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June 25, 2007
George MacDonald's Scotland
I was looking up a bit of information on George MacDonald today. He is the author/theologian who C.S. Lewis called his spritual master. I have to tell you, though, he does have some strange, and I believe ultimately unorthodox and aberrant theological ideas. In brief, he is more or less a universalist, believing that ultimately everyone will submit to the stern mercy of God. Paradoxically, or perhaps not so paradoxically, the good characters in his books are stringently holy in a seemingly inachievable, though I must say in a very winsome, way.
I want to look into him more, not because I believe universalism is true (though I sure would like it to be), but because I am genuinely interested in what manner of holiness we as Christians are intended to attempt and manifest in our lives. Sometimes I feel that even asking that question in a Reformed, grace-not-works contexts is a non-starter, that peoples' heresy-o-meters are immediately raised, but still I think it an entirely biblical question, one that I have paid entirely too little attention to in recent years.
At any rate, all of this is not the purpose of this post. That was to share with you this vision of George MacDonald's Scotland, provided on the website of Michael Phillips, MacDonald's main champion, editor, and popularizer of our times. Aside from the children's books (The Princess and the Goblin, etc.), it is actually only a few of his versions of MacDonald that I have read, which are more or less like moral romances set in Scotland, and published by Bethany House (which, not coincidently is a publishing house, I believe, associated with the holiness wing of Protestantism). I even have as yet to read Phantastes, the fantasy book that deepy impacted C. S. Lewis. At the current momemt, though, it is these pictures which are deeply impacting me. Oh my, I want to go.
Pure Northerness | By jackdas | 9:56 PM
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Comments
Poor George MacDonald, too bad his last name has come to represent distasteful American sprawl. Who knows though, maybe he's the original founder of those infamous goldan arches. AH!
Seriously, I dig George MacDonald. I especially liked "The Fisherman's Lady" though it's been a while since I've read it (10 plus years). I also love The Princess and the Goblin. Every once in a while I pull it out and thumb through it. The Grandmother is mysteriously wonderful.
Posted by: Laura at June 28, 2007 12:14 AM
