I realize that this will only serve to anger many of you, but I am in the midst of a day off today (deal with it), which is a double blessing, because I have more to study than a week-off could facilitate. First on my list was to read Walden by Henry David Thoreau for class tonight. I had previously read much of it, but I started over this weekend and have really enjoyed it (I still have about 30 pages, but I needed a break).
I have a question: why are churches not heralding this as modern day prophecy? Thoreau, though I am unsure about his religious affiliation, and do not care enough to research it, is spouting something so blatantly Christian that it should be held up as truth regardless of the messenger’s faith. He preaches against worldliness, running the gamut from vanity to debt, and he espouses the virtues of the inner man, yet I have never heard him so much as mentioned in Christian circles.
Perhaps we, as believers chaffing under the bonds of convention, should boldly venture outside the confines of our cookie-cutter faith, a faith that is hardly more than a game of follow-the-leader, and begin to incorporate great works of, dare I say it, non-Christian literature into our teaching and studying. Would it be too offensive to have a “quiet-time” sans Bible? Might the truths of God imbedded within us not be nurtured and grown to maturity through Thoreau’s 300-page exposition on Christian virtues, perhaps even better than Paul’s snippets of letters? After all, is the truth of Christ given in Scripture limited merely to that one book?
Such limitations are being placed before, behind, and around God in such cases as the dogmatic sola scripturacist. Might Saint Augustine have been absolutely correct when he claimed all of Christianity absent the incarnation in Plato? – but the proverbial baby was thrown out with the bathwater because Plato left out something he was not yet privy to.
Weep for the Dark Age of modern Christianity, and pray for a speedy Renaissance – though history shows that the first go-round required great bloodshed and a wasting of several generations in deplorable ignorance before change was affected.
I have a question: why are churches not heralding this as modern day prophecy? Thoreau, though I am unsure about his religious affiliation, and do not care enough to research it, is spouting something so blatantly Christian that it should be held up as truth regardless of the messenger’s faith. He preaches against worldliness, running the gamut from vanity to debt, and he espouses the virtues of the inner man, yet I have never heard him so much as mentioned in Christian circles.
Perhaps we, as believers chaffing under the bonds of convention, should boldly venture outside the confines of our cookie-cutter faith, a faith that is hardly more than a game of follow-the-leader, and begin to incorporate great works of, dare I say it, non-Christian literature into our teaching and studying. Would it be too offensive to have a “quiet-time” sans Bible? Might the truths of God imbedded within us not be nurtured and grown to maturity through Thoreau’s 300-page exposition on Christian virtues, perhaps even better than Paul’s snippets of letters? After all, is the truth of Christ given in Scripture limited merely to that one book?
Such limitations are being placed before, behind, and around God in such cases as the dogmatic sola scripturacist. Might Saint Augustine have been absolutely correct when he claimed all of Christianity absent the incarnation in Plato? – but the proverbial baby was thrown out with the bathwater because Plato left out something he was not yet privy to.
Weep for the Dark Age of modern Christianity, and pray for a speedy Renaissance – though history shows that the first go-round required great bloodshed and a wasting of several generations in deplorable ignorance before change was affected.
Thoreau (or any other author for that matter) is only sanctifying in the same way that a hard job, a bad day, or life in general is sanctifying in that, for Christians, they strech us and push us to rely more upon our sufficient Savior than ourselves. Books may advocate some sort of Christian-like morality, but in the end it is only morality and morality can't save you, only Christ can. Viewed through a Christian lense, many books can have value, but that often undermines the intention of the author (as you mentioned in your post about the Scarlet Letter). So ultimately, you have to ask the question you didn't want to ask, "Was Thoreau a Christian?" If not, then it is higily likely that all he meant for the book was to show that he could live sufficiently, morally, and happily under his own power in the woods and there is nothing intended for the Christian in his message. Plato did the same thing...The question then becomes, did Augustine read Plato as Plato had intended to be read? I'd argue no.
Uncovering the author's intention is, as I understand it, one of the most important parts of literary study. If that is the case, we have to basically work under the assumption that a non-Christian writer could not possibly intend a Christian message in their writing. If that is the case, we can still read them through our Christian lense, but we are completely missing their point.