I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition
edited by Andrew Lytle
Reviewed by R.C. Sproul Jr.

One of the motivations for having a 'nothing' issue is the opportunity it affords to cover what was missed before. We've already done an issue on the land. And though we will continue to plant the seed of agrarian themes, our land issue would have been the time to review I'll Take My Stand. Of course, we didn't have a review column back then.

I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition was edited by Andrew Lytle. It is a collection of essays from twelve southern scholars in praise of agrarianism. Some of the contributors were poets, others were novelists, still others were historians. Each shared the conviction that industrialization was dehumanizing on its face, no matter the length of the work week or the number of geegaws produced by and for the working man. Their vision was of a forgotten culture, the small land based, local southern culture of the yeoman farmer.

These twelve men, when their work was first published in 1930, were laughed at, scorned, mocked and derided. The arguments against them were two-fold-Progress is good and progress is inevitable. And progress, of course, is defined by statist Yankee industrialists. Some of the contributors actually fell before the pressure, recanting their convictions. Others simply drifted away. Still others, while consigned to the intellectual backwater, used their free time teaching others these truths. And, of course, those truths are coming back. The Nashville Agrarians, the twelve southern gentlemen, are the intellectual fathers of some of the most influential writers and thinkers of our day. Without I'll Take My Stand and the men who took that stand, there would be no Wendell Berry, no M.E. Bradford, no Richard Weaver.

And without those men the Highlands Study Center wouldn't exist. I'll Take My Stand has in its 12 chapters, anecdotes, stories, essays, all of which communicate not so much an ossified set of propositions, as a way of looking at things. Here in these pages the simple life that we labor so hard to communicate in Every Thought Captive is brought vividly to life. As I read chapter after chapter I find myself saying not only, "Yes, that is what I want," but also "Yes, that is what I want to be." The book spreads in its readers the yearning in the hearts of the writers. Each in their own way not only penetrates the sickness of industrial culture, but points us in the direction of the cure. These are essays not unlike the story of the good Samaritan, they teach us what it means to be a good neighbor.

I regret that none of these men say much about the Great Neighbor. The writers are men whose spiritual blindness keeps them from seeing the source of the light they wish to recover, but who have been graced like few others with enough light to know what they're missing. Jesus is only a whisper and a shadow in this book. But He is there, walking among the cat tails, for it is His culture they are singing about, covenantal, familial, local, simple.

I Heard the Owl Call My Name
by Margaret Craven
Reviewed by Laurence Windham

When my friend, Mark Nordstrom, handed me a copy of I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven, I knew it had to be a great book. Mark is one of those rare, no nonsense guys that God puts into your path if you are fortunate. Anything he suggested had to be significant.

Still, I didn't read the book for several weeks even though Mark asked me daily if I had started it. We worked on the same construction crew and had plenty of opportunities to discuss the important aspects of life. After I had received the book and before I had read it Mark began an annoying habit of quoting the title of the book as a running commentary to most anything we talked about as a way prod me to read the book.

I finally did! What a great read. I have since read it a dozen times. The author Margaret Craven, has written a wonderful story of a young vicar sent to minister to an Indian tribe in the cold Canadian north. This book has it all. At the very beginning the reader joins the priest on his journey to the remote Indian village. The way the young man deals with the members of the tribe, his own passions, the forces of nature, and the inevitable changes that will take place are lessons that you will not easily forget. The character qualities that the vicar exhibits under the circumstances he encounters are worthy of discussion with your spouse, children, and friends.

Several modern Christian scholars have diagnosed that one of the major problems of immorality and lawlessness among young people is due to the lack of development of their moral compass stemming from an insufficient diet of great literature. They do not have internal references of patience, loyalty, honor, fortitude, and respect that stories can supplement. Within this little book you will be able to mine a wealth of virtuous examples to emulate and share.

I have often reflected on the wisdom of this book and cannot wait to read it to my own children when they are old enough to enjoy it. If you have ever read a book that you could not wait to finish but did not want to end, a book that you could not wait to share with someone else, a book that you enjoyed rereading almost as much as the first time, the this gem of a story is for you.