R.R. Reno’s “Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society”

Perhaps the first thing one should note about R.R. Reno’s Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society is that he’s not calling for a return to some imagined Christian government for the United States. The title might lead some to believe that, given it’s a presidential election, year, and given that it’s this presidential election, with people talking of whom they’re voting against rather than whom they’re voting for.

No, Reno, editor of First Things Magazine, isn’t writing about a Christian government. He’s writing about the idea of a society informed by the values of justice, mercy, and protection of the weak, as opposed to what the United States has become – a society informed by social Darwinism; a political, cultural, and economic elite that makes the rules for everyone except itself; and a culture of nonjudgmentalism that permeates our education system. Among other things. Among a lot of other things.

Reno completed this book before the political primary system got fully underway. And so it’s surprising to see just how well he anticipated, without once mentioning their names, the rise of the anti-elitists in both major parties – Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party and Donald Trump in the Republican Party. He has much to say about America’s elites – corporate elites, political, elites, cultural elites – and none of it is good.

“Visit the poorest neighborhoods of a major American city or an impoverished rural town and you’ll quickly discover a misery more profound and pervasive than simple material want,” he says. “Drugs, crime, sexual exploitation, divorce, fatherlessness, streams of expletives, pornography, violent images – they are everywhere. The sheer brutality and ugliness of the lives of countless Americans – not only poor but middle-class as well – is shocking.”

And the worst impoverishment of all, and the one he lays at the feet of American elites, is spiritual impoverishment. Through actions like movies, news media, corporate CEO’s lobbying on social issues, social engineering in public schools, and more, American elites ridicule the values of family, honesty, hard work, caring for the weak, and decency – while often typically practicing those very same virtues in their own families.

It’s fine to make often ridiculous rules and issuing directives for the children of the middle class and poor when your own children are in private schools and will be exempt. It’s normal to contemplate major changes to Social Security when you yourself have another pension system (Congress) and won’t be affected. (Those brilliant legislators in California – the ones so sanctimoniously passing gun control legislation – are exempting themselves from the bill because, as one of them explained, “We need protection.”)

R.R. Reno

What Reno is doing here is tearing away the hypocrisy of what passes for elite thought – right and left – in this country. One small example: “There is a far greater range of moral and political opinion in American churches than in a typical newsroom or editorial board.”

Reno’s suggestions for change recognize the difficulties of that change. It’s relatively easy to pass rules or make bureaucratic decisions out of the public spotlight; it’s quite another to change hearts. And it’s hearts that must be changed. It doesn’t take a “moral majority” to do that, either, for Reno understands something else, something profound: It doesn’t take a lot salt to ensure sufficient seasoning. A small number of people, standing with moral authority of doing what is right, doesn’t need political judges, people rewriting laws behind closed doors. And the hysterical rants of newspaper editorial writers to create change.

If you want to understand what is happening in this wild and crazy political season, and why there is hope no matter who wins the White House, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society is a good place to start.

Related: Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic.

Photograph by Martin Birkin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Games

After Matthew 7:21-27

Playing a game of rock

paper scissors is for children

an inexpensive way to pass

time to entertain to compete

with low stakes, usually

Older we reach for another game

called rock and sand, constructing

a life on rock or a life on sand

the sand of celebrity

sand of fame and entertainment

sand of obeisance to the ephemeral

sand of beauty sand of wealth

sand all sand

rock can be, is a hard place

sometimes cold and jagged, sharp

and stabbing but always

solid

Photograph by Peter Griffin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

Would poet Percy Bysshe Shelley have voted for Brexit? No one can answer that question, but The Guardian notes the publication of a lost Shelley poem that excoriated the ruling class. (Come to think of it, he probably would have moved permanently to Italy, which he did anyway.)

It was another week of election coverage. We here in Missouri survived millions of robo-calls on our telephones and the mass slaughter of millions of trees for campaign literature and now have a unique choice for governor – a Republican who became a Democrat and a Democrat who became a Republican. Donald Trump spoke, as he is wont to do, and a media firestorm erupted. Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Chris Matthews at Fox, and didn’t exactly tell the truth about lying. In USA Today, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, the University of Tennessee law professor better known as Instapundit, asks, and answers, who’s to blame for the two major presidential candidates.

Some wonderful things from Britain: BBC will be broadcasting some lost recordings of J.R.R. Tolkien; Cambridge University has a story about the art and science of illuminated manuscripts; and Spitalfields Life published photographs of the old bookshops of London (making me wish we had time travel).

Some wonderful poetry and photographs, a beautiful video on the desire to see memories in advance, and Megan Willome reflects on what her father did at the University of Texas the day the sniper rained down death.

British Stuff

BBC to Broadcast Lost Tolkien Recordings – The Tolkien Society.

Do Put Down That Revolver: A Review of The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House Between the Wars – Rosemary Hill at London Review of Books (Hat Tip: J of India).

The Antiquarian Bookshops of Old London – Spitalfields Life (Hat Tip: Janet Young).

Life and Culture

Did former Democratic Governor Richard Lamm of Colorado really give a speech ripping multiculturalism? – Snopes.com.

What Pledges Should Leaders Keep? – Jon Mertz at Thin Difference.

Does French Culture Have a Future? – Pierre Mannet at First Things Magazine.

A Big Campus Trend: Ignorance of U.S. History – John Leo at Minding the Campus.

Who's to blame for Hillary and Donald? – Glenn Harlan Reynolds at USA Today.

What happened to my party? – Joel Kotkin at The Orange County Register.

Aug. 1, 1966 - Megan Willome.

Faith

Agreeing to disagree agreeably – Ted Gossard at Jesus Community.

Jane Austen’s Prayer – Tim Challies at Informing the Reforming.

What to Do When You Are in a Spiritual Dry Spell – Scott Slayton at One Degree to Another.

Why Loss Comes Before Excellence – Mick Silva.

Poetry

Fall to Peaces – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

Wish You Were Here – Megan Willome.

Substance – Barbara Mackenzie at Signed…BKM.

Poem for Drew: Twenty-two – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Lost Shelley poem execrating 'rank corruption' of ruling class made public – Alison Flood at The Guardian.

Art and Photography

Small Living Things – Tim Good at Pics, Poems, and Ponderings.

COLOUR: The art and science of illuminated manuscripts – Cambridge University.

Ornamental Details, Missouri History Museum – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

Writing

Once in a million words, a romantic writing moment – David Murray at Writing Boots.

Avenoir: The Desire to See Memories in Advance – The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Painting: The Book Workworm, oil on canvas by Carl Spitzweg (1850).

Waiting

After Acts 2

Together in one place

waiting as told

waiting as instructed

waiting for the help

and leading promised

waiting because it is

what were called to do: wait

the fire comes

with wind and roaring

tongues of fire resting

atop our heads

our voices joined to the roaring

wind and fire speaking

in languages

we did not learn

we do not know

but heard and understood by all

standing before us each

in his own language

the wind roars through our hearts

the spirit arcs in fiery flames

consuming our hearts

Photograph by Linnaea Mallette via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

John Berendt’s “The City of Falling Angels”

John Berendt, author of the bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (216 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List), arrived in Venice in the winter of 1996, only a couple of weeks after a fire had destroyed the La Fenice opera house. The building had previously burned twice, in 1774 and 1836, and had been rebuilt both times.

What Berendt recognized was the fire was a story, an intriguing story, and it just might be the prism through which to tell the larger story of Venice. And so he stayed on, rented a room, and began to talk with people.

The City of Falling Angels was first published in 2005, the year after the rebuilt opera house was opened. And the story Berendt tells, a story of Venice, is a fascinating one.

The opera house fire becomes a framework to write the story of Venice – its history, its politics, its maze of bureaucratic rules, its first families (how many doges do you have in your family line?), the expats who live and have lived there (especially Americans), the rivalries of the charitable organizations set up to save and restore city buildings, artwork, and icons. But it’s not only a story of rich people; Venice is also the story of artists and bakers, gondola drivers and electricians, and the crazy time that is Carnival.

City authorities initially investigated the fire as one of negligence, and there was plenty of ongoing negligence to go around before the fire – cans of solvents left open, blow torches left burning, improper ventilation. And then, in the way that really good stories do, the investigations focuses on arson.

John Berendt

With the story of the La Fenice fire comes the stories of a family of glassblowers, what happened to the papers of poet Ezra Pound, a wealthy American family that has lived in self-enforced exile since the late 19^th century, and the battle of Save Venice vs. Venetian Heritage (the rich can be just as petty as the rest us, and perhaps more so). It’s an entertaining mix of fact and myth, perception and reality.

Berendt, a native of New York State, received his B.A. degree in English from Harvard University. He’s worked in publishing, writing for television talk show hosts (David Frost and Dick Cavett), and worked at New York Magazine and Esquire. His story of murder in Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, was virtually an overnight sensation when it was published in 1994.

Top photograph: La Fenice Opera House in Venice, after its restoration from the fire. Image via Wikipedia.