Author: Jonathan Dodson

I recently discovered a host of God-centered, culture-engaging articles and resources at Worship.com. I have also been invited to be a regular contributor to this site, and recently posted an newly edited version of an article I wrote called “Hate the City, Love the City: How Should Christians Respond?”

See 9/11 Falling Man reflection here.

Set in a post-9/11 world, Falling Man, Don DeLillo’s most recent novel (May 2007), attempts to grapple with the social, interpersonal, psychological and, at times, spiritual impact of the destruction of Twin Towers. This impact is etched into the life of fictional Manhattan survivor, Kieth Neudeckor, and his family.

The themes, characters, structure, and plot of Falling Man raise many questions without providing all the answers. The reader is immediately thrust into a world “of falling ash and near night,” and abandoned in anticipation to find his/her way through the achronological sequence of events that follow. Along the way we encounter a suit and tie performance artist who jumps from great heights while attached to a hidden safety harness, whose purpose is never made crystal clear. What would compel a man to do such a thing? This character is, of course, snatched from the controversial photo taken during 9/11 of a man free falling in front of the Two Towers (right).

Despite the disjointed, post-modern structure of the novel, its content is decidedly existential. We are given an embarrassingly privileged and gripping insight into how some people have and must still struggle with the force of this tragedy. As a result of reading this book, I already possess a greater empathy for the 9/11 survivors and victims’ families.

The book moves beyond sentiment and compassion to wrestle with the connected and deeply philosophical, theological questions of epistemology, reason for being, etc. Some quotes…

“Human existence had to have a deeper source than our own dank fluids. Dank or rank. There had to be a force behind it, a principal being who was and is and ever shall be.”

“God used to be an urban Jew. He’s back in the desert now.”

“God would consume her. God would de-create her and she was too small and tame to resist. That’s why she was resisting now. Because think about it. Because once you believe such a thing. God is, then how can you escape, how survive the power of it, is and was and ever shall be.”

“Twenty years. Eating and sleeping together. You don’t know? Did you ask him? Did you press him?”

“They talked a minute longer, then went to their designated tables without making plans to meet later. The idea of later was elusive.”

Falling Man has been criticized for being a “frustratingly disjointed novel” and praised as “pages of magnificent force and control.” It would be best to read it and decide for yourself. But beware, if imperfect endings and unresolved conflicts bother you, this is not the book for you (or perhaps it is just what you need).

Read the first chapter here A positive, more interpretive review here. A less enthusiastic NYTs review here.

Richard Rorty, whose inventive work on philosophy, politics, literary theory and more made him one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers, died Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 75.

Mr. Rorty’s enormous body of work, which ranged from academic tomes to magazine and newspaper articles, provoked fervent praise, hostility and confusion. But no matter what even his severest critics thought of it, they could not ignore it.

Mr. Rorty drew on the works of Freud, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Quine and others. Although he argued that “no area of culture, and no period of history gets reality more right than any other,” he did maintain that a liberal democratic society was by far the best because it was the only one that permits competing beliefs to exist while also creating a public community.

See the NYTs Obit here.

David Bebbington, professor of history at the University of Stirling and recent author of The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody has written an excellent article assessing American Evangelicalism through the lens of five recent books on the subject (see titles below).

In addition to the helpful book reviews, Bebbington notes that, contrary to these volumes, Evangelicalism is not a mere American phenomenon. It relies heavily upon certain British influences including have been swayed by the New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce, the theologian J. I. Packer, and the Christian statesman John Stott, non-evangelical apologist C.S. Lewis, and recently Alpha Course pioneer Nicky Gumble.

Of particular interest is Bebbington’s observation that American evangelicalism is much more political than British evangelicalism. With the shadows of John Owen, William Wilberforce and the like, one wonders if Bebbington is dismissing the political influence in Britain too quickly? Then again, he may be thinking of recent evangelicalism. Regardless, the American brand is perceived as heavily political, and in my opinion, as long as evangelicals to not baptize a political party and are equally good citizens as politicians, that can be very good.

His closing remarks on the 20th century version of American evanglicalism are helpful. Consider all the talk about America being or becoming a post-Christian nation, alongside Bebbington’s following comments:

“It is highly significant that in the 2006 Baylor survey more people in the same mainline denominations embraced the label “Evangelical” than did those regarded by the investigators as belonging to evangelical bodies. The 20th century witnessed far less interruption of the evangelical tradition than the usual emphasis on fundamentalism would suggest.”

“Evangelicalism has been and remains an emphatically global force, with characteristics that outcrop in every land under the sun, and it would be a mistake to suppose that it ever has been uniquely American. Yet its American expression, for all its accommodation to various currents in the modern life of the nation, has been and remains unusually successful.”

America–Evangelical, Christian, or Post-Christian. What are your thoughts?

Monique El-Faizy, God and Country: How Evangelicals have become America’s New Mainstream (Bloomsbury, 2006).

Richard Kyle, Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity (Transaction, 2006).

Sam Reimer, Evangelicals and the Continental Divide: The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 2003).

Jeffery L. Sheler, Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America (Viking, 2006).

Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement (BakerAcademic, 2005).