Vision
Imagination
Alan Jacobs provides a brief but instructive history of the power of imagination, as expressed in literature and verse, to open readers to transcendence and the knowledge of God (“The Witness of Literature: A Genealogical Sketch,” Hedgehog Review, Summer 2015). He shows how, in many cases, “the imaginative or aesthetic experience precedes and paves the way for intellectual understanding. The way of reason is not rejected – indeed, the opposite is true – but the reason has to be released from its bondage in order to function properly.” In that respect imagination can construct “a back door to God.” What imagination can do for a writer is to “reveal the conditions against which he or she dare not and need not preach.” Thus, quoting Walker Percy, “the vocation of the artist...can perhaps be said to come much closer to that of the diagnostician rather than the artist’s celebration of life in a triumphant age.” Poetry can “carry Christian faith truthfully and vividly” in a day when men will not abide the abrasiveness of preaching. Here is a challenge to Christians to rediscover the power of imagination, and to Christian artists to press ahead with courage and persistence in their highly significant vocations.

Disciplines
Mathematics 
In high school I did not progress beyond Algebra II. I must be the only liberal arts graduate of the University of Missouri who took not a single math course in the process of earning his degree (having, with much groveling, persuaded my advisor to count a logic course as satisfying the one math requirement). I do not do math. Susie manages all our accounts and bills. I am a virtual math-free zone. Nevertheless, and thanks in no small part to the regular reproofs, recriminations, and reveries on the glories of math by Brother David Sincerbox, I keep an eye open for entry points into the jump rope of math, in the hope I might get a bit of the rhythm and manage a bound or two before dashing out again. This week I found such an entry, and it was most rewarding. Writing in the Spring 2015 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review, Steven D. Boyer and Walter B. Huddell III review current Christian and postmodern views of mathematics and demonstrate the power of Augustine’s view in placing numbers squarely within the Logos and wisdom of God (“Mathematical Knowledge and Divine Mystery: Augustine and his Contemporary Challengers”). This article demonstrates the value of math not only for its everyday practical or its highly abstract uses, but for leading us into the mystery of the Trinity and a deeper experience of the presence of God. The article contains some excellent general principles for thinking about God and our relationship with Him, principles which, it seems to me, have application to many disciplines. Math is a discipline fraught with beauty, power, and mystery, and, as such, it can move even a math-averse lout such as I to desire a greater vision and presence of the Lord.

Pop Culture
Kit Wilson warns that Western culture is exhausted and close to imploding (“Sentimental Nihilism And Popular Culture”, Standpoint, July/August 2015). The West has lost all sense of meaning and value beyond the merely personal. Cut off from our past and dedicated to the proposition that fun is the end of all things, we are in danger of succumbing to our short-sightedness and self-interest, come the next major social or economic crisis. Nihilism has become the reigning worldview, concerning which Mr. Wilson warns, “as long as we see ourselves as the spiritless inhabitants of a meaningless world, we will teeter precariously above a precipice of our own making.” But Mr. Kit believes there is hope for our redemption in pop culture, which has retained the forms and story lines of traditional culture, and might just help us find our way back to meaning again. Pop culture is our common possession and experience, so it might be the knot at the end of our rope from which begin to claw our way back to civilization. Don’t count on it. What the West and the world need now is not a revival of pop culture but a revival of true religion, a rediscovery of the risen Christ and the power of His Word to make all things new. If the Church decides to wait for the world to save itself through pop culture – or politics or one-worldism or any other crackpot scheme for redemption – it will suffer the consequences of social and cultural collapse along with everyone else. Now is the time to be gathering together to seek the Lord for revival, for only the Lord can restore order in His Kingdom.

Literature
Gary Saul Morson argues the value of great literature in “Why College Kids Are Avoiding the Study of Literature” (Commentary, July 1, 2015). The importance of novels, short stories, and poetry is that they can help us “escape from the prison house of self.” Literature teaches us how to feel what others feel, think what they think, and learn from their choices. It takes us outside the world of self into the lives of others, showing us heretofore unimagined possibilities or trials, and new horizons and visions of the world and life. This is not the way literature is taught these days, and so many students are not realizing the advantages they otherwise might. We need to learn how to read literature for it to do its good work in us. This would also be true of the literature of the Bible. If we’re only reading words, looking for applications, or piling up doctrines, then we may be missing the most important thing the Bible wants to do in us, and that is transform us into another person – into the person of Jesus Christ. Literature – and especially, I might opine, poetry – can be a powerful tool for breaking our souls free from the death grip of self, helping us to see into others, learn from them, and perhaps even love them more. Just as Jesus would do were He truly walking in our skin.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/why-college-kids-are-avoiding-the-study-of-literature/

Outcomes
Christian Transformation
Transformation is the process whereby believers in Christ increase in maturity in Him, leaving behind old values, loves, ideas, and practices as they submit to the Word and Spirit of God and are changed increasingly into the image of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3.12-18). According to Mark Slatter, writing in the Spring 2015 issue of Spiritus, two processes operate within this larger framework to accomplish transformation (“Are Growth and Conversion Being Confused in the Spiritual Life? Is Conversion Really Continuing?”). Growth is that steady, step by step sowing into the soul that supplies it with the spiritual fuel for transformation. Conversions are those tipping points where growth spills over suddenly or erupts into new values and higher stages of transformation, bursting into fruitfulness where before only the prospect of it was in evidence. Conversion proceeds from lower values to higher values, as these latter are grasped and embraced, and as we sow the seeds of growth toward a higher state of maturity. Conversions can be painful, involving struggle and suffering, and they seem more to be foisted upon us (by the Spirit?) than accomplished by our own efforts. Only God can convert us, it seems to me. We can work at growing in the Lord, and must (Phil. 2.12; 2 Pet. 3.18), but only God can give the increase. By identifying higher values, in the light of honest assessments of our current state, we can begin to sow toward those values, all the while seeking the Lord and waiting on Him to help our unbelief and lift us to a higher plane of Christian experience.

Getting to Pluto
On July 14 the New Horizons spacecraft will pass within 12,500 kilometers of Pluto, on the remote frontier of our solar system. After nine years traveling, the spacecraft will have nine days to process 20,799 commands and make 461 scientific observations before entering the Kuiper Belt and heading off to deep space. One man is largely responsible for this 25-year, $700 million project: Alan Stern. As reported in Science, Dr. Stern has been the driving force behind this project since the 1990s (Eric Hand, “Mission Controller,” 25 June 2015). His vision, careful preparation, tenacity, skilled planning and team-building, and ability to engage the right people in just the right places are the primary reasons this remarkable mission is on course for spectacular success. As one of his closest colleagues reported, “His force of will and his tenacity played a role in what’s happening right now.” Vision, planning, persuasion, drive, attention to detail, persistence, and the ability to think and work for the long haul. When the pictures and reports and glowing, amazed descriptions of Pluto begin cascading over all the media and social networks next week, think: Alan Stern. Then plead with the lord to raise up men like this for revival, renewal, and awakening.

Envoi

To See As Alexander

When suddenly he turns that fearsome horse
to face the sun, and swings himself up on
its unridden back, to the astonishment
of all, they see a brash young prince, of course,
and are amused. His father hopes, no doubt,
that he might one day prove himself to be
an able king of Macedon, like he
himself has tried to be. He might work out
after all, his diminutive stature not-
withstanding. His tutor, Aristotle, longs
to see the day when this impetuous, strong-
willed lad will master all that he is taught.
    But he, upon that mighty stallion, sees
    all Persia bowed, and India on its knees.

T. M. Moore
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