Excerpt
Wilson's Bookmarks
Brief reviews of 'Renaissance People,' 'Enlightened Evangelicalism,' and 'The Making of the English Gardener.'
John Wilson | posted 1/18/2012 09:46AM
In Christian intellectual circles, cartoonish notions of "modernity" abound, given credence by people who should know better and disseminated to pastors, youth leaders, and assorted pundits. Not the least of the charms of Renaissance People, a gorgeously produced volume, is its resistance to being squeezed into such half-baked homilies, wherein "modernity" is all of a piece and the root of (most) evil. The book profiles 94 individuals, covering an enormous range. A sovereign remedy for postemergent headache and distress.
As with modernity, so with "the Enlightenment project": much handwringing. Meanwhile, as if in a parallel universe, scholars are exploring the relationships (multiple, contested) between evangelicalism and the Enlightenment (or Enlightenments). A case in point is Jonathan Yeager's Enlightened Evangelicalism, which begins with a quotation from Sir Walter Scott. Focusing on John Erskine (1721-1803), a prominent Scottish evangelical preacher and theologian, Yeager tells a story with wide resonance.
If, in winter's icy grip, you like to think ahead about the garden, Margaret Willes will be a boon companion, and you will delight in this "book about people, their gardens, their plants, and the books they used to find about botany, horticulture, and design." Every garden, however modest, looks back to the bliss of the first garden and bears the promise of paradise.
Copyright © 2012 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:Renaissance People, Enlightened Evangelicalism, and The Making of the English Gardener are available from Amazon.com and other retailers.
John Wilson is editor of Books & Culture, a Christianity Today sister publication.
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Wilson's Bookmarks, January 2012, Vol. 56, No. 1, Page 64
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