Keeping Up Appearances....
I've been terribly remiss in posting here -- mucking around in my LiveJournal and writing more fanfic than serious things. Phew, blog maintenance is hard work! and I hope I haven't lost all my readership altogether.
I've also been a bit reluctant to mess around with blogger since Google revamped it -- there's a built-in comment function now but I'm afraid to take down the old comment function in case the new one doesn't work; I'd like to revamp my template to include new features, but it takes a lot of tinkering and I lost heart messing with it for a while. However, I think I had better make it a project if I want to keep this blog. So -- watch this space over the summer....
In the meantime, a few book notes.
When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America by Jeanne Halgren Kilde. Kilde's prose is technical but readable, and she handles her subject with a mixture of critical analysis and sympathetic description, which is a must in my mind when dealing with religious topics, not merely because one could so easily say something that could be considered blasphemous, but also because mere metrical anthropology does not get at what happens when one attends a church.
The incorporation of theatre architecture into church building during the time of America's expansion was, according to Kilde, a complicated process, diverted for a time by the urge (spurred on by the Civil War) to root American Protestantism in the timeless (and seemingly schismless) Church by building Gothic. At the same time, the revival early in the century, followed by the next revival at the end of the century ("Do not worry about these Great Awakenings, they arrive right on schedule every one hundred years," says Molly Ivins) began to use aspects of theatre to play up the focus on the main speaker and give every seat in the house a good view of the action on the dais. During the century the architecture began to take all these things together, along with additional rooms like parlors and libraries and kitchens which provided women a chance for respectable activism outside their homes. The blend of ideological evolution and the practicalities and contentions of church-building had a mutual effect upon one another; and altogether I was left with the impression that many of those issues and mutual effects can be seen in modern-day Protestant churches all over the country. Certainly the issues Kilde raises were issues in the churches I went to.
I recommend this book highly to people who would like some perspective on practical Protestant thought for the past two hundred years, presented in a non-antagonistic though thoroughly conscientious academic style, and anybody who does read it, let me know because I'd love a thorough discussion on the subject.
Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes. A Newbery Honor book, which makes me wonder what the heck actually won the Newbery. Henkes is one of my favorite children's authors currently writing. Whether it's his picture books or his children's novels, you can count on evocative prose and psychological insight of the first water. This one is about a twelve-year-old girl named Martha who spends a summer at the coast piecing together the puzzle of her desire to be a writer, the death of a classmate, her interest in a neighbor boy, her grandmother's aging, and the relationship between her and her parents and siblings. It's a very good introduction to all the best things about Henkes, if you've never read him before.
Centuries by Thomas Traherne. Haven't finished the first century yet, but I'm glad I have the book on hand. Traherne is like the lightest honey you can imagine, and I don't know how other people handle him, but I can't have too much at once; and yet his writing is like a thread that you need to pull from the beginning, or stepping stones across a sparkling stream. I think he will take a long time to mull, which is fine with me.
I've read quite a number of other things recently, but can't always remember what, so I'll desist with the book reviews now and go get some lunch.
Next on the to-blog list: Preterism; Politics; and Mary Magdalene.
I've been terribly remiss in posting here -- mucking around in my LiveJournal and writing more fanfic than serious things. Phew, blog maintenance is hard work! and I hope I haven't lost all my readership altogether.
I've also been a bit reluctant to mess around with blogger since Google revamped it -- there's a built-in comment function now but I'm afraid to take down the old comment function in case the new one doesn't work; I'd like to revamp my template to include new features, but it takes a lot of tinkering and I lost heart messing with it for a while. However, I think I had better make it a project if I want to keep this blog. So -- watch this space over the summer....
In the meantime, a few book notes.
When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America by Jeanne Halgren Kilde. Kilde's prose is technical but readable, and she handles her subject with a mixture of critical analysis and sympathetic description, which is a must in my mind when dealing with religious topics, not merely because one could so easily say something that could be considered blasphemous, but also because mere metrical anthropology does not get at what happens when one attends a church.
The incorporation of theatre architecture into church building during the time of America's expansion was, according to Kilde, a complicated process, diverted for a time by the urge (spurred on by the Civil War) to root American Protestantism in the timeless (and seemingly schismless) Church by building Gothic. At the same time, the revival early in the century, followed by the next revival at the end of the century ("Do not worry about these Great Awakenings, they arrive right on schedule every one hundred years," says Molly Ivins) began to use aspects of theatre to play up the focus on the main speaker and give every seat in the house a good view of the action on the dais. During the century the architecture began to take all these things together, along with additional rooms like parlors and libraries and kitchens which provided women a chance for respectable activism outside their homes. The blend of ideological evolution and the practicalities and contentions of church-building had a mutual effect upon one another; and altogether I was left with the impression that many of those issues and mutual effects can be seen in modern-day Protestant churches all over the country. Certainly the issues Kilde raises were issues in the churches I went to.
I recommend this book highly to people who would like some perspective on practical Protestant thought for the past two hundred years, presented in a non-antagonistic though thoroughly conscientious academic style, and anybody who does read it, let me know because I'd love a thorough discussion on the subject.
Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes. A Newbery Honor book, which makes me wonder what the heck actually won the Newbery. Henkes is one of my favorite children's authors currently writing. Whether it's his picture books or his children's novels, you can count on evocative prose and psychological insight of the first water. This one is about a twelve-year-old girl named Martha who spends a summer at the coast piecing together the puzzle of her desire to be a writer, the death of a classmate, her interest in a neighbor boy, her grandmother's aging, and the relationship between her and her parents and siblings. It's a very good introduction to all the best things about Henkes, if you've never read him before.
Centuries by Thomas Traherne. Haven't finished the first century yet, but I'm glad I have the book on hand. Traherne is like the lightest honey you can imagine, and I don't know how other people handle him, but I can't have too much at once; and yet his writing is like a thread that you need to pull from the beginning, or stepping stones across a sparkling stream. I think he will take a long time to mull, which is fine with me.
I've read quite a number of other things recently, but can't always remember what, so I'll desist with the book reviews now and go get some lunch.
Next on the to-blog list: Preterism; Politics; and Mary Magdalene.
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