions, a largely irrelevant gospel of felt needs, and a lack of blodness in confronting hostile or wrong ideas.

This is the state of the christian mind into which Moreland comes. And his book is basicaly an argument for and proposal toward the deepening and reawakening of the Christian mind. He starts by making a case that Scripture basically mandates the development of the Christian mind. As his title indicates, we love God with our whole beings, and that especially includes the mind. For God is a God with reason (omniscient, wise, etc.), and God created reason. Truth is highly valued in Christianity, for we believe in a God of Truth. So study should be a natural result.
He closes the first part of the book by arguing that transforming the mind (as Romans 12:2 says) is absolutely fundamental to spiritual transformation. For our understanding of God and the world is directly related to our relationship with God and our attitudes toward God, ourselves, and the world around us. He further argues that the mind is an integraded and fundamental part of the soul, and thus its transformation is necessary to any deepening of the soul-life.

In the second part of the book (chs 4 and 5), Moreland starts to point the way forward toward the transformation of the Christian mind. He first begins by describing what he terms the "empty self," a set of values, thoughts, and behaviors that typifies much of the modern American mind. This empty self is inordinately individualistic, infantile (seeking to avoid boredom with amusement), narcissistic, passive, sensate, without interior life, and hurried and busy. This type of self is common in Western society, and in the church as well. So much of what he asserts as the solution to the problem of the Christian mind could be said to be a solution to precisely this problem of empty selves. He then goes on to begin outlining a solution, involving developing skills, abilities, habits, and attitudes that build the mind and push out the emptiness. This includes things as simple as knowing and using proper grammar and as life-long as developing and excercising philosophical powers of reasoning.

Part three of the book is a developing picture of what this new Christian mind can look like. He focuses on the theme of apologetics, asserting that rational defense for the faith is essential to Christian witness. He also demonstrates how the Christian mind should be intimately tied to our vocations. This includes painting a picture of how our faith and knowledge of God can and should permeate all areas of our lives, not just he "sacred" space on Sunday morning.

The final part of Moreland's book is a straight-forward proposal for how church could look different if it truly tried to foster the Christian intellectual life. This includes things as simple as uplifting and comissioning our Christian university and graduate students and professors, and things as straight-forward as broadening and deepening the church library. He also proposes the need for the church to be an education center. Sunday school is one possible point where this could occur, but churches can be creative in how they offer courses, and serious in their content (including readings, discussions, papers, etc.). The sermon is also another important piece. Sermons should be applicable, but they should also be educational, challenging the congregation to think and learn more as the basis for this new attitude or action. And occasionally, sermons should shoot for the upper third of the audience, instead of weekly dumbing down the message so that everyone can follow all of the points. Sermons could also be accompanied by weekly studies, questions to ponder, detailed outlines or additional reading, and bibliographies for further study. Last, he advocates a change in the way the church thinks about "senior pastors." Moreland asserts that this role has become a detriment to the church, as many people see the pastor as the "minister" (that is, the one doing ministry) in the congregation. Instead, he proposes that no one person should preach more than half of the Sundays in a year, and that a group of elders should be the functional and spiritual leaders of the congregation, jointly going before God and leading the congregation. This models to the church an attitude of discipleship, openness to God, and enabling of others to praticipate in ministry.

Moreland has presented a strong, integrated, and absolutely necessary call for a reinvigoration of the evangelical mind. As a rather intellectual person myself, I continually found myself agreeing with him, but I also found strong encouragement to grow much further in a number of areas. Apologetics will especially be an area of study I renew with fresh vigor. All churches and believers need to take the message of this book seriously. Because if we don't foster the evangelical mind, we are giving over "reality" to those who don't believe in God, instead of claiming all truth as God's truth.