Book Notes

Categories Book Notes

Groping for another land

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The Horse and His Boy opens innocently enough, with the fisherman’s hut by a little creek on the sea, where a young boy named Shasta lives with an old fisherman he calls father. But our eyes, like Shasta’s, quickly move northward, to the unknown land beyond the hilled horizon.

Our hearts yearn to know this hidden place; and we are heartbroken at Arsheesh’s lack of curiosity and lack of tolerance for Shasta’s curiosity.

We, unlike Arsheesh, can identify with Shasta’s plight. We know the feeling of piddling about here, all the while thinking that something great, something better, something magnificent lies over the next hill. We feel out of place, uncomfortable. We pretend we’re not out of place, but we know deep down inside that this is not our home.

We long for the North.

Then, one day, as Arsheesh sups with an unexpected guest, Shasta overhears the story that would have him hop the nearest horse and take off for the North.

*Spoiler alert*

The man he called his father was not his father. The man he had struggled unsuccessfully to care for was little more than a slaver, and undeserving of Shasta’s affection. The fishing hut was not his home–probably Caloremen was not either. In fact, he might even be a son of the only-longed-for North.

Here, Lewis sets up in story form what he expresses elsewhere in plainer terms:

“f I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Shasta becomes outwardly what he had been inwardly all along–a wanderer, groping in the dark for something, he knows not what.

When he first discovers the truth that he is not really Arsheesh’s son or a son of Calormen, his mind moves towards fantastic dreams. So he was not the fisherman’s son–then perhaps he was the son of a Tarkaan or of a god! Perhaps the Tarkaan who wished to buy Shasta would later adopt him as a son, making him great.

He wonders aloud what the Tarkaan is like, and a talking horse interrupts his reverie with an answer.

In a series of fortuitous or not so fortuitous events, what had once only been an idle dream of seeing the north became an imperative. Shasta must escape to the north, must make his way out of this place.

And so the blind man’s longings become desperate gropings.

“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”
~Acts 17:26-27

Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge
This post is notes from my reading of The Horse and His Boy for Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge.

Categories Book Notes

Nah-nia Time: Take 3

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Chronicles of Narnia Reading ChallengeI’ve participated in Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge since it began two years ago–and I’m excited to jump on board again this year.

In year one, I read The Magician’s Nephew, mining it for “greatness”.

I came up with the following:

Last year, I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and James Stewart Bell’s Inside “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”. I was reading John Stott’s The Cross of Christ at the same time and found some interesting thoughts in there that I connected to Lion/Witch/Wardrobe:

Last year, I had a couple of biographies of Lewis that I didn’t finish in time for the wrap-up post, but that I did eventually get finished:

This year, I’m planning to continue on with my reading of The Chronicles with The Horse and His Boy. I also picked up a children’s picture book version of one of the Narnia tales and another biography of Lewis. (I’m not sure whether I’ll finish the biography. I’ve already started it and it’s dreadfully dull. But even if I don’t end up finishing it, I’m sure I’ll give you my thoughts!)

In addition, since I think of 2nd Chapter of Acts’ “The Roar of Love” album every time I think of the Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge, I figured I’d share a couple of songs with you:

Have a great weekend–and don’t forget to drop by Carrie’s to sign up for this year’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge.

Categories Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: Breathing Room/Living Space

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The Week in Words

While reading John Keegan’s Penguin Lives biography of Winston Churchill (unsurprisingly titled Winston Churchill), I found the following quote by Churchill, describing his vision for the world:

“The cause of the poor and the weak all over the world will [be] sustained; and everywhere small peoples will get more room to breathe; and everywhere great empires will be encouraged by our example to step forward into the sunshine of a more gentle and more generous age.”

Churchill said this in 1910 or so, four years before the world would be drawn into a Great War.

At the same time, German thinkers and political theorists were developing their theory of Lebensraum or “Living Space” which Hitler would take as a main Nazi party doctrine.

Hitler writes of the principle of Lebensraum in Mein Kampf:

“Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.

The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area—viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics—between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence.”
~Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf found in the Wikipedia article on Lebensraum

Living space, Hitler declares. Give us living space.

Breathing room, Churchill proclaims. Give them breathing room.

I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarities between the two phrases.

“Living space”

“Breathing room”

The same sort of vision.

One led to the destruction of over six thousand Jews and many thousand more minorities (whether political, ethnic, religious, or social).

The other led to the liberation of Western Europe from encroaching totalitarian regimes.

Similar dreams, completely at odds with one another.

The two men would be pitted against one another in the largest war the world has seen yet.

Hitler would fight for his Lebensraum, bowling over nation after nation in Europe.

Churchill would stand, for the most part alone, to regain “breathing room” for the many marginalized peoples of Europe.

What is the difference between the two?

While Hitler argues for the benefit of himself and his people, those he has considered to be the “master race”, Churchill argues on behalf of the poor, the weak, the “small peoples”.

The same goal, but two separate targets.

Fight for my rights, for my people, for my way of life?

Or fight for others?

Not to say that Churchill was not interested in Britain’s rights or people or way of life. In fact, he was, rather oddly, a British imperialist–and certainly interested in Britain’s interests.

But he was nevertheless conscious of the rights and desires of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the “small peoples”–and it was this that made his “breathing room” so different than Hitler’s Lebensraum.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Book Notes

In Praise of Historical Fiction

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It may shock some of my readers, who are inclined to think highly of me (whether I deserve it or not), but I am not a fan of history.

I never have been.

While I looked with fascination at the fashions of bygone eras, was interested in olden modes of speech or transportation, and often envied historical skills in handiwork, I cared nothing for all the names and dates and circumstances and conflicts that make up the study of history.

I occasionally feigned interest in history so as to take interest in my brother (an avid history buff). But frankly? I didn’t understand the hoopla.

Oh, I played lip service to the value of history. You know, the whole “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and “if I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants” and all that.

But really, I’ve never been a fan of history.

At least, not until a few months ago when I picked up a copy of Bodie Thoene’s Vienna Prelude.

There I read of Adolf Hitler’s “peaceful” annexation of Austria, of Herman Goring and Winston Churchill, of the SA, the SS, and the Gestapo.

I continued reading and learned of Kristallnacht, of Nazi concentration camps, of the traitorous appeasement prize Britain awarded Nazi Germany by handing over Czechoslovakia. I learned of the narrow passage connecting Poland to the sea–and separating Germany from Germany. I learned of the pogroms and of the falsehood fabricated to justify the invasion of Poland.

I started to wonder what was true and what was fiction, so involved was I in the story unfolding in novel after novel.

I no longer cared only about the protagonists. I started to care about the whole story–the story behind and below and around the one created in the imagination of the author.

I became a fan of history.

Now I begin my journey into history, fueled by the fiction of an author who cares about fact.

My life, my outlook has been indelibly changed.

Such is the power of good historical fiction.

Categories Book Notes, Technology, The Week in Words

WiW: Outsourcing humanity

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The Week in Words

“Peter Suderman…argues that…’it’s no longer terribly efficient to use our brains to store information.’ Memory, he says, should now function like a simple index, pointing us to places on the Web where we can locate the information we need at the moment we need it….
Don Tapscott, the technology writer, puts it more bluntly. Now that we can look up anything ‘with a click on Google,’ he says, ‘memorizing long passages or historical facts’ is obsolete. Memorization is ‘a waste of time.'”
~Nicholas Carr The Shallows

Memorization is a waste of time, Tapscott suggests.

I understand where Tapscott is coming from.

If memorization is merely a means by which information is stored for future recall, information can be stored much more easily, with much less work, online.

Why memorize sports stats if I can just look them up online whenever I need them? Why memorize the dates of friend’s birthdays when Facebook can remind me on the day?

“[Clive Thompson] suggest that ‘by offloading data onto silicon, we free our own gray matter for more germanely ‘human’ tasks like brainstorming and daydreaming.'”
~Nicholas Carr The Shallows

It’s a nice idea. Let the computers do the dreary work of memorizing. Let’s stick to the parts that make humans unique. The stuff that can’t be outsourced.

Thompson lists brainstorming and daydreaming as more “germanely” (fittingly, appropriately) human tasks than the task of memory.

In a way, he’s right.

We can outsource “memory” (the storage of facts) to computers–but we cannot outsource brainstorming or daydreaming.

As such, brainstorming and daydreaming are more germanely human than memory.

But he fails to mention what I think is an even more germanely human task–the task of thinking.

Humans are unique among created beings in that they have a mind in addition to just a brain.

Humans can think. They can sort through stored information. They can make new connections between information. They can discover new applications of information. And they can be transformed as they think through information.

You can memorize without thinking. Computers do that.

But I don’t know that you can think without memory.

Thinking. It’s an integral part of the Imago Dei.

And memory is an integral part of thinking.

That’s why I disagree with the above commentators.

We can’t outsource memory–because if we do so, we lessen our ability to think. And in doing so, we lose an essential part of what it means to be human.

That’s one thing we can’t outsource.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Book Notes, Homemaking

Book Review: “The Pioneer Woman Cooks” by Ree Drummond

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I caught the Pioneer Woman bug a little late, following a link from I’m not sure where and finding myself reading the story of Ree and the Marlboro Man’s romance into the wee hours of the morning.

I finally closed my internet browser when I remembered that I don’t read Harlequins any longer.

I chose not to follow Drummond’s blog because she was already big (so there was little chance that I’d develop any sort of relationship with her)–and because I don’t read Harlequins any longer (and her story rivals any Harlequin!)

What I didn’t realize is that The Pioneer Woman also cooks–and cooks pretty darn well.

I checked The Pioneer Woman Cooks out of the library and started trying recipes–and got rave reviews on every recipe I tried.

Maple Pecan Scones

First recipe tried: Maple Pecan Scones. Mmm-Hmm. Delectable. Maple, Pecan, and LOTS of coffee/maple flavored glaze. I could (and did) eat these for breakfast for a week.

The “Breakfast Bowls” I made second seemed to please my New Year’s Day breakfast guests–although they took a little longer to bake then the recipe suggested (Good thing I already had some of those Maple Pecan Scones ready for my guests to much on while their eggs were cooking.)

Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler

I was a bit disappointed that my “Patsy’s Blackberry Cobbler” didn’t look quite as attractive as Pioneer Woman’s photos–but my Bible study still gobbled up every last bit (and sent their compliments to the chef. Thanks PW!)

When I made the “French Breakfast Puffs” for my Sunday morning Bible School “FLOCK”, I didn’t fully read the last step of the recipe (since my sister was looking at the pictures and reading the fun anecdotes). This meant that I rolled the puffs only in sugar instead of in sugar and cinnamon. But the cake-doughnut-like puffs still ended up tasting great.

Creamy Rosemary Potatoes

Finally, Anna made the “Creamy Rosemary Potatoes” to go along with our newly ripened steak. They were, UM-mazing. Creamy, flavorful, absolutely perfect.

This is one cookbook that I’d really like to own (which isn’t something that I say often, since I generally just copy out the recipes I like and send a cookbook back to the library.) As I said, I haven’t found a dud yet, and pretty much every recipe in the book looks good. The Pioneer Woman Cooks includes quite a few recipes from the website, but there are also some winning non-website recipes.

A few things to note about The Pioneer Woman Cooks:

First, Drummond breaks everything down into VERY detailed steps, with a photograph accompanying each step. This is a great plus for inexperienced cooks and people who like to look at pictures of food (don’t we all?) It’s not that great of a plus for someone who is an experienced cook and is trying to copy down recipes from the book (Another reason why I should just buy it?)

Second, as I read on a website somewhere “this woman LOVES her butter.” This is definitely NOT lite cooking–and eating this cooking every day is just begging for a burgeoning waistline and a heart attack at age 30. These recipes are light on veggies and heavy on saturated fat–I’d advise sprinkling them into your menu (along with some lighter and more veggie-heavy fare).

Third, if you’re a reader from above the Mason-Dixon line, you’ve probably never heard of self-rising flour. Or if you have, you certainly don’t have it on hand. Which means you might avoid making that amazing “Patsy’s Blackberry Cobbler”–or might run out to get some self-rising flour, which is completely unnecessary. Thankfully, you’re reading my review, so you’ll be able to learn my “Scientific Principles of Food Preparation” tip–just use 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 Tbsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt for every cup of self-rising flour called for. Voila! Instant self-rising flour, without the trouble of shopping for or storing yet ANOTHER bag of flour.

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Cookbook
Synopsis:The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, cooks up some gourmet cowboy fare. MMM-MMM!
Recommendation: I can’t rave enough about this cookbook (except that the Dietitian in me insists that I offer a disclaimer about the calorie/saturated fat content of most of these recipes.)

Categories Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: Great Expectations

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The Week in Words

“You have such expectations,” my Dad tells me again–the third or fourth time. “and it sets you up for great disappointments. You see, I never really expected much from myself or from life. And so when I turned out to have a wonderful life, I was pleasantly surprised. You have great expectations, so when things don’t turn out the way you expected, you’re disappointed–even if your life is still objectively quite good.”

It’s an observation, not a statement that his way is better or worse than mine.

But I think of it when I read these words in Anne of Green Gables:

“You set your heart too much on things, Anne,” said Marilla with a sigh. “I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for you through life.”

“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “you mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.‘ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.“

I’m glad my Dad doesn’t make light of my aspirations, like Mrs. Lynde and Marilla seem to of Anne’s. But his observations–and those of Marilla, Anne, and Mrs. Lynde–do make me think.

I do expect a lot from life. I expect a lot from myself.

I want to do, I want to be, I want to see, I want to hear, I want to write. I want to live an extraordinary life. I want to do extraordinary things. I want to be an extraordinary person.

I have great expectations.

But, as my dad and Marilla and Mrs. Lynde observe, it does set me up for more disappointments than if I hadn’t such expectations.

I end up with less time and energy than I thought I’d have even after moving permanently to Columbus–and I’m disappointed not to be able to accomplish the grandiose expectations that I’d had for how my first few months in Columbus might look.

I find myself in a corner of dietetics I didn’t expect to find myself in, in a corner of the state I didn’t expect to find myself in, with…

I find that life is very different than what I expected.

On the other hand, like Anne, I love the expectation itself–the dreaming, the planning, the process of trying to make the dreams become reality. I still haven’t taken that bike ride across Nebraska, but I’ve loved what training I’ve done (I’ve trained gung ho three springs in a row, only to find busyness and/or medical issues stymie the actual completion), I’ve loved the planning, I’ve loved the bike rides taken with friends in the meantime.

And, as my Dad points out, my high expectations, while not always achievable, have enabled me to achieve a great deal more than someone who just floats through life with no goals or expectations.

My dad makes it clear that my driven personality is not a fault but a blessing. But he is also quick to caution that it can become a fault. When I become so focused on results that I ignore people. When I become so focused on unmet expectations that I fail to be thankful for unexpected blessings. When I set my heart on things instead of Christ.

And ultimately, that is what it comes down to.

“You set your heart too much on things,” Marilla says.

She’s right. I do.

Not that there’s anything wrong with doing things, having things. Neither the doing of things nor the desire to do things is wrong. It’s the setting of my heart on things that is wrong.

“Do not trust in extortion
or take pride in stolen goods;
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.”
~Psalm 62:10, NIV (c)1984

I was made to do great things.

It is right that I desire to do great things.

But my heart was made to be set on Christ.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
~Colossians 3:1-4, NIV (c)1984

Be sure to follow through with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

L. M. Montgomery Reading ChallengeI’m reading Anne of Green Gables as a part of Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge. Check out the link to see what others are saying about (or reading of) L.M. Montgomery this month

Categories Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: A Poor Counterfeit

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The Week in Words

“Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted until she returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee who remove far from Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus imitating Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature…”

~St. Augustine from his Confessions

What is sin, Augustine asks, but the fading shadow, the poor imitation of that which can be found in Christ alone? Is it not the attempt to wrest from God the attributes that are His alone?

Our pride but a poor imitation of His exaltedness; our ambition but a poor striving for the honour and glory that belongs to Him alone. Our immorality a poor counterfeit of His genuine love.

Augustine goes on–Our curiosity a pretense of His omniscience. Our sloth an attempt at rest apart from Him. Our gluttony mimicking the satisfaction that can only be found in Him.

Sin is me trying to live life on my own, not acknowledging that Christ is the only source of true life. Sin is me trying to exalt myself, not acknowledging that Christ is the only one truly worthy of exaltation. Sin is me trying to become wise, not acknowledging that Christ is the only source of wisdom.

Looking at sin through Augustine’s eyes, I see the sins I so regularly excuse.

Self-improvement. The sin of trying to be sanctified without God’s Spirit.

Goal-orientedness. The sin of fixing my eyes on outcomes rather than Christ.

All of it Pride. Pretending I can live, can survive, can thrive with me at the center rather than Christ.

But I am a poor counterfeit, a tainted instrument. What I find in myself is only a warped copy of what can be found only in Christ.

Oh, Lord, forgive me for my sin of spiritual fornication, for seeking in myself what can only be found in You. Turn my eyes, my heart from these fleshly things that I might better see and savor You.

“Oh! that Thou wouldst enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good?”

~St. Augustine from his Confessions

Collect more quotes from throughout the week with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”.

Categories Book Notes

Musings on laying down arms

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Unless something spectacular happens in the last dozen chapters, I won’t be writing a full review of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Maybe it’s just me–or maybe it’s the slow pace that I’m taking through the book–but I think this has got to be the most boring book Hemingway has ever written.

I plug along, one chapter at a time, taking it like a dose of medicine before the dinner that is a book I actually enjoy.

The only redeeming value (thus far) has been the protagonist’s occasional conversations with the priest who serves alongside him on the Italian front of the Great war.

When I last wrote about a conversation between the two, it was the priest who had something useful to say. This time, the protagonist has a real point.

[The priest asked] “Then you think it will go on and on? Nothing will ever happen?”

“I don’t know. I only think the Austrians will not stop when they have won a victory. It is in defeat that we become Christian.”

“The Austrians are Christians–except for the Bosnians.”

“I don’t mean technically Christian. I mean like Our Lord.”

He said nothing.

“We are all gentler now because we are beaten. How would Our Lord have been if Peter had rescued him in the Garden?”

Basically, the protagonist suggests that we only lay down our arms when we recognize that we’ve been beaten.

To hear Hemingway’s description, it appears that the Austrian/Italian front was largely static–the armies just pushed back and forth over the same bit of land in a tug-of-war that seemed to never end.

When the Italians were losing ground, they were humbled. They saw that their fighting was accomplishing nothing, so they were ready to lay down their arms. When the Austrians were losing ground, ostensibly they felt the same way. But it would only be when both were humbled, when both realized that fighting was getting them nowhere that both parties would be willing to lay down their arms.

But the protagonist does more than simply muse on the conditions under which surrender is possible. He makes a statement about Christianity and surrender–even Christianity and disarmament.

Equating imitation of Jesus Christ with Christianity, he states that only in defeat do we truly become imitators of Christ–because it’s only in defeat that we lay down our arms.

I find this idea fascinating in light of my current book club discussion of Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. We’re wrestling with this idea that nonresistance to evil is a Christian virtue–perhaps even, as Tolstoy and some other might suggest, THE Christian virtue (which, by the way, I happen to disagree with–I would say that THE Christian virtue is love. I am, however, wrestling through how nonresistance to evil makes up a component of that Christian virtue of love–but I digress.)

Is nonresistance to evil a primary means by which Christians are to imitate Christ? I’m still turning that topic over in my mind. But Hemingway’s little commentary has made me think a bit further.

Then there’s the protagonist’s final question. “How would Our Lord have been if Peter had rescued him in the Garden?”

What if Jesus had let Peter “deliver” Him in the Garden of Gethsemane? What if He had urged the use of the sword against His enemies?

Jesus would have emerged triumphant on this earth, a military leader. He could have gotten out of there. He could have escaped death.

And he would have been utterly defeated.

Jesus’ victory was not to be found in wielding the sword. His victory was not found even in self-defense. His victory occurred when He surrendered–to God’s will and then, for God’s sake, to man’s.

He could have won an earthly victory in the Garden, but if He had; He’d have lost the eternal battle. And so Jesus, recognizing the eternal defeat earthly victory would have meant, surrendered to earthly defeat in order to gain the heavenly victory.

How often, I wonder, do I fight earthly battles under the illusion that somehow earthly victory means something eternally? Oh, that I could see with the eyes of eternity–and surrender the battles here that if fought and won would only engender true defeat.

Categories Book Notes

The Heretic Hunter Strikes Again

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I’ve told you my book club is reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, right? I mentioned how interesting the conversation was likely to be given our group’s differing political viewpoints.

What I didn’t realize was how interesting the discussion would end up being due to our shared religious viewpoint.

And how Tolstoy is clearly a heretic.

We had hints that Tolstoy’s beliefs might be less than orthodox from the very beginning–but none of us would have guessed at the revelation that would be unfolded in chapter 3.

Tolstoy denies the inspiration of the Old Testament.

“The man who believes in the inspiration of the Old Testament and the sacred character of David, who commanded on his deathbed the murder of an old man who had cursed him…and similar atrocities of which the Old Testament is full, cannot believe in the holy love of Christ.”

Tolstoy denies the Nicene Creed.

“The Sermon on the Mount, or the Creed. One cannot believe in both….The churches are placed in a dilemma: the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene Creed–the one excludes the other.”

He denies that the basic doctrines of Christianity have any utility for men nowadays.

“Truly, we need only imagine ourselves in the position of any grown-up man…who has picked up the ideas…of geology, physics, chemistry…when he…consciously compares them with the articles of belief instilled into him in childhood, and maintained by the churches–that God created the world in six days, and light before the sun; that Noah shut up all the animals in his ark, and so on; that Jesus is also God the Son, who created all before time was; that this God came down upon earth to atone for Adam’s sin; that he rose again, ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and will come in the clouds to judge the world, and so on. All these propositions, elaborated by men of the fourth century, had a certain meaning for men of that time, but for men of today they have no meaning whatever.“

Tolstoy consider the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith to be a profane doctrine.

“And what is most important of all–the man who believes in salvation through faith in the redemption or the sacraments cannot devote all his powers to realizing Christ’s moral teaching in his life. The man who has been instructed by the church in the profane doctrine that a man cannot be saved by his own powers, but that there is another means of salvation, will infallibly rely upon this means and not on his own powers, which, they assure him, it is sinful to trust in.”

In short, Tolstoy is a heretic.

One of those within our discussion posed the question, “Is Tolstoy even a Christian?” My answer was, “No. He’s not. He has denied every essential doctrine of the orthodox Christian faith. He is not a Christian. He’s a heretic.”

Am I too harsh? I think not.

Then comes the dilemma we faced last night. Should we continue to read the work of a clearly heretical man? Is it worth our time or glorifying to God that we read and discuss Tolstoy’s ideas on nonresistance to evil by force as articulated in the Sermon on the Mount, knowing that Tolstoy rejects the divinity of Christ and every other central tenet of the Christian faith?

What do you think? Would you keep reading?