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 Poetry Editor Brad Fruhauff responds to comments on a previous blog regarding poetry and writing from a faith perspective.
Rhetoric, Experience and Faith: A Reply
Some time ago, a thoughtful reader of our blog, going by the name of Chestertonian Rambler, responded to one of my posts with some comments that seemed worth a reply. It had been so long, however, since s/he had so commented, that I decided to devote a whole post to it. To paraphrase: CR agreed that our beliefs condition our experiences, but questioned whether anyone is so thoroughly Christian that her experiences would be purely or 100% sanctified. S/he went on to point out that atheists can appropriate religious poetry, and Christian poets can express “genuine rage, bitterness, despair, doubt, or a variety of other decidedly non-Christian impulses or ideas.” S/he ended with: It’s a very good thing to say “love God, then write what you will.” But I think that, to some extent, one question every poet needs to ask is how far to allow his or her sinfulness and rebellion to be expressed in published poetry. Should one “write poetry, and then try to love God?” Or should one wait until a certain amount of certainty of writing God-centered poetry before writing?
I’ll reply in three parts. 1. Never Accept an Absolute—That’s Rhetoric, for You People who know me know to be careful about taking too many of my statements as absolutes. In the first place, I don’t believe language is the most stable medium for the transmission of absolutes (this is why we continue to interpret the Bible), but also, where CR quotes me, I am pushing towards polemic for rhetorical purposes. Sometimes, for an idea to stick, it has to be phrased in a ‘sticky’ way. As a reader, I appreciate the well-turned phrase, but I know that few statements can be true all the time. As a writer, I expect my readers, similarly, to reflect on what I write and not to get too legalistic about each sentence. CR, of course, is a reflective reader, which is why his or her comments merit their own reflection. 2. “Christian” in Scare Quotes, Again I very much agree that becoming Christian isn’t like flipping a switch, turning from blue to red, or anything like that, as I hope I don’t need to tell anyone. A Christian’s experience is not so alien from a Buddhist’s or Hindu’s that they can’t relate or find many things in common. My point is more that Christian writers should rely on their own experience rather than try to add ingredients they think will make their writing “count” as “Christian.” I would also add that emotions of “rage, bitterness, despair, [or] doubt” do not strike me as “decidedly non-Christian impulses.” The Bible is full of believers who experience all these—indeed, Relief would be in trouble if we excluded these emotions from our conception of “Christian” literature. 3. Sin and Sensationalism What CR probably means is that we don’t love God in all we do all the time, so maybe we should be careful about how much of our own sinfulness we share with others—“do not tempt your brother,” on the one hand, and do not revel in your sin, on the other. This is an important topic. To begin with, there’s a kind of sacred angst in this sort of issue, and I’d caution anyone against the kind of thing we do all the time at church and in our small groups, i.e. spiritualize our insecurities and anxieties, and then validate our own inaction as a form of seeking God’s will or awaiting some unspecified spiritual event called “certainty.” Seek conviction rather than certainty. Abraham had to be convicted that he should murder his son, but he wasn’t so “certain” that he couldn’t be talked out of it when he heard the ram in the brush. The pursuit of God requires movement—pursuit, following, carrying out. I am against any waiting for certainty that is in fact a fear of falling. My exhortation should in fact read: “Love God;write what you will.” The two do not happen in any chronological order; we have to love God in the things we do. We shouldn’t write about sin and evil for sensational purposes, or to scandalize anyone, and we shouldn’t want to. Nor should we fear writing about them, since they are a part of our experience. How do you discuss spiritual struggles with friends? Surely you don’t try to offend or upset them, and yet you can talk about some dark things at the same time. Honesty won’t always be pretty, or even PG, but there’s a difference between sex and porn, violence and gore (to put it pithily). Each poet has to search her own heart on this one. There’s a sick pleasure in confessing your worldliness to someone who is trying to stay pure, but that’s not the kind of pleasure a Christian should accept in herself or in her writing—it shows a heart that values the wrong things. But if God loves us while we are yet sinners, then that sin is part of the Christian experience that is the legitimate material for our poetry.
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