Comments on: “You are too bright to remain a Christian. . . .” http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2012/08/you-are-too-bright-to-remain-a-christian/ A First Things Blog Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:35:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Gene Fant http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2012/08/you-are-too-bright-to-remain-a-christian/#comment-21386 Gene Fant Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:08:36 +0000 http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/?p=12425#comment-21386 Thanks for the kind words, Mike. Love me some Oxford! I think Faulkner was so strict of a Presbyterian that he believed that the atonement was so limited that no one ended up falling under it. But he loved, absolutely adored the Bible, the Old Testament in particular, and spoke of it openly in many interviews. Thanks for the kind words, Mike. Love me some Oxford!

I think Faulkner was so strict of a Presbyterian that he believed that the atonement was so limited that no one ended up falling under it. But he loved, absolutely adored the Bible, the Old Testament in particular, and spoke of it openly in many interviews.

]]> By: Mike http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2012/08/you-are-too-bright-to-remain-a-christian/#comment-21366 Mike Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:07:44 +0000 http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/?p=12425#comment-21366 I grew up in Oxford and for several years lived two houses down from Mr. Bill, and read your blog with delight and nostalgia. I remember opening my first bank account with a white-haired gentleman, and was told years later he was the model for Flem Snopes, and after reading of Snopes' black humor murder recognized my banker. I never met professor Polk but always wanted to. But it is hard for me to see how someone who reads Faulkner as closely as he did c ouldbe a faith cynic. I first read Faulkner when my substitute teacher Emily Stone assured my junior high English Class Mr. Bill was not as horrible as hometown legend painted him. It was one pf his more readable and forgettable books, Intruder in the Dust. But it was also a picture of 1950 Oxford. It was only later that I realized how special a mind my neighbor had, and one of the most salient factors was how deeply he expressed his Presbyterian Christianity with humor and irony as twisted as the grapevine that grew in his front yard. I am impressed that Polk only used two books of Faulkner's in a seminar, and the two books he presented certainly are what you would have expected as from a former preacher. I remember once reading Absalom! Absalom! and feeling the same overwhelming mystery of Beethoven's Ninth. A symphony of words. But it also one of the best hermaneutics of Samuel II I have ever read. It didn't hurt that before reading it someone pointed out a black man in our tow, who could have passed for white was the son of a Faulkner family friend and the model for one of the LeBons. One of the things that most fascinates me about Faulkner is how he incorporates Biblical irony into so many of his books, and how those lessons are so blithely and darkly ignored by the culture he chronicles. The most fun he had with that, and some of the darkest depths he reached was Light in August. I am sorry to learn Polk couldn't be a skeptic and a believer. I loved your eulogy of your professor, and thanks for letting me revisit a rare childhood memory I grew up in Oxford and for several years lived two houses down from Mr. Bill, and read your blog with delight and nostalgia. I remember opening my first bank account with a white-haired gentleman, and was told years later he was the model for Flem Snopes, and after reading of Snopes’ black humor murder recognized my banker. I never met professor Polk but always wanted to. But it is hard for me to see how someone who reads Faulkner as closely as he did c ouldbe a faith cynic. I first read Faulkner when my substitute teacher Emily Stone assured my junior high English Class Mr. Bill was not as horrible as hometown legend painted him. It was one pf his more readable and forgettable books, Intruder in the Dust. But it was also a picture of 1950 Oxford. It was only later that I realized how special a mind my neighbor had, and one of the most salient factors was how deeply he expressed his Presbyterian Christianity with humor and irony as twisted as the grapevine that grew in his front yard. I am impressed that Polk only used two books of Faulkner’s in a seminar, and the two books he presented certainly are what you would have expected as from a former preacher. I remember once reading Absalom! Absalom! and feeling the same overwhelming mystery of Beethoven’s Ninth. A symphony of words. But it also one of the best hermaneutics of Samuel II I have ever read. It didn’t hurt that before reading it someone pointed out a black man in our tow, who could have passed for white was the son of a Faulkner family friend and the model for one of the LeBons. One of the things that most fascinates me about Faulkner is how he incorporates Biblical irony into so many of his books, and how those lessons are so blithely and darkly ignored by the culture he chronicles. The most fun he had with that, and some of the darkest depths he reached was Light in August. I am sorry to learn Polk couldn’t be a skeptic and a believer. I loved your eulogy of your professor, and thanks for letting me revisit a rare childhood memory

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