Have You Read a Book Yet This Year?

[Andrew K]

Did you get sent to the Circumlocution Office (Little Dorrit)? I also loved that one. :D

Dickens was a great wit and very perceptive of injustice. Sadly, he decidedly rejected the gospel as a boy of ten (lived next door to a Baptist preacher). His family was C of E, but his father would sometimes take him to the Baptist church because it was closer. He rejected the message preached. I don’t know if the preacher was as bad as Dickens saw him, but he certainly portrays evangelicals in a bad light in many books, including Bleak House.

Still, his novels are entertaining and thought provoking. That’s why they’ve stood the test of time.

I hate Dickens.

[TylerR]

I hate Dickens.

You can leave.
Go back to your teenage-vampire fiction, Amish romance novels , and Jack Hyles’ “poetry.”

;D

[TylerR]

I hate Dickens.

This is what is so great about the body of Christ. Even illiterate rube’s have a place :).

[Don Johnson]

Andrew K wrote:

Did you get sent to the Circumlocution Office (Little Dorrit)? I also loved that one. :D

Dickens was a great wit and very perceptive of injustice. Sadly, he decidedly rejected the gospel as a boy of ten (lived next door to a Baptist preacher). His family was C of E, but his father would sometimes take him to the Baptist church because it was closer. He rejected the message preached. I don’t know if the preacher was as bad as Dickens saw him, but he certainly portrays evangelicals in a bad light in many books, including Bleak House.

Still, his novels are entertaining and thought provoking. That’s why they’ve stood the test of time.

Thanks for this Don. I got the impression in his writing that he was no fan of the gospel but I hadn’t heard the whole story. Is there a biography of Dickens that you can recommend?

I really like Joseph Conrad, if that redeems me. I read Lord Jim this past year,

[josh p]

Thanks for this Don. I got the impression in his writing that he was no fan of the gospel but I hadn’t heard the whole story. Is there a biography of Dickens that you can recommend?

The biography I have is Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson

It is two volumes, includes chapters of literary analysis on most if not all of his novels.

Here is the bit about the Baptist preacher

The minister of the Zion Baptist Chapel in Chatham during the time the Dickenses lived in St. Mary’s Place was the Reverend William Giles. He has been said to have been also the minister of the Providence Baptist Chapel, next door to their house, although it is not likely that he officiated at both churches at the same time. However this may be, Mr. Giles was acquainted with the Dickens family. They were Church of England, although not at all devout, or interested in matters of doctrine. They were not ritualistic nor straitlaced nor iconoclastic, just completely and cheerful and worldly. They did not even attend church very regularly. They had no objection, however, to hearing their neighbour preach occasionally, and Charles evidently suffered bitterly from his or some other preacher’s long-winded two-hour sermons.

Sitting there uncomfortably on a Sunday, he felt as if his mind were being steamed out of him, hating the minister’s ‘big round face,’ looking ‘up the inside of his outstretched coat-sleeve as if it were a telescope,’ and loathing ‘his lumbering jocularity.’ Haled out the chapel, the boy would find himself ‘catechized respecting’ the minister’s ‘fifthly, his sixthly, and his seventhly,’ until he ‘regarded that reverend person in the light of a most dismal and oppressive Charade.’ These experiences laid the foundations for his lifelong hatred of Nonconformity and his revulsion from any formal religious affiliatation. (pp. 19-20, vol 1)

Dickens was just about 10 years old when forming these life-long opinions. It’s a kind of sobering thought. What do children think of us when we preach?

[TylerR]

I really like Joseph Conrad, if that redeems me. I read Lord Jim this past year,

It does a bit, actually. Though it’s probably going to take Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or Cervantes to get you completely out of the hole.

Two books, in order to understand the roots and history of the Progressive Evangelical Christian Left better.

Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minority-Evangelical-Conservatism-Politics/dp/0812223063/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Evangelicals-Pursuit-Social-Justice/dp/1469617722/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[Don Johnson]

josh p wrote:

Thanks for this Don. I got the impression in his writing that he was no fan of the gospel but I hadn’t heard the whole story. Is there a biography of Dickens that you can recommend?

The biography I have is Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph by Edgar Johnson

It is two volumes, includes chapters of literary analysis on most if not all of his novels.

Here is the bit about the Baptist preacher

The minister of the Zion Baptist Chapel in Chatham during the time the Dickenses lived in St. Mary’s Place was the Reverend William Giles. He has been said to have been also the minister of the Providence Baptist Chapel, next door to their house, although it is not likely that he officiated at both churches at the same time. However this may be, Mr. Giles was acquainted with the Dickens family. They were Church of England, although not at all devout, or interested in matters of doctrine. They were not ritualistic nor straitlaced nor iconoclastic, just completely and cheerful and worldly. They did not even attend church very regularly. They had no objection, however, to hearing their neighbour preach occasionally, and Charles evidently suffered bitterly from his or some other preacher’s long-winded two-hour sermons.

Sitting there uncomfortably on a Sunday, he felt as if his mind were being steamed out of him, hating the minister’s ‘big round face,’ looking ‘up the inside of his outstretched coat-sleeve as if it were a telescope,’ and loathing ‘his lumbering jocularity.’ Haled out the chapel, the boy would find himself ‘catechized respecting’ the minister’s ‘fifthly, his sixthly, and his seventhly,’ until he ‘regarded that reverend person in the light of a most dismal and oppressive Charade.’ These experiences laid the foundations for his lifelong hatred of Nonconformity and his revulsion from any formal religious affiliatation. (pp. 19-20, vol 1)

Dickens was just about 10 years old when forming these life-long opinions. It’s a kind of sobering thought. What do children think of us when we preach?

Thanks. After reading thousands of pages of Dickens, it will be worth reading about his life. These days I find a good biography more interesting than almost anything else.

[TylerR]

I really like Joseph Conrad, if that redeems me. I read Lord Jim this past year,

I have yet to read Lord Jim but another sailing book that is great is London’s The Sea Wolf. Probably a top five book for me. An amazing critique of evolutionary/naturalism and its logical conclusions. On Conrad, have you read The Secret Agent yet? I enjoyed that one. I also read Heart of Darkness. I must be dumb or something because I didn’t get what was so great about it.

Anyone who has a Goodreads account and who wants to friend me there my name full name is Josh Peglow. I get a lot of book ideas from friends there.

[josh p]

TylerR wrote:

I really like Joseph Conrad, if that redeems me. I read Lord Jim this past year,

I have yet to read Lord Jim but another sailing book that is great is London’s The Sea Wolf. Probably a top five book for me. An amazing critique of evolutionary/naturalism and its logical conclusions. On Conrad, have you read The Secret Agent yet? I enjoyed that one. I also read Heart of Darkness. I must be dumb or something because I didn’t get what was so great about it.