Steven Parmenius

  If fortress culture were not on some level successful it would not exist. My problem with it is that is subject to ever diminishing returns. Plus, it has a tendency to fall into self- parody as when a certain historic Christian tells us to stop using the words ‘karma’ and ‘luck’ on the grounds that those things don’t exist. To me this is on a level with Richard Dawkins’ strictures on Kafka and his insistence that men do not turn into insects. At any rate, if historic Christians object to the presence of Sanskrit words in English they should perhaps rethink the history of colonization. Really, though, my difference with them does indeed come down to the same concern with text and hermeneutics that divides me totally and completely from hard core secularists. They have a notion about text that I find strange. It seems to go like this. A man or woman is free if they are under the direct authority of God and not under the traditions and customs of man. This freedom they attain through

  Considering the opportunities and pitfalls of the contemporary religious scene I have noticed that there is a tempting, indeed too tempting, option out here that attracts many honest searchers. This is the temptation to find a wall and hunker down behind that wall. Practical people, especially, are tempted to do this because they do not have all day to think. Plus, people need structure and definition and religions that offer this will always do better than ones that provide endless space to explore but little concrete guidance. It is the very worst form of contemporary religiosity to wallow in unmoored subjectivity that is neither theologically nor, for that matter, politically or ethically focused. This is why people react against it. One thing they react towards is a fortress mentality. Some progressive manifestations of Christianity, for instance, seem to have little content beyond ‘owning the fundies’ and for that reason they accomplish little beyond generating more fundamentali

  So say the Christian moms against Harry Potter. Of course, it is no business of mine what such moms tell their children or what they allow their children to read. As a proposition, though, the claim that God hates magic has a somewhat tortuous history. Magic, an anciently attested practice, has historically provoked a schizophrenic response in the Christian world. Popes patronized it and zealous preachers and reformers denounced it. Christians both practiced magic and condemned it. The reason is that, whatever we may think of the matter now, in past centuries what exactly magic consisted in was far from clear. Certainly, medieval Christians thought the arts and sciences legitimate objects of study and pursuit. Viewed from a certain angle, magic was nothing more than another science and another art. This is how figures as diverse as Pico, Ficino, Agrippa or Vaughn viewed it. The damnable art of sorcery, of course, was condemned by all the relevant authorities both classical and script