Posted on 04/15/2005 7:24:20 AM PDT by logos
The myth of progress has given way to the progress of myth. This is one way of describing the transition from the optimistic Age of Reason into our current Age of Imagination. As C. Stephen Evans has aptly noted, "there is considerable fascination with mythology in our culture."
Evans suggests a number of reasons for the appeal of myth in our postmodern age. Chief among them is the belief that "myth is in many ways living water for a dry culture." As we suggested earlier, humans are created for a thorough integration of all faculties, and whenever one is stressed beyond its proper limits the pendulum will swing out of balance in the opposite direction. Such is the case today. Enlightenment rationalism has parched the soul of the West, and our culture has turned with a vengeance to imaginative reservoirs like myth to quench its thirst.
Although this intense affair with the imagination may seem temporarily exhilarating, without a proper corrective the postmodern world is in danger of exchanging one plague for another. The drought-stricken farmer who is initially thrilled to watch the cool showers saturating his cracked soil is eventually dismayed if his crops are swept away by a flood. Only the proper balance of sun and rain can yield a healthy harvest.
In this connection, Lewis' understanding of the Christian story as the marriage of "Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact" might provide some promising resources in keeping these polarized plagues at bay. His commitment to the historical texture of the New Testament narrative provides the appropriate epistemological grounding for the faith, giving the mind its proper due, while his emphasis on the mythical quality of the Gospels offers, as Lewis put it, "the vital and nourishing element" that satisfies our imaginative and affective cravings. This is an integrated vision that appeals to the whole person, "claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."
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IMHO, that the fields are ready to be harvested is evidenced by the huge success of fictional sagas of good v evil, e.g. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars.
An excellent insight, logos. Thank you so much for today's installment!
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