Customer Reviews

Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise

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One of the best things going in Christian publishing today is Brazos Press, an imprint of the otherwise Calvinist and conservative Baker Book House. Under the guidance of editor Rodney Clapp, Brazos is marketing genuinely creative, provocative. and broadly Christian authors who want to think and write with timely relevance at the intersection of contemporary culture and Christian faith. Robert Inchausti, professor of English at California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, for example, explores the cultural critiques of twenty thinkers who, whatever their many diverse differences, all took great exception to the received wisdom of their day. Dorothy Day led the way in social justice, as did Martin Luther King. Jacques Ellul and Ivan Illich offered big-picture critiques. Walker Percy and Boris Pasternak were novelists and, as such, two of our best theologians (none of the twenty figures he explores are theologians in the technical sense). Inchausti organizes these twenty subverters of conventional wisdom under five main chapter headings: the soul under siege, the novel as countermythology, antipolitical politics, macrohistorical criticism, and the role of the Christian mysteries in the life of the modern mind. I found these categories rather broad, and something of an artificial stretch to place radically diverse thinkers under each theme. Further, trying to tackle so many seminal intellectuals means he can devote only five to ten pages to each. The result felt choppy. GK Chesterton and Goethe in four pages each? King and McLuhan get about a dozen pages each, but these were "long" by the book's standards. In such short chapters I found it difficult to enter into the thought of the many subjects about which I was ignorant. If you do not already know Pasternak, William Blake, or Rene Girard, for example, this book might not be the best introduction to their thought. Still, it is a fine contribution for a Christian intellectual to tackle and honor the contributions of these titans and their efforts to map the journey of Christian faith in the real world.

It is commonly thought that countercultural movements have been dissociated from the Christian traditions of Western civilisation ever since the twentieth century began - in many viewpoints, since the French Revolution. Indeed, the impression one obtains from studying the evolution of Western culture during the past three centuries via the influence of academia is that an underground secular beliefs beginning with the likes of Jean d'Alembert, Baron d'Holbach and other fathers of the French Revolution have gradually taken over from Christianity with very little serious attempts to resist or work creatively to develop new ideas except where communist regimes have persecuted religion with the utmost violence.

However, as Robert Inchausti shows in "Subversive Orthodoxy", there have actually been a surprising number of people who have created some remarkable achievements under the direct influence of Christianity in the period since the French Revolution made Christianity for the fashionable intellectuals an outdated system. Inchausti divides "Subversive Orthodoxy" into four main sections titled "The Soul Under Siege", "The Novel as Countermythology", "Antipolitical Politics" and "Macrohistorical Criticism".

Both of the first two sections discuss the role of religion in literature, and demonstrate conclusively that Christinaity was able to offer a level of criticism of industrialised European culture that is not grasped by many people, even by conservatives who are extremely critical of socialism. However, if seeking to soften one's opinion of the rigidities of orthodox Christianity, Inchausti is perhaps a little careless in what he does because writers such a Göthe, Kerouac, and even to some extent Merton, were not strictly "orthodox" in the sense that conservative hierarchs would wish (it is revealing to know about critical opinions of liberation theology in the light of what Inchausti writes on page 94). Moreover, having grown suspicious of syncretism in religion, one doubts what Kerouac wrote about Buddhism is of value here, though my knowledge of where some of the appeal of Buddhism in the 1950s (and similarities with the Catholic culture Kerouac originated from) would have lied softens my opinions considerably here. Moreover, even if they are not nearly as orthodox as many would wish, the inclusion of Kerouac and Merton does do an extremely important job in showing how strong the Catholic influence on the counterculture of the 1950s actually was. The section of Dorothy Day is very valuable even to someone who has read her works, and even if short offers the point of how she defended herself form capitalist critics. ten way in which it is linked shows how close, in spite of her potential canonisation by the Vatican, Day was to the "Sixties". Wendell Berry, a frequently-cited writer with roots in this period, is also given an excellent treatment. In spite of his focus on environmental protection, Berry is a social conservative highly critical of modern urban life and the elimination of local knowledge and communities brought about thereby.

The sections on the Russian thinkers Dostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn also offers considerable insight into the world of Russian literature and how it used religion to confront political repression. We see clearly that, like many American conservatives, they did not oppose to repression democracy, but religious faith and the joyful expectation of being redeemed as a result of one's work and faith. the shorter section on the much lesser-known Nikolai Berdayev is also worth a look.

Of the remainder of the book, there are some extremely good sections on William Blake and Marshall McLuhan. The latter's criticism of the modern media is particularly revealing in light of the violence of so much entertainment since the late-1970s "punk revolution". However, Inchausti goes much further with the religious, even mystical dimension of McLuhan's criticism. Ivan Illich, though again dubious if "orthodoxy" is one's criterion (he was investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at a time when it was rather less rigid than today), is still a fascinating writer who was very critical of government and even private development programmes because he, like Wendell Berry, feared they dislocated organic communities. Jacques Ellul is another writer who saw in the mass media as a deadly mesmerism that only faith could overcome - a viewpoint that I can easily listen to.

All in all, this is a very surprising and interesting book. Even if the word "orthodoxy" is less than fitting for many of its subjects, Inchausti has done a remarkable job of explaining how Christians have been surprisingly creative at criticising society, offering solutions, and providing or deeply influencing some of the most important literary trends of the modern world. My criticism above made me hesitant about giving "Subversive Orthodoxy" the full five stars (it is more a 4.5 star book) but the way in which Inchausti reveals so much, even with such potential omissions as Tolkien, that I have given it the full five.

Robert Inchausti's book is certainly impressive. The range of thinkers presented in this volume is incredibly vast, which makes any attempt to tie them all together a difficult one. All the characters presented certainly deserve a close read in their own right.

However, that being said, the book title is a bit misleading, and Inchausti seems to have missed several key points.

First, many of the thinkers exhibited would probably not have accepted a label of "orthodox" Christianity (in fact, Wendell Berry outright admits this in an essay called the Burden of the Gospels in The Way of Ignorance). Inchausti's use of the term is vague and seems to muddy the waters more than create a driving theme.

Second, a few thinkers presented are hardly able to be placed in the Christian tradition. Inchausti opens his book with William Blake who serves as an archetype for the rest of the text. He argues Blake was attempting to rescue the hidden energies of Christianity in his work. This is where I began to doubt his analysis. As a professor of English, I was surprised to read his discussion of Blake -- has he never read All Religions are One? Songs of Experience? The Marriage of Heaven and Hell? And his reading of the Proverbs of Hell is far off. Blake sought to establish the imagination as the supreme authority -- he fought Christianity, though he used its imagery to do so. Just to qualify this quickly, here's a quote from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell -- "men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast." This seems pretty clear. What about the fact that Jack Kerouac died of alcoholism? Or his fascination with Buddhism?

This casts doubt on Inchausti's further analysis, considering he completely missed Blake's point and does not deal with Kerouac's clear divergences even though he is a professor of English. However, he does offer some insightful reads of various characters.

The book is worth reading if only to be exposed to some new names. But one must be careful. All characters in the text are highly idealized. Indeed, the romanticism he praises in Blake is clearly imposed on his reading of all the authors. Furthermore, his conclusions in the final chapters offer some very awkward theological views, particularly a strange ambiguous praise of the Death of God movement (which is clearly unorthodox). A better tying thread would have been to eliminate the word "orthodoxy" altogether and stick with a theistic avant-garde which he often references.

I've been a fan of Inchausti's work since The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People. This new work shows him at the top of his form. He has the amazing ability to guide us through the intricacies of a person's career, thought and achievement in a way that is incredibly apt and accurate and yet lightly concise, even at times playful, with brilliance and wit. His purpose, to trace the tradition of subversive orthodoxy in recent times, never becomes an ideological axe or thematic bludgeon. He shows us thereby, that the best response to the bully-media preachers is the open spirit of the inquiring mind in true contemplation of the Christian mysteries. He deftly celebrates the works of twenty exemplars of this great tradition and we see for ourselves that the life of the gospels is not translated automatically into any one narrow social or political teaching. I love seeing Jack Kerouac in here, along with Dorothy Day, Jaques Ellul, Wendell Berry, Merton, Dostoyevsky, McLuhan and all the others. Inchausti might be one of our best exemplars of what could be termed the great tradition of lyrical thought. In this mode, the thinker gives us the delights and demonstrations of the best our minds can do not through attempting geometric structures or compelling rhetorics, but by encouraging and releasing the mind's insights and linkages through intuitive discovery, meditation and dialogue. Read Subversive Orthodoxy for the pleasures of the lyrical prophetic mind at its best.

This book is one of the best I've read on this topic.

Beginning with William Blake, it moves on to offer a panoramic survey of the presence of the True Spirit of Christianity as a real counter-culture.

You will be surprised as to who some of those Christians-in-disguise are: Jack Kerouac, John Coltrane and Marshall McLuhan.

But the book's value goes beyond listing and commenting on these individuals; it really is a spiritual manifesto for those of us who repudiate the religious right and the other poseurs who have hijacked and slandered the Gospels.

Thank you Professor Inchausti for this well-timed catalytic reminder that there is a stream within history that, like salt, has helped preserved the presence of the Rebel Jesus.

Inchausti gets it.

This accessible and insightful book is well worth pondering but never gets ponderous. It draws from and speaks to a far broader milieu than its assignment to "Christianity and culture" suggests.

While the fundamentalists and Christo-fascists are usurping the christian tradition and attempting to take over society, an international contemplative counter-culture seethes in the underbelly of our crudely global society. Throw out all you believe Christianity is and can ever be; dismiss with an imperious wave of the hand all of the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells who falsely claim the name of Christ for their authoritarian projects.
Here, in Doctor Inchausti's book, are the real Christians, revolutionaries and outlaws who eat away at the structures of political and psychic oppression and shake the halls of power in Church and State, Big Media and Academe.
Inchausti unveils with a sort of quiet but passionate and even lightening-like splendor the women and men who lived a bohemian Christianity. But though their personal vocations made them lonely figures - outcasts and rebels, pariahs to all, something eerie transcended them, a tradition of revolutionary Christianity going back to the enigmatic figure of Christ. This tradition embraced them in spite of their differences. There are figures in the book who represent a conservative radicalism (such as Solzhenitsyn) and there are others who are left-wing anarcho communitarians (such as Dorothy Day, the most important Catholic personality of the twentieth century). This means that this orthodox avant-garde - as Inchausti calls it - is truly transcendent both embracing yet rejecting the grotesque dichotomys in religion, art, and politcs that are killing our world dead.
I am going to give the book five stars because it is an absolutely necessary book that all would-be rebels - Christian and non-Christian should read. Within the covers of this book is an energy and light that destroys whole worlds of assumptions and discourses.
But I am tempted to give it only four stars because it unjustly neglects some very important figures.
Patrick McGoohan was and remains a Roman Catholic. He was the creator and star of the greatest television series ever made "The Prisoner". That specific series attacked some of the most vital issues of the day and its relevance grows daily after the Cold War and the emergence among the family of nations of a global empire, a rutheless media elite, the dominance of multi-national corporations, the continuing managerial revolution, and a war on terror being waged for elite purposes. Besides that "The Prisoner" is the Christian Kaballah, full of all sorts of odd interpretations of the Christian Gospel.
"Subversive Orthodoxy" is a necessary book, absolutely non-sectarian and non-dogmatic in its appeal to religious and non-religious people.
Read it and behold while your old world disappears and a new one full of terror and promise comes into being.