Customer Reviews

Flight of Peter Fromm

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This is one heck of an entertaining book. The main reason is this: Gardner's narrator, Homer Wilson, is downright hilarious. Both his telling of Peter's story and his asides remind me of Uncle Screwtape in C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Throughout the book, Homer subtly spins every story he recounts and every subject he addresses. His descriptions of certain real-life people are especially funny. For example, Homer describes C. S. Lewis, whose works were broadly Christian, as an "Anglican apologist." He describes J. Gresham Machen, who hated to be called a fundamentalist, as "the last of the scholarly fundamentalists." And those are just two little examples of Homer's spinning. It is strangely exciting to read a story narrated by someone you know you can't trust.

_The Flight of Peter Fromm_ is poignant in that Peter is ultimately ruined by Homer's spinning. Reason does not demand the loss of faith that Peter experiences, but the constant influence of the culture in which he lives, which subjects all things Christian to radical doubt while accepting the bases and consequences of agnosticism unquestioningly, eventually wears him down. Fortunately, Peter's end is hardly the necessary one for those committed to the life of the mind.

Finally, this story is eye-opening in that it reveals what can happen to those who are too brash and self-assured. Peter just knew he would convert the University of Chicago; instead the University toppled him. If Peter had been a little more humble he may have emerged from divinity school with his faith alive and enriched and refined.

I would recommend _The Flight of Peter Fromm_ to both agnostics and Christians. Agnostics, as they enjoy the outcome of Peter's story and conclude that that outcome was inevitable, should take a moment to notice the subtle deceptions of Homer Wilson, and at least consider the possibility that they should test their own thinking more rigorously than they usually do. Christians should take a good hard look at the road that leads, step by tiny step, to unbelief, and ask whether reason demands each step taken down that road. Hopefully all readers will appreciate the meticulous research, wonderful details, and humor that combine to make _The Flight of Peter Fromm_ a truly remarkable work of intellectual and historical fiction.

Gardner's only fiction as far as I know, and what a beauty! Gardner follows the young Fromm on his journey from religious fundamentalism to skeptical enlightenment. Fromm is a student in a liberal Chicago seminary who discovers for the first time in his life that alternative explanations exist for much of the dogma he's accepted since his youth. This story is phenomenal and should be read by anyone having a religious background, regardless of where you are in your spiritual journey now.

With all the Christian fiction out there (much of it horrible) it's refreshing to read a novel like "The Flight of Peter Fromm." It's a powerful comming of age novel as Peter, a divinity school student at U of Chicago, slowly sheds his Fundamentalist skin and journeys away from the Christian faith.

As the story goes on--as Peter goes deeper into contemporary theology--he considers these new theologies, only to reject them. By the novel's end, as Peter talks to his major professor (an atheist) Peter is a philosophical theist: he still holds to a vague notion of God but it's not the God of orthodox Christianity.

This novel was a joy to read. I found that Peter's journey paralleled my own journey as a young divinity school student. More Fundamentalist Christians won't like it (except to see the route one can take in losing one's faith). But for those Christians who no longer stand within the orthodox fold, and who want to make better sense of their faith journey, reading about Peter's journey can be helpful.


Also recommended: How to Lose Your Faith in Divinity School

Most novels are dumbed-down, even the good ones. That may be a unexpected statement, but I think it's true. We traditionally say that the characters in a cliched novel are "two dimensional", while a more fully realized cast of characters is "three-dimensional". Real people, however, are neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional. They are many-dimensional. Every person is pulled in so many different directions by so many different forces that most authors would despair of capturing the essence of humanity in a novel.

Martin Gardner does not, and we are the beneficiaries of it. "The Flight of Peter Fromm" is a remarkable coming-of-age tale, the story of a young man struggling through the tumultuous intellectual climate of the middle twentieth century. Peter Fromm grows up in rural Idaho and as a teenager gives sermons at outdoor revival meetings. Determined to fight for the Lord, he travels to Chicago University and enrolls in the seminary, with a long-term plan of tearing down modernist thinking and restoring the old religion. Not surprisingly, the task proves tougher than he initially thought. Within a few months, Peter himself starts changing.

What makes this book special, besides the stunning character development, is Gardner's tremendous knowledge of nearly everything and his ability to weave this into the story. He displays an encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy and theology from medieval times up to the twentieth century. Beyond that, however, he sneaks in comments on everything from south-side Chicago restaurants to the navy in WWII. Real people from the faculty at the University of Chicago to famous minds like Karl Barth appear as characters in the story, and it will take an alert reader indeed to fully separate fact from fiction.

Most people who know Martin Gardner knows him as the brain behind the "Mathematical Games" column that formerly appeared in Scientific American. Far fewer people know about his short stories and poetry, and fewer still are familiar with "The Flight of Peter Fromm". I'd never heard a word about it until I found it among my grandfather's book collection. Yet those who miss it are missing out on a true gem of twentieth century literature.

Gardner's exploration of religious passion and faith-shattering reason is beautifully conceived. A minister, turned athiest, envies the naive religious passions of a theology student who is undone when he tries to use reason in defense of his fundamentalist convictions. In the end, Gardner reconciles these seemingly irreconcilable views. Or does this exhaustive battle of intellect and emotion simply reach an impasse? The paradox of human emotion and reason is embodied in this tale of religious passion and faltering faith. Though decidedly a rebuke of religion, Gardner does not disparage the passions that drive religious belief but rather attempts to reconcile these contradictory qualities of human nature.

In the minds of many people, there is religious belief and there is scientific belief and nothing in between. This mutually exclusive dichotomy leads to the evangelical movement expounding a complete belief in the Christian Bible and creation and the hard science belief that the universe simply exists and God is an emotionally comforting delusion. Fortunately, there is a vast middle ground of people who accept evolution as scientific fact and question the role of God in our lives, while believing that "he" exists. In my opinion, they form the logical, intelligent middle and Martin Gardner is one of the most prominent members of this group.
This book is somewhat autobiographical in that the primary character of Peter Fromm is from Oklahoma, served in the navy in World War II and attended the University of Chicago. Gardner studied philosophy while Fromm attended divinity school.
The main theme is the evolving religious beliefs of a young man that grew up in a fundamentalist environment yet his studies for the ministry lead him to have many doubts about religion. Fromm is a very intelligent man and voraciously reads material written by religious commentators. In some ways he reminds me of a comment I heard once about a student studying religion. "He has read the bible enough to recognize and be puzzled by the internal contradictions."
Those contradictions lead Peter along several paths, to the point where he most likely goes insane. The climactic scene is when Peter is giving an Easter sermon and he suddenly strips off his clothes and urinates on the organist. Needless to say, I hope that event is not part of the factually accurate biography.
This is a most interesting book; it is "narrated" by Homer Wilson, a faculty member of the University of Chicago Divinity School and an active minister. It describes the thinking person's quest for religious truth. Peter can be considered a synopsis of all people who grew up in religious households and begin to question once they are on their own. As always, Gardner tells his story well, there is a little part of Peter Fromm in all people who question the tenants of religious fundamentalism.

This is a compelling drama of theological ideas written in 1973 by Martin Gardner (1914 - 2010) who was primarily a mathematics and science writer.

The novel unfolds as a retrospective by Homer Wilson, a Unitarian minister and teacher at the University of Chicago's theology school, after a breakdown during an Easter sermon by Wilson's fiery fundamentalist student, Peter Fromm.

Fromm, raised in a fundamentalist Pentecostal church, chooses to attend the University of Chicago for the express purpose of defeating the ideas emanating from one of the country's most liberal seminaries. While they have diametrically opposed views, Wilson, who does not beleive in God, remains involved with Fromm and tells his story.

This scaffolding is a set up for contrasts between Fromm's vise-like grasp on fundamentalism and Wilson's unbelief, and includes discussions of the ideas of prominent theologians such as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. We see how a liberal education and the unfolding of life itself eventually dismantle Fromm's fundamentalism and lead to his breakdown.

For many, reading theology is a dry exersice in abstraction. As with writers such as Iris Murdoch, Gardner dramatizes such ideas in the form of a novel which draws them down into the human struggle and makes them much more accessible and compelling.

The Flight of Peter Fromm was suggested to me by a friend who was in an apologetics class at a local seminary. Uneasily, I found it on amazon, and began to trek through it.

The book centers around the main/title character Peter Fromm a young backwoods hick from Oklahoma. He was baptized in fire as a young teenager and immediately following began his prosyletizing and evangelizing. By the time of his graduation he decides the he wants to take on the most liberal college campus in the United States. So, he goes to the University of Chicago's Divinity School to save the lost souls with his Ryrie/Thompson Chain(?) Bible and creationist literature.

The later flights that Peter finds himself in are Catholocism, and Communism/Fascism. But he is constantly questioning the thoughts and ideas of liberal protestants, and secular humanist disguised as Unitarians. All of these realms coincide with Peter's love interests. Peter's mental well-being takes a beating throughout the book, and he has a break with a stint in the Navy. When his time in the service is over, he begins right where he left off. Eventually, all of these ideas thrashing around in Peter's head lead to an unforgettable Easter Sunday sermon.

The book has a heavy theological/philosophical tone with the story line weaving in and out of the narrators own musings and explanations of different ideologies/theories within the abovementioned realms. Yet, the universal questions that Peter finds himself grappling with will keep the readers attention if they have any amount of philosophical wonder within them.

If you are looking for a light read, leave this book alone. If you want something that will challenge your intellect and faith, then you might enjoy this book.

The story of Peter Fromm, a Pentecostal Fundamenalist who goes to the the Theology School at the University of Chicago because it is the most liberal school he can find, with the audacious idea of setting them straight. Instead it is Peter who through exposure to liberal theology, the contradictions in the scriptures, and science, who loses his faith. I give it 4 stars because of the book's uniqueness and some powerful ideas. On the other hand, the book is very loosely organized and seems to wander at times. The book offers no apology for ridiculing Christianity and it apologists (pun intended). The book basically says the defense of Christianity itself becomes indefensible, the more the scriptures are studied and the more one knows about science. But the book also ridicules the hypocrisy of those Christian ministers who have themselves lost belief in Christ as the Salvation of mankind and yet continue to preach the gospel. A main theme is the strong human need to believe in simple and absolute truths, another is the perils of losing faith when there is nothing else to replace it.

As a novel Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm is somewhat lacking in narrative force and cohesion, probably because Gardner is not really a novelist (this is his only effort in that direction). But it is unsurpassed as a panoramic view of high-brow Christianity in the the twentieth century and its many discontents. It provided me of a good understanding of contemporary religious thought and of the emotional forces that drive it. It is surprising how much ground Gardner covers in this slim volume, providing lucid and vivid descriptions of the work of the religious existentialists, of Barth, Tillich, Chesterton and the neo-Thomists, the Unitarian humanists and of the underpinning emotional forces that drive these various attempts to conserve religion in the face of a scientific worldview that denies its fundamental factual claims and a high-brow worldview that rejects many of its moral teachings.