Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Struggle Over Education's Purpose, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

While reading John D. Roth’s social history of Goshen College, the words of Ecclesiastes 1:9 came to mind: “There is nothing new under the sun.” ­Goshen’s challenges were (and are) similar to other church-affiliated schools. Concerns about “theological drift,” raised at Goshen a century ago, continue not only there but at other faith-based institutions. A faculty member at my university recently expressed similar worry about losing our faith-centered focus, using the same language of theological drift.

Towards A Literary History Of Quaker Writing In The Atlantic World, Jay David Miller

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Among eighteenth-century Quaker writers, John Woolman was idiosyncratic, as illustrated by the fact that in his journal he recorded an ac-count of his own death. Needless to say, this was not usually done. Instead, it was conventional for posthumously published Quaker journals to include not only an autobiographical narrative of spiritual development but also additional material written by qualified Friends offering further testimony and giving details about how and when the author died. The first printing of Woolman’s journal in his posthumous Works (1774) is accompanied by such material about his 1772 death in York, England, but this was not …

Environmental Aesthetics And Environmental Justice In Jonathan Edwards’S Personal Narrative And John Woolman’S Journal, Jay David Miller

Faculty Publications - Department of English

This essay examines the relationship between Christian theology, environmental aesthetics, and environmental justice in colonial America. As opposed to the work of secular writers from the early republic like J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and Thomas Jefferson, the Christian environmental aesthetics of Jonathan Edwards and John Woolman have potential to address questions of environmental justice in American literary history, such as tenant exploitation, African enslavement, and Indigenous displacement. Edwards, however, worked in a pastoral literary tradition, which limited his ability to imagine environmental justice due to his commitment to the doctrine of election. Woolman, on the other hand, worked …

John Woolman, Jay D. Miller

Faculty Publications - Department of English

John Woolman (b. 1720-d. 1772), a Quaker shopkeeper, tailor, and farmer from West Jersey, traveled extensively throughout colonial America as an itinerant minister and produced writings on the most important social problems of the era. Woolman was part of a group of ministers working for increased discipline and broad reform among Friends. He cared deeply about the right conduct and purity of Quaker meetings for worship, and these concerns informed his social thought, as did his various livelihoods. His experience selling goods from his store and the produce of his farm made him increasingly aware of how the transatlantic economy …

The Matter And (Mostly) Manner Of Mere Christianity, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Presented to a meeting of the Inkling Folk Fellowship (IFF), July 23rd, 2021.

Zoom Session Link: https://youtu.be/F2ZKEPD0YFg

Research Question•Why does Lewis’s work of popular apologetics continue to find a wide readership while other excellent books in the same genre—e.g., Sayers’s Creed or Chaos—do not?

Christianity Today Survey (2000): Most influential Christian books

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1942-44; 1952) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937) Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (1932-67) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (1968) G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908) Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) Richard Foster, …

William Penn’S Imperial Georgic And The Vernacular Landscapes Of Pennsylvania In Eighteenth-Century Quaker Journals, Jay David Miller

Faculty Publications - Department of English

This essay analyzes changes in the way Quaker writers represented the landscape of Pennsylvania, particularly the economic features of its built environment, over time. I argue that the promotional writing of William Penn constituted an “official” represent at ion of the landscape, using the genre of imperial georgic to highlight the colony’s productive and lucrative potential for an audience of investors while minimizing the role of indentured servitude, African enslavement, and Indigenous dis-possession in the process of economic development. Eighteenth- century Quaker reformers, however, developed a more “vernacular” portrayal of the landscape that was attentive to the privations of those …

Book Review: The Lion In The Waste Land: Fearsome Redemption In The Work Of C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, And T. S. Eliot By Janice Brown, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Readers of scholarship about C. S. Lewis are familiar with studies that discuss his work and life in the context of his fellow Inklings: Tolkien, Williams, and Barfield. Janice Brown’s decision, however, to treat C. S. Lewis alongside two of his contemporary writers, both non-Inklings—Dorothy L. Sayers and T. S. Eliot—does demand an explanation. Brown must have recognized as much since she begins The Lion in the Waste Land by building a case for considering these three authors together, citing British historian Adrian Hastings, who identifies a “re-appropriation of Christian faith” during World War II and attributes this revival …

When The Worst People Are The Best Rhetoricians: (Mis)Using Rhetoric In C. S. Lewis’S The Last Battle, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

In discussing John Milton’s manipulation of the reader in Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis comments generally on the art of rhetoric: “I do not think (and no great civili-zation has ever thought) that the art of the rhetorician is necessarily vile. It is in itself noble, though of course, like most arts, it can be wickedly used” (53). From comments in his letters and essays, we know that Lewis thought frequently about his own work as a Christian apologist, concerned that he pursue truth in his arguments rather than trying to win an argument at all costs. In fact, he …

“Friend Thou Art Often In My Remembrance”, Jay D. Miller

Faculty Publications - Department of English

A recently discovered letter by Elizabeth Ashbridge expands the very small archive of documents related to this important Quaker minister, gives scholars a better understanding of the circles in which she moved, and offers an occasion for reflection on epistolary writing in the eighteenth century. Written to her fellow Quaker Margaret Bowne, the letter fascinates as a dense record of the overlapping transatlantic, commercial, and ministerial connections Friends maintained during the period. It also illustrates the persistence of Pauline epistolary tropes in the context of an ostensibly “secular” familiar letter, reminding scholars of the pitfalls of thinking of the secular …

A Difference Of Degree: Sayers And Lewis On The Creative Imagination (Chapter In The Faithful Imagination), Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis were writers who thought deeply about the creative imagination, the creative process, and the relation of these to their Christian faith. Both were practitioners, as well as theorists, producing multiple works of fiction, drama, apologetics, and poetry. Both wrote for a variety of audiences including scholarly and popular and believed that literary works could be entertaining as well as edifying, could both delight and teach, as the classical and renaissance writers put it. Finally, both authors addressed the creative imagination in their essays, books, and letters. While a comprehensive treatment of their …

Dismantling Privilege: A Review Of “White Picket Fences”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Every once in a while, I read a book that resonates with me so fully, I wish I could become close friends with its author. I presume this is the case with most inveterate readers: we see our lives represented in an author’s words, and feel that—perhaps for the first time— someone has articulated our own experiences and world views completely. We might even imagine spending a long afternoon talking faceto- face with the author over coffee, the book having convinced us that time together would pass quickly because we were so simpatico."

Saving People From The Fiery Pits Of Hell? A Review Of “The Very Worst Missionary”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "As a Christian college student several decades ago, I knew without a doubt that the holiest, most sanctified majors on campus where those preparing their graduates for overseas missions. This probably explains the small twinges of guilt I felt when others gushed about their longing to serve God on the mission field. Nothing about that vocation seemed appealing to me, nor did the yearly short-term missions trips the college hosted, when vanloads of students travelled to Mexico or flew to other far-away locales to offer children a week of Vacation Bible School, or to build an outdoor baño."

Reckoning With “Other Lies”: A Review Of “Everything Happens For A Reason”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Everything Happens For a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved narrates the aftermath of Bowler’s diagnosis, reflecting on what it means to live well despite the specter of death. The memoir, by turns funny, thoughtful, meditative, and sobering, asks important questions about how we understand God in the midst of suffering and pain, especially when those facile mythologies we often turn to—everything happens for a reason, it’s all part of God’s plan, God is teaching me something—provide insufficient comfort for those who are hurting."

The Limitations Of Welcome: An Interview With Amy Jacober, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Amy Jacober remembers well the anger she felt when, in her early 20s, she saw a first-grade girl get kicked out of her church’s youth choir. The girl, a daughter of close friends, had Down syndrome, and the choir’s director decided since there was no one to help the child navigate her time in choir, she would be banned from participating."

Raising Spiritual Kids In The Age Of Instagram, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "The call came in to our harvest-yellow kitchen when I was fourteen. I stood at the breakfast bar with my family's also-yellow phone pressed to me ear, winding and unwinding the twisted cord while listening to Tamara, my erstwhile friend. She wanted me to know I was nice enough, but that everyone in my ninth-grade class agreed I needed to get some new clothes already. And that I definitely needed to get a new hairstyle, because my short curls were really ugly (except she used an expletive in place of "really")."

Finding The Intersections: A Review Of “This Child Of Faith”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Sophfronia Scott and her son, Tain Gregory, have a compelling story to tell. In December 2012, Tain was a thirdgrader at Sandy Hook Elementary, the school that became synonymous with the tragedy of school shootings when 20 first-grade children and six adult staff members were killed at Sandy Hook in a massacre that took only moments. Tain’s friend, Ben, was among those killed, as was the school’s principal, a woman who had only months earlier warmly welcomed Tain to his new school. Sophfronia and Tain tell their story in the book This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child …

Book Review: I’M Still Here: Black Dignity In A World Made For Whiteness, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "As a Christian feminist and progressive, I spend a lot of time patting myself on the back, believing other people might be racist or sexist or otherwise close-minded, but certainly not me. It’s easy for me to assert my bona fides. I seek to be inclusive in my language and in my actions; I champion diversity in the classes I teach; I have two teenage boys who are not white and with whom I’m carefully navigating an educational experience that has not been wholly positive, given their place in a majority white school."

The Totality (Chapter In Into The Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion), Abigail Rine Favale

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "For over a decade, the maleness of the priesthood kept me away from the Catholic Church. By the time I was a junior in college, my feminism was in full swing, and the ordination of women had become my litmus test for whether or not I could be part of a particular church or denomination."

C. S. Lewis' Ambivalence Toward Rhetoric And Style, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

While C. S. Lewis has been called by many names (scholar, teacher, speaker, philosopher, literary critic, and theologian, to name only a few), rhetorician is the name he often used to describe himself, and, based upon his life and body of work, it is perhaps one of the most appropriate titles for him. As James Como asserts, "[Lewis'] rhetorical temper provided a compulsiveness and a posture that could be resolved only in argument. Training, taste, and talent equipped him for an academic and apologetic career, to the exclusion of nearly all others ... Lewis was the quintessential Homo rhetoricus, knew …

Book Review: Fat And Faithful: Learning To Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, And Ourselves, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Patterson is the former president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, fired in May because of his misogynistic comments and mishandling of sexual abuse claims. He chose in his return to preaching last week to question the legitimacy of the #MeToo movement, and apparently thought the pulpit was the best place to body-shame women, in particular those who are fat. In a sermon during a Christian revival, Patterson described a woman who “filled the door,” made a joke about the baptistery and her weight, and said that she could play linebacker for an NFL team.

The audience, there ostensibly …

"When The Light That's Lost Within Us Reaches The Sky" Jackson Browne's Romantic Vision (Chapter Seven Of Rock And Romanticism: Blake, Wordsworth, And Rock From Dylan To U2), Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "In "Michael: A Pastoral Poem," William Wordsworth imagines "youthful Poets, who among these Hills I Will be my second Self when I am gone." 1 In his recent critical study, Andrew Bennett suggests that Wordsworth and the other British Romantic poets continue to have an impact on the poetry and poetic theory of our times: "Contemporary culture, indeed, is pervaded by developments in conceptions of poetry and art that are associated most fully with the Romantic period."2 As Sayre and Lowy state, "Far from being a purely nineteenth-century phenomenon, Romanticism is an essential component of modern culture."3 One contemporary …

Why Mowing The Lawn Can Be Complicated (Chapter 6 From Worthy: Finding Yourself In A World Expecting Someone Else), Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

In Worthy, college professor Melanie Springer Mock sifts through the shape and weight of expectations that press Christians into cultural molds rather than God's image. By plumbing Scripture and critiquing the ten-billion-dollar-a-year self-improvement industry, Mock offers life-giving reminders that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Set free from the anxiety to conform to others' expectations, we are liberated to become who God has created us to be. If you're worn out from worrying that you've missed God's One Big Calling, and if you're tired of trying to fit yourself into some cookie-cutter Christian mold, step away from the expectations and …

Kitchen-Sink Enlightenment: A Review Of “Grace For Amateurs”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Here’s an honest admission: Several times while reading Lily Burana’s new book Grace for Amateurs: Field Notes on a Journey Back to Faith, I consulted the copyright page, confirming again that Grace for Amateurs was really published by Thomas Nelson, the notoriously evangelical (and, in my mind, notoriously traditional) press. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Thomas Nelson asked another writer to remove the word “vagina” from her book, well aware that Christian readers would balk at language so closely associated with women and S-E-X. Would this same publisher be willing to support a memoir as edgy …

A Journey In The Direction Of Love, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "This fall, when I began reading Benjamin Corey’s excellent new book Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith, my home state was burning. Forest fires were swiftly destroying parts of the iconic Columbia Gorge in Oregon, the ash floating westward to cover my car, over 50 miles away. Smoke clouded our skies for over a week, and breathing outside made my throat sore and my head throb. At the same time, Hurricanes Maria and Harvey were ravishing parts of Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico; Mexico City experienced an epic earthquake; floods killed scores in Southeast Asia."

Reigniting The Firebrand Heart, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "From the very first pages of her memoir, Assimilate or Go Home, I felt an affinity with D.L. Mayfield. Perhaps I recognized my students in Mayfield’s idealism and innocence, a missionary fervor that burns brightly in many undergraduates who attend Christian universities like the one where I teach. Perhaps I saw in her narrative my own youthful firebrand heart when, as a senior in college, I longed to get arrested protesting injustice; imagined sitting in a jail, even, believing such activism would show how deeply my convictions ran and how ardently I loved Jesus."

A Spirituality Of Cycling: Review Of “Holy Spokes: The Search For Urban Spirituality On Two Wheels”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "Holy Spokes is divided into twelve chapters, each of which examines one component of a complete bicycle: its frame, wheels, gears, brakes, etc. While this approach might seem artificial or forced, Everett seamlessly uses her contemplation of a bike’s necessary parts as a jumping-off point to considering aspects of her spiritual journey."

Charles Williams: The Third Inkling (Book Review), Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

No abstract provided.

Life Is Not A Pro/Con Proposition: A Review Of Kassi Underwood’S “May Cause Love”, Melanie Springer Mock

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "In many ways, contemporary abortion debates have managed to do just that: objectifying women who have abortions by politicizing their experiences. May Cause Love compellingly reveals that life doesn’t always follow ideology, as Adichie says, and that sometimes, when faced with a monumental decision, women need support, guidance, and a safe community who will listen closely, rather than judge harshly. Because every woman’s story about abortion has the power to change the world, if only we have the ears, and the heart, to listen."

What Love Looks Like, As I Recall, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Excerpt: "I am standing in a funeral home in Wichita, Kansas, looking at my grandmother's face. It appears fuller than it did when I last saw it. When she was alive. Her gray hair is styled more formally than usual. Only her glasses look the same. Behind the lenses, however, her eyes show none of their usual sparkle, the way they seemed to twinkle when she made a joke or heard or read an insightful comment- or listened to me play my guitar. I am a junior in high school, and I have no clue how I'm going to go …

Books, Theology, And Hens: The Correspondence And Friendship Of C. S. Lewis And Dorothy L. Sayers, Laura K. Simmons, Gary L. Tandy

Faculty Publications - Department of English

"That Lewis and Sayers had much in common and that their lives intersected in a number of interesting ways throughout their careers is common knowledge for even the casual follower of either author. What does not seem to have been appreciated or explained sufficiently in the scholarship to date is the nature of the friendship between these two influential Christian authors. Therefore, it is this friendship we wish to shed light on, using as our primary source the correspondence between Lewis and Sayers from 1942-1957. In addition, we look at what the biographers of each author have to say about …