The Year Of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism In An Age Of Crisis, by Alan Jacobs

The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As WWII ground to its conclusion, a number of the West's intellectual luminaries expressed a common concern: in the fight against Nazism, the West was in fact embracing similar values and methods to get the job done and "win" the war. Alarmed at the prospect of further becoming the enemy we were fighting, these gents, and Simone Weil, thought it best to examine how public education might build a surer intellectual/mythopoeic/spiritual foundation for Western Civilization.

Alan Jacobs uncovers some interesting correspondence among the various figures discussed. Some of this book traces who thought what when. But it also enhances some of the personalities involved. I was particularly drawn to W.H. Auden, a poet I've not given much consideration prior to this -- an energetically "out" homosexual decades before that was an acceptable possibility (whose memory of the trial of Oscar Wilde must have been acute) who nevertheless hewed closely to a Christian orthodoxy of sorts, and vigorously espoused poetic means to counter the functional machinist philosophy taking over academia and the market.

And this was the first I'd heard of Lewis's abject terror as the war became a reality for England -- his public writing very much advocated a "Keep calm and carry on" posture.

Jacobs doesn't hammer home any grand conclusion at book's end, which I think is for the best. Most of the figures who survived this second global war quietly succumbed to resignation that the ship of state had sailed without them, and everything they might do next to promote what sustained their souls was going to be subtle work indeed. Jacques Ellul shows up at the very last chapter to do what he does (and did) so well, but the reader can almost see him raising his hands and asking, "Hey, where'd everybody go?" The draughtsman’s room had cleared. The work was just beginning.

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