Update, Feb 19/The Tyranny of Petty Coercion

Last few days I have been deep in thought about the convergence and testimony of two good minds about the dismissal of substantive mainline belief, the Protestantism of Pulitzer Winner Marilynne Robinson, and the Baptist Tradition of Bill Hull.
Together her essay and his recent pamphlet are a good antidote to the elite dismissals of Progressive Baptist witness by the Wine and Cheese Editor of the Wall Street Journal that has caused quite a stir at ethicsdaily.com, and the blogs of Baptists Today lights Tony Cartledge and Johnny Pierce.
On the other end Robinson has some sharp words for the likes of CB Scott, Richard Land and Al Mohler.
Come back to this blog in a couple days as I hope to have some quote from Hull, and further quotes from Robinson for you.
And I will be linking some other avenues of this discussion.



update
Here is an update of Feb 19, a couple more quotes from Ms. Robinson:

Pg 258 of the Death of Adam:

"I am a liberal. By that I mean society exists to nurture and liberate the human spirit, and that large mindedness and open handedness are the means by which these things are to be accomplished....I believe opportunities of every kind should be seized upon to advance the well being of people, especially in assuring them decent wages.

pg 260:

"I am a Christian...I have strong attachment to the Scriptures, and to theology, music, and art Christianity has inspired. My most inward thoughts and ponderings are formed by the narratives and traditions of Christianity. I expect them to engage me on my deathbed.
Over the years many a good soul has let me know by one means or another the living out of this [tradition] is not, shall we say, cool. There are little jokes about being born again. There are little lectures about religion as a cheap cure for existential anxiety.
....I am extremely reluctant to talk about it all, chiefly because my belief does not readily reduce itself to simple statements.
Nevertheless I experience these little coercions. Am I the last one to get the news that this religion that has so profoundly influenced world civilization over centuries has been ceded to the clods and obscurantists? Don't I know that JS Bach and MLKing have been entirely eclipsed by Jerry Falwell?
.....Cultures commonly employ the methods of cults, making their members subject and dependent. And nations at intervals march lockstep to enormity and disaster. A successful autocracy rests on the universal failure of individual courage. In a democracy, abdications of conscience are never trivial. They demoralize politics, debilitate candor, and disrupt thought."





Re: Mark vs. Criswell and Young?
by Stephen Fox on Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:49 pm


All of you need to turn up the version in The Death of Adam where she gets down to the nitty gritty of her Christianity in a secular culture.Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson:here, moreover, is a quote:

Courage seems to me to be dependent on cultural definition. By this I do not mean only that it is a word that blesses different behaviors in different cultures, though that is clearly true. I mean also, and more importantly, that courage is rarely expressed except where there is sufficient consensus to support it. Theologians used to write about a prevenient grace, which enables the soul to accept grace itself. Perhaps there must also be a prevenient courage to nerve one to be brave. It is we human beings who give one another permission to show courage, or, more typically, withhold such permission. We also internalize prohibitions, enforcing them on ourselves – prohibitions against, for example, expressing an honest doubt, or entertaining one. This ought not to be true in a civilization like ours, historically committed to valuing individual conscience and free expression. But it is.. . .It is sad to consider how much first-rate courage must be devoted in this world to struggling out of the toils of sheer pettiness. The Saudi women who first drove automobiles risked and suffered penalties, overcame inhibitions, and shattered norms, heroic in their defiance of an absurd convention. We have our own Rosa Parks. That such great courage should have been required to challenge such petty barriers is a demonstration of the power of social consensus. How many minor coercions are required to sustain similar customs and usages? How aware are any of us, absent direct challenge, of how we also deal in trivial coercion?

sfox>not the entire essay here but more:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_1_71/ai_n6156695