Permanent Things
edited by Andrew A. Tadie and Michael H. MacDonald
Reviewed by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Many of us are tempted to complain that we were born in the wrong time. Wouldn't it be great, we reason, to live in the days of Calvin and Knox? Or what if I could have served with William Wallace? One need not study history long to run into the problems with this view. First, God has appointed our times. Second, if we were put in another time, think of all the things we'd miss in our time. The only solution would be to be alive in all times.

Consider our own century. We have oodles to repent of, but not a few good things have happened as well. How would you have liked to be able to read G.K. Chesterton hot off the press at the beginning of the century? How about T.S. Eliot? Wouldn't you have loved to have read of his conversion soon after it happened? Or who would want to miss Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy Sayers, or C.S. Lewis? All of these good folks are the subject of an outstanding book titled Permanent Things, Toward a Recovery of a More Human Scale at the End of the 71ventieth Century. The book is a collection of essays presented first at a conference in Seattle in 1990. The contributing scholars all share with their subjects a loyalty to the permanent things, those enduring truths that make us human. Here they expound on how that loyalty shone forth in the writings of these giants.

Among the contributors are Thomas Howard, Peter Kreft, Kent Hill and the great Russell Kirk, to whom the book was dedicated. All the writers affirm together what is at once utterly fundamental, and earth-shak-ingly radical, that there are knowable, unchangable truths which deserve our utmost loyalty. What they do so well, however, is show us these long dead giants as they waged the battle for goodness, truth and beauty. These folks were the pioneers, the vanguard of reaction against the vanguard of postmodernism. But their wisdom is abundant in that their defense of the virtues was by no means reactionary, an exclusive attack against its attackers. Rather through the medium of fiction, prose and poetry, they made a positive affirmation that reflected as it defended, goodness, truth and beauty.

Reading about the great writers has the same effect on me as reading great writers - it is an exercise in humility. But as I slowly descend into hopelessness, "We have no Lewis, we have no Eliot, the center cannot hold, and all is undone," I remember whence came the genius of these men and women, form the inexhaustible fullness of the grace of God. What these good people had as our culture began to decay, we need in spades as we watch the last aching steps of the moribund west - faith the most important of the permanent truths, that Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.

Permanent Things is published by Eerdmans Publishing Company, copyright 1990. Many thanks to Tim Rea, a wise man who foolishly gave up this book as a gift to me.

The Truman Show
directed by Peter Weir
Reviewed by Laurence Windham

I knew this was going to be an important movie for Christians to critique. There were just too many Gump-like signals emanating from the ads. As a few of you know I went on record as stating that Forrest Gump was "the most dangerous movie in America." I made that assessment based on the message of the movie, God and chance are one and the same." You will never look at life the same after you've seen it through-the eyes of Forrest Gump" promised the poster.

Now we have The Truman Show, a well scripted, well acted movie with a subliminal message that is just as dangerous. Jim Carrey plays the part of a man who has been on TV his whole life. Since his birth there has been a viewing audience watching his every move, from the mundane: sleeping, eating, driving to work, to the exciting: death of a parent, seduction by his wife, heart to heart talks with his best friend. But the genius is that he doesn't know his life is a television show. Everyone else in his universe is an actor. Everyone! Mom, Dad, his wife, boss, best friend, neighbor, etc.

Created by a producer named Christof (played by Ed Harris), The Truman Show is entering its thirtieth year as the highest rated show on TV. Christof (get it!?) has orchestrated Truman's whole life. When Truman as a boy declares he wants to be an explorer when he's grown, and travel the world, Christof arranges the death of his father in such a way as to instill in Truman a deep fear of water. Now our innocent is landlocked on the stage he thinks is a town. In college, when his eye falls upon an attractive co-ed, another girl/actress is aggressively pushed into his life. She will be his wife, the other girl written out of the show. All this provides the viewing audience with the voyeuristic satisfaction they need. As the ultimate soap opera, the Truman show carries its audience with it. Truman's ups and downs become their own.

But there are problems. Truman begins to suspect that all his world is but a stage. At the end he does the unthought of and sails to the end of his world. Becoming the captain of his own soul, True Man decides that he would rather live outside the providence and sovereignty of another. He gets what every man wants, a personal audience with God. In this Tete-a-tete, the creator pleads with the creature to stick around and let him run his life. Natural man refuses and walks away.

Comparisons have been made between the movie and It's a Wonderful Life. The difference is between the artificial and the reality. Jimmy Stewart finally embraces the plan of God joyfully. In The Truman Show the message is: you are better off on your own.