For the gods of the peoples
are idols… (Psalm 96:5)
Dear Anna,
I printed out the two papers you sent and read them this morning at the fire pit. Both reminded me of what Lewis and his Inkling colleagues called “chronological snobbery.” Classicists can’t be chronological snobs, can they? You read Ciscero in Latin because you think he has something worth saying to us today, right?
Your big paper critiquing Steven Ozment’s Magdalena & Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in 16th Century Europe Revealed in the Letters of a Nuremberg Husband & Wife; I found most interesting. Sometimes a singular personal story told in letters can be a more honest telling of history than grand labels like “medieval” or “renaissance”. Like Sarah and Abraham, we discover that wherever we find them in history, they are above all humans with passions and feelings just like us. Such readings of history encourage “chronological sensitivity.”
Your little paper for art history was more predictable. From your first sentence or two, I could anticipate your concluding paragraph. Why do we destroy statues? The church has struggled with iconoclasm throughout its history—the Catholic Church enjoys all sorts of images while the Protestant not so much. With some wisdom, the church decided it is okay to use statues and images so long as it is for the purpose of instruction. Thus, all those stain glass windows retelling the Biblical story with images.
Is it better to tear down statues or to leave them up for instructional purposes? When we practice “chronological snobbery” we judge all that precedes our time as falsehood.
Just musing with my granddaughter…
Love, Papa
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