Born this day 1703 was (arguably) America's greatest theologian-pastor. Here is an excerpt from the sermon of his that most resonates with my soul:

If you are a poor, distressed sinner, whose heart is ready to sink for fear that God never will have mercy on you, you need not be afraid to go to Christ, for fear that he is either unable or unwilling to help you. Here is a strong foundation, and an inexhaustible treasure, to answer the necessities of your poor soul, and here is infinite grace and gentleness to invite and embolden a poor, unworthy, fearful soul to come to it. If Christ accepts of you, you need not fear but that you will be safe, for he is a strong Lion for your defense. And if you come, you need not fear but that you shall be accepted; for he is like a Lamb to all that come to him, and receives then with infinite grace and tenderness. It is true he has awful majesty, he is the great God, and infinitely high above you; but there is this to encourage and embolden the poor sinner, that Christ is man as well as God; he is a creature, as well as the Creator, and he is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth. This may well make the poor unworthy creature bold in coming to him. You need not hesitate one moment; but may run to him, and cast yourself upon him. You will certainly be graciously and meekly received by him. Though he is a lion, he will only be a lion to your enemies, but he will be a lamb to you. It could not have been conceived, had it not been so in the person of Christ, that there could have been so much in any Savior, that is inviting and tending to encourage sinners to trust in him. Whatever your circumstances are, you need not be afraid to come to such a Savior as this. Be you never so wicked a creature, here is worthiness enough; be you never so poor, and mean, and ignorant a creature, there is no danger of being despised, for though he be so much greater than you, he is also immensely more humble than you. Any one of you that is a father or mother, will not despise one of your own children that comes to you in distress: much less danger is there of Christ's despising you, if you in your heart come to him.

If that don't ring your bell, your clapper's broken.

What are the essential American novels?

Thinking of books not just by American authors but that capture a significant aspect of the American experience relative to the author's historical place.

Some candidates:

The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
Moby Dick by Melville*
Huckleberry Finn by Twain
Intruder in the Dust by Faulkner
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Blood Meridian by McCarthy
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
The Rabbit Angstrom Novels by Updike
White Noise by DeLillo
American Pastoral by Roth
The New York Trilogy by Auster
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay by Chabon

What would you add? Go.

* I confess to not having read this one but plan to soon.

Abraham Piper reports: "Soon after The Simpsons debuted, People Magazine quoted Barbara Bush as saying it was one the stupidest things she’d ever seen. Here’s is Marge’s respectful response . . ."



And here is Mrs. Bush’s response:

Dear Marge,

How kind of you to write. I’m glad you spoke your mind; I foolishly didn’t know you had one.

I am looking at a picture of you, depicted on a plastic cup, with your blue hair filled with pink birds peeking out all over. Evidently, you and your charming family — Lisa, Homer, Bart and Maggie — are camping out. It is a nice family scene. Clearly you are setting a good example for the rest of the country.

Please forgive a loose tongue.

Warmly,

Barbara Bush

P.S. Homer looks like a handsome fella!

From Sarah Vowell's engaging history of the Puritans, The Wordy Shipmates:

When John Cotton's grandson, Cotton Mather, wrote his Ecclesiastical History of New England in 1702, he told a story about [John] Winthrop that I would like to believe is true. In the middle of winter, Boston was low on fuel and a man came to the governor complaining that a "needy person" was stealing from his woodpile. Winthrop mustered the appropriate outrage and requested that the thief come see him, presumably for punishment. According to Mather, Winthrop tells the man,

"Friend, it is a severe winter, and I doubt you are but meanly provided for wood; wherefore I would have you supply yourself at my woodpile till this cold season be over." And Winthrop then merrily asked his friends whether he had not effectually cured this man of stealing his wood.

Trevin Wax with a helpful article:

Here are a number of urban legends that get repeated in sermons. Some are more pervasive than others, even appearing in commentaries and scholarly works.

1. The “eye of the needle” refers to a gate outside Jerusalem.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” says Jesus in Mark 10:25. Maybe you’ve heard of the gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle.” The camel could pass through it only after stooping down and having all its baggage taken off.

The illustration is used in many sermons as an example of coming to God on our knees and without our baggage. The only problem is… there is no evidence for such a gate. The story has been around since the 15th century, but there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

2. The high priest tied a rope around his ankle so that others could drag him out of the Holy of Holies in case God struck him dead.

Various versions of this claim have been repeated by pastors, but it is a legend. It started in the Middle Ages and keeps getting repeated. There is no evidence for the claim in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud, Mishna or any other source. Furthermore, the thickness of the veil (three feet) would have precluded the possibility of a priest being dragged out anyway.

3. Scribes took baths, discarded their pens, washed their hands, etc. every time they wrote the name of God.

As a way of getting across the reverence of the Jewish and Christian scribes toward God, preachers like to describe the honor given to God’s name. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that scribes did these sorts of rituals every time they came across the name of God.

4. There was this saying among the sages: “May you be covered in your rabbi’s dust.”

This is one of the most pervasive and fast-spreading stories to flood the church in recent years. The idea is that as you walked behind your rabbi, he would kick up dust and you would become caked in it and so following your rabbi closely came to symbolize your commitment and zeal. Joel Willitts explains:

This is powerful stuff isn’t it? Well the only problem is that it just isn’t true… The context in which it is given in Mishnah Aboth 1:4 is expressly not what is assumed by those who promulgate this idea.

5. Voltaire’s house is now owned by a Bible-printing publisher.

Voltaire was famous for saying, “One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker.” There is a myth out there that within 50 years of Voltaire’s death, his house was owned by a Bible society that used his own printing press to make Bibles. Sounds like a great story, but it’s not true. Regardless, Voltaire’s prediction of the demise of the Bible was vastly overstated.

6. Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem.

I’ve used this illustration many times. But there isn’tevidence to support this idea. Still, because it seems like a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as “hell,” commentators and preachers have accepted it. It’s possible that the verdict may still be out on this one, but not if Todd Bolen is right:

“The explanation for the ‘fire of Gehenna’ lies not in a burning trash dump, but in the burning of sacrificed children. Already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked. That the valley was just outside the city of Jerusalem made it an appropriate symbol for those excluded from divine blessing.”

7. NASA scientists have discovered a “missing day” which corresponds to the Joshua account of the sun standing still.

Please don’t repeat this myth. There has been no “missing day” discovered, and the legend has been circulating longer than NASA has been in existence, with different scientists playing the part.

One of my favorite Easter reflections is this poetic masterpiece from my favorite contemporary novelist, the late great New Englander John Updike. His "Seven Stanzas At Easter" is wondrous and makes a crucial point, powerfully:

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

The mockery of metaphor will be employed in many "churches" Sunday, many of them in my neck of the woods. True to Updike's first stanza, these churches are all dying ("falling").

My death will not be symbolic. It will be real. Therefore a symbolic resurrection is no hope for me. I look forward to those rekindled amino acids.

Though they may not know it, thousands of people today are celebrating the man who brought Christianity to Ireland. It's the only national holiday that celebrates a missionary.

In honor of St. Patrick, celebrate him today by praying for (and supporting) missions.

I got an Amazon Kindle for Christmas. After playing with it a for a few hours, I quickly realized that I'll probably have a Kindle, or something similar, for the rest of my life. I love it.

So far the only book I've paid for on my Kindle is George W. Bush's Decision Points. I read a decent amount of Bill Clinton's My Life back in the day, and it's interesting to juxtapose the two books in my mind. Clinton's was more of a minute by minute memoir of what seemed like every second of his entire life. (How he could recall all that detail from his childhood and early adult life is beyond me.) Bush's book is more to the point, with each chapter highlighting major decisions he made as president (and a few prior to his presidency).

I miss George W. Bush. Reading the chapter on 9/11 is like being smack-dab in the middle of his mind on one of the most important days in American history. I'm impressed with how good of a storyteller he is.

As you all may recall, Bush learned about the 9/11 attacks while reading to a roomful of second-graders in Florida. While walking up to the school, Karl Rove told Bush that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He thought it was strange, and wrote, "I envisioned a little propeller plane horribly lost." A few minutes later, while in front of the group of elementary children, he got the full picture.

I sensed a presence behind me. Andy Card [Bush's chief of staff] pressed his head next to mine and whispered in my ear.

"A second plane hit the second tower," he said, pronouncing each word deliberately in his Massachusetts accent. "America is under attack."

Wow! What a surreal moment that must have been. While probably not understanding the gravity of the situation, clicking photographers captured the historic moment that Bush turned into a wartime president:



Minutes later, after hearing about the third attack, the one on the Pentagon, Bush was livid.

My thoughts clarified: The first plane could have been an accident. The second was definitely an attack. The third was a declaration of war.

My blood was boiling. We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass.

That's what I love about George W. Bush, and that's what I miss about him. He had an unwavering impulse to defend his America in the very face of evil, and while not being perfect, he did what he had to do.

Thank you, President Bush.

At church on Sunday my friend Dan put Sarah Vowell's humorous history of the Puritans The Wordy Shipmates into my hands and told me he thought I'd like it. I started it Monday afternoon and couldn't put it down until late. One of my favorite passages so far is this:

When John Cotton's grandson, Cotton Mather, wrote his Ecclesiastical History of New England in 1702, he told a story about [John] Winthrop that I would like to believe is true. In the middle of winter, Boston was low on fuel and a man came to the governor complaining that a "needy person" was stealing from his woodpile. Winthrop mustered the appropriate outrage and requested that the thief come see him, presumably for punishment. According to Mather, Winthrop tells the man,

"Friend, it is a severe winter, and I doubt you are but meanly provided for wood; wherefore I would have you supply yourself at my woodpile till this cold season be over." And Winthrop then merrily asked his friends whether he had not effectually cured this man of stealing his wood.

I loved that. And it was fresh on my mind when my daily reading found me at Proverbs 22:8: "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail."

I think the reverse can be true as well. "Doing unto others" is most certainly a way to sow justice. Winthrop here did not fail the measure of justice. Perhaps the thief deserved punishment, but Winthrop put a stop to his thievery by freely giving from himself what the thief was taking from another. In doing so, he doesn't just put a stop to the thievery but he puts a stop to the need.

Isn't this what God has done for us in Christ on the cross? He satisfies his desire for justice and simultaneously satisfies our need. That he does it in an unexpected way, offering the Treasure of his own storehouse, is part of the power of the gospel that bears fruit and grows. Let us enact living parables of Christ's kingdom and Christ as King -- which is what I think Winthrop did there -- let us sow this justice, for whoever does so will reap a eucatastrophe.

Today I woke up in time for breakfast (I had missed it yesterday) and then decided to walk into Oxford. It's a pleasant walk, and the weather was perfect for it. In Houston I'd be a puddle of sweat before fifteen minutes had passed, even at 8:30 am. It's August, for crying out loud! But in the temperate climate of England I was fine.

I didn't have to meet Andrew until 9:55 am, so I took advantage of the time and got some shopping done, exploring up High street to Cornmarket street, then to Magdalen street and back. I met Andrew at 9:55 at Christ Church gate, which has been the center of our orbits this entire week; we headed from there back to Magdalen street, as I had one main goal today: to get to Wolvercote cemetery to visit J.R.R. Tolkien's grave-site. We stopped in a store and bought a spray of flowers for two pounds - it wasn't much, but it was all I could find at short notice - and then we caught the #6 bus to Mere Road. Mere road is only 600 meters or so from Wolvercote, though we had to take our lives in our hands crossing the lanes in a very busy roundabout to get to Five Mile street which leads to the cemetery.

I hadn't been able to get a precise location of Tolkien's grave on the internet, and it was a bit daunting for us as we walked through this beautiful cemetery which contains several hundred graves. We finally found some men who appeared to work there, and they pointed us in the right direction.

We came upon the grave of Tolkien and his wife Edith (pictured above). It's a beautiful grave, and it was decorated with flowers and a green bush growing out of the top of the grave. On the headstone Tolkien had engraved under his wife's name the name Luthien. Luthien is the elf-maiden in Tolkien's epic poem referenced in Lord of the Rings and expanded more fully in the Silmarillion. When he died, two years after his wife, the name of Beren, Luthien's mortal love, was engraved under Tolkien's name. From all accounts, Tolkien and his wife had a lifelong romance.

I wanted to leave a note with the flowers, and I hadn't been able to find a blank card, so I tore a sheet out of my notebook and wrote the following on it:

"The grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back.
And he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country
under a swift sunrise."

This is a quote from the end of The Return of the King. I wrote a few other quick thanks and blessings, and signed the note on behalf of the Thinklings. Andrew, an honorary Thinkling himself, having mooted with us several times, was also named on the note.

I found myself, unexpectedly, choking up while I read the note. I am so thankful to God for J.R.R. Tolkien and his magnificent work, as I am likewise thankful for C.S. Lewis.

The thought occurred to me this week: without Jesus, C.S. Lewis is just another brilliant English scholar who I've never heard of. Without Jesus, there has been no Narnia, we haven't been brought to our knees in worship in Perelandra, we haven't marvelled at God's redeeming patience in Till We Have Faces, we haven't been strengthened in our faith through Mere Christianity, or gained wisdom from The Screwtape Letters, or found solace in A Grief Observed. And I believe that without Jesus, we never would have had the epic tale of friendship, courage, sacrifice, redemption, and triumph over evil that is The Lord of the Rings. Without Jesus our hearts are never broken by "beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron". Without the witness of Christ in his life, Tolkien does not produce that work.

I honor these men, but all true honor goes to the Lord who inspired them and gifted them so magnificently. This is one reason why I don't despair over the apparent or observed dearth of noteworthy creativity coming out of Christian circles today. An amazing thing happened in Oxford a half century ago. That is not so long ago in the scheme of things and, though we may be at low tide (our entire culture, both Christian and non-Christian, may be) the wave will crest again.

But I digress. Andrew and I spent a few more moments by the grave, and then made our way back to the city center and ate a lunch of pizza bagels and ice-cream.

At 1:15 we met up with some of his Baylor classmates and made our way to Magdalen college for a tour and some class time. Andrew's professor, Dr. Hanks, was gracious enough to allow me to take part in this. Before I describe the tour, I'd just like to say that Andrew's classmates are all top-notch people. They were gracious to me, polite, well spoken, obviously very intelligent, and a joy to be around. The whole afternoon was a treat for me.

Magdalen College is absolutely beautiful. It has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated (although my pictures, linked at the bottom, will give you a taste). Magdalen's buildings are festooned with gargoyles. Magdalen students claim they have the best gargoyles at Oxford and, though I haven't seen every building in this university, I'd be hard pressed to imagine better gargoyle work. Magdalen is also the greenest, lushest place I've seen thus far.

We took a tour of the outer portion of Magdalen chapel, which has amazing stained glass work, carvings, and paintings, and then made our way around the campus, ending up with a view of the building C.S. Lewis lodged in while he was a professor here. It is a "newer" building, having been built in 1751. Dr. Hanks pointed out Lewis' rooms. We then followed the path called "Addison's Walk", which is the walk Lewis took with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson the night he was convinced of the truth claims of Christianity. Addison's walk is beautiful, lined with stately old trees and lush greenery.

We ended up on a short bridge leading to a gate which itself leads into the pasture land where the Magdalen deer herd is kept. It was on this bridge that Dr. Hanks held class. The subjects of the class were two of the books in the Narnia series: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle. Dr. Hanks teaches with a Socratic method, so the students were very involved in the discussion. Gosh, they're smart. Together the class explored the parallels between TLTWATW and Christianity. One student noted the parallel of the cracked Stone Table and the law of Moses. This is one I hadn't considered before. There was also a lively discussion on the themes of The Last Battle, including a discussion of Lewis' inclusive theology as evidenced (possibly) by the Calormen Emeth's acceptance by Aslan. All in all, I was fascinated and felt privileged to get to be an observer of this class.

When class was done, Dr. Hanks let us know that we had been given permission to tour the inner part of Magdalen's chapel. The main attraction there was that we each got to sit in C.S. Lewis' chair and have our picture taken. This seat is currently owned by another Magdalen don, but there is a memorial plaque honoring Lewis on the chair.

With that, our tour was over. Andrew and his friends Brooke and Brittney joined me for cookies at Ben's Cookies, and at this point my time in Oxford was starting to run short. Andrew had some things to do before dinner in the Great Hall this evening, but still had perhaps an hour, so he and I went to the two pound bookstore near Christ Church. That's right: every book, two pounds. And there are a lot of good books in there. I bought P.J. O'Rourke's On The Wealth of Nations in hardback and Andrew bought Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. We then went to the St. Aldtate's Tavern where I ordered a fish and chips that we split. We talked for awhile, and then it came time to go. We're guys, so we didn't make a big deal of it, we just hugged and said goodbye, but I miss Andrew already.

On that note: I'm so glad Andrew was given the privilege to study at Oxford, even just for five weeks, and I'm so thankful that God provided so that Andrew could go (and God certainly did that, and has continued to provide). It was pleasing to hear people, from his classmates to Dr. Hanks, speak highly of Andrew to me and, most commonly, note the profound nature of his comments and observations in class. Everyone seems to like Andrew.

Most of all, it's great to have a twenty-year-old son who actually wants to spend time with his dad. I will never forget this vacation, and the hours we got to spend together exploring Oxford and talking about the things we love.

It's been a great trip. Tomorrow I will bid Oxford farewell and start my journey back to Houston, arriving hopefully in time for my sweet Bethany's 17 year birthday party. I'm a very blessed man.

Thanks for walking along with me in these posts. Now, go read some Tolkien or Lewis, it will do you good!

Cheers!

(If you're interested, you can view all the pictures I took today here)

Built into our plans for the week was to have a day without a lot to do. The day following our whirlwind London trip seemed as good as any, and so we kept Sunday as open as possible.

I let Andrew sleep in - we had originally made plans to attend Christ Church cathedral for services together, but looking at him struggle to stay awake on the train Saturday night convinced me that maybe he deserved a break from my schedule for awhile. So Sunday morning I made my way alone to the Christ Church main gate at 11:15, in time for the Cathedral Eucharist service. If you are attending the service, the derby-wearing Christ Church protectors allow you to walk to the Cathedral through the "forbidden zone" of the Quad. That was a treat, and I snapped a few pictures surreptitiously coming and going.

The Eucharist service was wonderful. It was an Anglican service, a first for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I struggled to keep up, however; I had received a paper program that summarized the hymns we were singing, but I realized once things got rolling that I missed out on the bound booklet that contained the real keys to the service. I'm sure they're used to the slightly dazed look a clueless tourist adopts during the service when he doesn't have a booklet, but I hung in there. The songs were high hymns, and there was a men's choir that sang several prayerful songs, a few in Latin. The message of the day was on materialism, and it was a very good one. The priest spoke of how we often invert the roles of the Spirit versus the Material. Both are good, as Christ's Incarnation proves, but the Material is to be in subjugation to the Spirit, and is to be used to build the Kingdom. He warned us that if we get this backwards, we will see the material things which are our true treasures turn to "spiritual dust in our hands". This was thought-provoking for me, and I profited from it. At the end of the service we took communion, with wafers and a shared communion cup (filled with wine, not the grape juice I'm used to).

Following the service I met Andrew for lunch; we went to Old Tom's pub (just another ale-house that's been around for three hundred years) and I ordered fish and chips. I know English food gets a bad rap, but I have completely enjoyed the fare I've received here. It's good, simple food and it suits me well.

Following lunch, Andrew trekked with me back to Windmill road, where I'm staying. I got some down-time and even took a nap, and Andrew worked on a paper that he has due. Around 5:00pm Andrew headed back to Oxford to get ready for dinner in the Great Hall, and I followed around 7:00pm to meet up with Andrew and a number of other Baylor students at Bodleian Library for a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Bodleian has been in existence since 1602 and is the main research library for Oxford, and it is a magnificent building with a large courtyard. Also attending the performance was one of Andrew's professors, Dr. Hanks, who is one of the kindest and most engaging people I've ever met. I was very impressed with the students as well. They are all top-notch young people, polite, cheerful, friendly, and smart. The company I got to keep last night was very good.

This was to be an outdoor performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream, performed by an acting troupe from Shakespear's Globe Theater (!!!). The performance took place in the large Bodleian courtyard; the Globe players perform after the manner of the plays done in Shakespeare's time, complete with very limited technology, just a simple set and some lighting, no sound system, and with a minstrel-show feel in between acts. The costuming for the play would have been foreign to the Globe players of yore, however; it was done in 1920's style, and included a rarity: a female Puck dressed as a 1920's flapper. You can see the stage and the setting in the picture, above.

The play was fantastic. This was Shakespeare in all his comedic grandeur, complete with a good dose of Shakespearian bawdiness and excellent performances by the Globe players. They all did a fabulous job, and they sang and played instruments too (and danced the Charleston in between acts to boot). We laughed heartily throughout. The play ended around 10:30pm, with multiple curtain calls.

I parted ways with Andrew and his Baylor colleagues and began making my way to the bus stop. It was just around this time that I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day except the fish and chips I had earlier. So I found a street vendor and bought a cheeseburger, which had that European tilt to the flavor from what I'm used to, but was still good. I was making my way toward the bus stop to head back to Headington when a policeman pulled over and motioned me to his car. At first I thought he was going to ticket me for jaywalking (which I was guilty of) but instead he gave me a look of concern and said:

"Is that a camera yer holdin' in yer hand?"

"Um, yes officer."

"Well, take my advice and stash it away. Yer jest askin' to be robbed."

I thanked him and shoved my camera in my front pocket, waited for the bus (surrounded by a bunch of teenagers and a priest), caught it and made my way back to Windmill road.

This whole vacation has been a mid-summer's dream come true for me. I've had an incredible time. Only one more full day left.

If you'd like to view the pictures I took yesterday, you can see them here.

Yesterday, Andrew and I had only one thing on our itinerary; to leap into London with everything we had; to "rub one's nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was." (C.S. Lewis).

That's a big challenge when considering a city like London, and for a day with only so many hours in it. But we gave it our best shot. We boarded our train for Paddington at the Oxford railway station and enjoyed a nice, fifty-five minute commute into London. Andrew had worked diligently to have all the directions we'd need to fulfill our itinerary, acting as our navigator for the day, and he did a fabulous job, as I would have immediately gotten myself lost hopelessly in London's warrens. I will give London this credit, though: unlike Oxford, London labels its streets plainly and in large letters. In Oxford, there's no sense labeling a street because five paces after the sign the street will have changed its name.

Our first goal was to get something to eat. Our second goal was to arrive at the British Museum. We accomplished both in one fell swoop. We rode the Tube toward the museum and, upon arriving, discovered a hot dog stand right outside it. The hot dogs there were excellent, by the way, and Andrew was pretty excited because the stand carries his favorite soda, Sunkist, which he hadn't yet seen in Europe. From his reports it ended up tasting like Fanta, but it was still good.

The British museum was - you'll hear this word a couple times in this post - overwhelming. We rammed through much of it in about an hour and a half, but probably only saw a small fraction of one percent of what it offered. It's just huge. We walked through ancient Greece and Rome, ancient Egypt, ancient Ur and Babylon, and much of the history of Europe.

There were lots of sculptures and busts in the museum: busts of various kings and emperors, including an impressive collection of Roman emperors. These were important in their day: without mass media the Emperor needed a way to get his image out in front of the populace, so the emperors are represented in sculpted images of exaggerated youth, vitality, and heroism. There were large displays of armor, helmets, swords, spears, and the other implements of war. Toward the end of it, I found myself becoming a little depressed; it's amazing how much of mankind's history revolves around conquest, intrigue, wealth, weaponry, and politics. This morning at Christ Church cathedral we sang a song that reminded me of what I saw in the histories yesterday at the museum:

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,

- God of Grace and God of Glory, v. 3
Following the British museum, we again hopped on the Tube and made our way to the Imperial War Museum. Once again, it was overwhelming. We spent some time in the main room admiring the aircraft, tanks and rockets on display there, and then made our way down into the trenches of World War I. The trench simulation was very good, with the sites and sounds (but not the smells, thankfully) of trench warfare in the Great War faithfully reproduced. We heard interviews of soldiers who had "gone over the top" into no man's land and were the only ones left standing of their platoon,

All wars are awful, but World War I gets win, place, and show in the most hellish war imaginable sweepstakes. It was such a terrible, stupid war, full of waste and senseless bloodshed. I'm amazed at the English people for what they endured in the 20th century: not one but two world wars right on their doorsteps that stole entire generations of their young men.

Peace to them all . . . Ypres and the Somme ate up most of them. They were happy while their good days lasted.

- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, chapter VI - Bloodery
We moved from the Great War section to the section on World War II, and were again met with tales of great courage and heroism on all sides. But also of troubling hatred.

"They were all murdered because we hate them."

- Felix Landau, SS sergeant, speaking of the victims of the Holocaust
I'm thankful to all those who sacrificed so much for our freedom, against such evil.

We finally left the War museum as dinner was calling us, and we had to make our way to Trafalgar square, again on the Tube. We had dinner in a nice pub called Garfunkel's, where we ate some very good Italian food. We were both footsore and brain-weary at this point so we took our time over dinner, and then headed to the National Gallery which is a magnificent building at the head of Trafalgar square. It was closing in about 45 minutes, so our visit there consisted mainly of a nearly-blind rush through room after room of paintings. To give you a sense of the scope of this art gallery, I think we went through about eight rooms devoted to the 17th century alone. The paintings were magnificent and my one regret is that we didn't have more time for this museum. I saw Monets, Van Goghs, Gaugins, and Rembrandts, among many, many other artists, and we stayed until they started shooing us out.

This completed our museum-hunting for the day. We also had on our plans the Churchill museum, but that proved unrealistic in hindsight. So we made our way to the Queen's Theater to see Les Miserables, which has been running in London for twenty five years. I had never seen Les Mis and was unfamiliar with the story, so I bought a playbill and read up on it while we waited for the play to start. It was magnificent! Not only was it a great, entertaining musical skillfully done, it was also surprisingly redemptive. It's a tale of sacrifice and forgiveness from start to end, and I walked out uplifted. Uplifted and also dead-tired, as it was now past 10:30pm at the end of a long, full day.

We still had a long road ahead of us, though. We trekked the few blocks to the Piccadilly Circus Underground and rode it to Paddington Station, arriving about five minutes till 11:00pm. We had to run to catch the Oxford train that was boarding at Platform 9.

"Uh oh," I thought as we boarded. The train was packed, with barely room for us to stand just inside the doors. And it was hot. So, dog-tired, Andrew and I stood sweating among teeming masses, including a young gent and his lass who decided that this would be the perfect place to start snogging.

To take my mind off the snogging happening four inches away from me, I tried to engage in conversation with the middle aged British couple crammed up against the door. I could hear them discussing Les Mis, as they had also attended that night, so I tried to join in, using my best Texas opener, "So, did you have good seats for the play?". But they didn't appear to be much interested in conversing with the sweaty American invading even the small personal spaces that Europeans value, so, since they were staring at me like I had a third eye, I decided to drop my attempts at communication. I resigned myself to a long, uncomfortable journey home.

But then, a miracle! Oh thank you, Glorious, Shining city of Slough! The train stopped at the Slough railway station (unexpectedly, as we had only one stop on the way in, at Reading), and a number of people exited the train. We still had to stand, but the young couple was able to take their intimacy over to a seat, and we had more breathing room. And then the next (unexpected) stop, and even more people got off, and Andrew and I were able to find seats into which we collapsed, until we arrived back in good old Oxford at midnight.

From there, Andrew and I each took our separate cabs back home: he to Christ Church and me to Windmill road in Headington. Upon arriving home, I skyped for a bit with my lovely better half - poor thing: I get to look at her while we skype and she has to look at me - and I was also able to talk to two of my kids, Bethany and Blake, as well. Finally, we said our goodbyes and, as the time neared 2:00am, I fell asleep.

London, thanks for a great day. I'll never forget it. But it's good to be back in Oxford.

If you'd like to see pictures from today, you can find them here.

This morning I woke up, ate an early English breakfast (which was awesome - more on that in a later post), posted the previous post that I was too jetlagged to post last night, and then walked over to Christ Church's main gate to meet Andrew at 11:00am. He and I found a little shop and got a slice of pizza and sat and talked for awhile, and then, around noon, caught the bus to Kilns Lane and Lewis Close, which is where you can find C.S. Lewis' house, the Kilns.

We had to wander around in this residential area a little while before we found the Kilns. It's a beautiful little house, lovingly restored (probably in much better shape than when C.S. Lewis actually lived there). We were a little bit early so we hung around in a nearby lane leading to the C.S. Lewis nature walk and pond. When our 1:00pm tour time approached we went to the door of the Kilns and rang the bell.

A matronly English woman answered the door, and when she found out that we were there for a tour, she asked us if we wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes in the garden. So, Andrew and I took our seats in the garden that C.S. Lewis used to sit in. It is - I have to resort to a more British-sounding adjective here - lovely.

A few minutes after we sat down, a very nice lady popped out of the door of the Kilns and asked us if we'd like some tea.

Tea.

Would I like to have some tea . . . in C.S. Lewis's garden . . .

I avoided the temptation to shout "WOULD I? WOULD I?!?!" - and instead said something like "Thank you. That would be splendid." I actually don't think I said "splendid", I probably said something more American like "awesome", or "neat", but let's pretend.

She and another very nice "scullery maid" (that's how they laughingly referred to themselves) brought us tea on a very nice serving, with sugar lumps, cream, and cookies. I took a picture of it, above.

The aforementioned two ladies are Americans, by the way. Interesting.

Another group of five people joined us a few minutes later and tea was brought out for them as well. And then we entered the Kilns. We sat in the sitting room and listened as our guide, Kim Gilnett, told us the story of the Kilns and C.S. Lewis. He did a fantastic job. Andrew had already done this tour and confirmed for me that it's not a scripted thing. Kim is a Lewis aficionado from Seattle Pacific University (he's also an American) and he asked us about our interest in Lewis, shared anecdotes, pointed out photos, talked about Lewis' wife, Joy, and in general kept us spellbound for nearly an hour. Among the anecdotes shared were ones about Lewis's generosity: Lewis didn't feel right making money from writing about Christianity, so he gave a lot of his money away - always to needy individuals, rather than causes. And always anonymously. This helps explain why he, Warnie, Mrs. Moore, other boarders, his gardner, Mr. Paxford, their cook, and later Joy Davidman and her two sons, continued to live at this relatively small house that Lewis had bought in 1930 for $3,300 pounds, till Lewis' death and beyond.

As an aside, Kim is not a big fan of the dour portrayal of Lewis in the movie Shadowlands.

Following our time in the sitting room, Kim took us on a tour of the house, including the dining room, the kitchen, several of the studies that are in the house, one containing Warnie Lewis' typewriter upon which a large number of Lewis' letters were typed up from "Jack's" manuscripts, etc. We saw the room C.S. Lewis died in, the kitchen, and a number of bedrooms. It's not a large house by any means, but it holds a deceptively large number of rooms. We also met Jerry Root, editor of The Quotable Lewis, who was studying his Bible at the desk where Lewis often wrote during the time when he authored the Narnia series. Professor Root was preparing for a weekend seminar, where students come and are put up at the Kilns for several days to learn more about Lewis.

Our guide, Kim, has been a Lewis scholar since the 70s, and was a part of the restoration of the Kilns that started in the early 90s. There's a story there: After Lewis' brother Warnie Lewis, who also lived at the Kilns, died in the early 70s, the home was sold to a family that proceeded to change a bunch of things, even to the point of renovating the kitchen in the 1970s Avacado Green Blech™ style, so the restoration team had its work cut out for them. In addition, C.S. Lewis and Warnie pretty much smoked non-stop in the house during their waking hours, so there was quite a bit of heavy tobacco stainage that was discovered when the restoration team stripped the newer paint off. All in all I think they've done a fantastic job. The people who run the Kilns seem to have a genuine love and enthusiasm for Lewis and it shows.

I don't think I'll ever forget taking afternoon tea in the Kilns garden.

Once we left the Kilns we walked around the Kilns' pond, and then walked over to the church that C.S. Lewis attended where we viewed his gravestone, which is in the church cemetery.

Following this, we headed back to Oxford's city center and Andrew took me on an abbreviated Inklings walk. It was great - we walked by the first house C.S. Lewis stayed at after arriving in Oxford, visited the gravestones of a few of his Inkling friends such as Hugo Dyson and Charles Williams, walked past Magdalen college, and ended up at the Eagle and Child pub for dinner. It got me wondering what a "Thinklings walk" would look like. We'd start at BloDingle, probably, which was the site of our first few moots, and go from there, ending up, I suppose, in a quaint little town in Vermont . . .

But I digress: at the Eagle and Child we ordered some delicious "pie" (think pot-pie, not fruit-pie) and then I caught the bus back to Headington.

It was a great day. Tomorrow, London!

Click here if you'd like to see the pictures I took today.

If you don't have Facebook, try this link to see the pictures.

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning at 7:30 after a pleasant flight from Houston. I was somewhat bleary because I don't sleep well on planes, but I can't complain. Catching the Oxford Express at the airport I arrived at Headington, Oxford and made my way to my lodgings (a nice little B&B off of Windmill road). After getting settled in and exchanging a few emails with my eldest, Andrew, who is studying at Oxford this summer, I began my trek towards Christ Church college.

The weather was cool, about 70, and the skies were overcast. It was an enjoyable walk. It occurred to me that C.S. Lewis must have made this walk thousands of times, as the Kilns is less than a mile from where I'm staying.

Andrew and I met up near Christ Church cathedral and began our day. We made our way to the Kings Arms pub for lunch, where we both ordered bangers and mash, because what's better to start off a day of Oxford? It was delicious. We spent some time exploring the city and talking about its history as we walked. Oxford's city center is bustling with a great deal of pedestrian traffic, and the roads go every which-way and change names often, as roads in ancient cities are wont to do, so it took awhile for me to get my bearings. We walked down the Thames for a mile or two - I kept threatening Andrew that I was going to adopt my best rube American accent and ask a local where the "Thaymes" was" - and turned down a country lane that appeared to our right, passing by a soccer pitch and cutting through the meadows back to the city roads. During our walk we talked about Tolkien and Lewis and the works of literary genius those men produced. It's a wonderful feeling to be walking the same roads they did.

At 2:30 I bought a visitor's ticket into Christ Church proper - Andrew is a student there and has full run of the place - and we ventured into Christ Church cathedral and the Great Hall, where the students eat breakfast and dinner each day. I haven't seen the movies, but evidently Hogwarts is patterned after the Great Hall. Andrew gets to eat here five nights a week and, from a look at the menu and all his reports, the food is exquisite.

The cathedral was fascinating. There are memorial plaques and statues all over it honoring the departed and dating back centuries. There is also evidence of the Reformation-era expunging of any references to the saints, from blanked out faces on stained glass to the removal of saint's relics from the memorials.

Following our visit to Christ Church, we made another exploration through the streets of Oxford, ending up at St. Phillips book store where I purchased Lewis's The Discarded Image and Andrew bought a book by Hobbes, primarily because of who wrote the forward (the name escapes me). By this time I was starting to get a bit foggy, having been up for over 26 hours, not counting a few brief moments of dozing on the plane. So we grabbed a quick meal at Pret a Manger and then we popped over to the Bird and Baby to share a pint with Tollers and Jack. I read them some of my latest work. They both laughed heartily and pronounced it "pure rubbish".

Just kidding about that last part (but wouldn't that have been wonderful!). After dinner I caught City Bus #8 back to Headington, uploaded some photos, and crashed.

If interested, you can see pictures from Day 1 here: Oxford, Day 1. If you're not a Facebook user, try this link.

And now, off I go for another day in Oxford! Today Andrew and I will be visiting the Kilns, taking an Inklings walk, and perhaps visiting a museum after that.

On April 28th, 1789, the HMS Bounty was taken over by mutiny. Fletcher Christian led 17 other mutineers to set Captain Bligh and his supporters afloat in a small boat. The mutineers tried to settle in Tahiti. After some violent encounters with the Tahitians, the mutineers, some Tahitian men and some woman they had taken from Tahiti left on the Bounty. They eventually arrived at the uninhabited island of Pitcairn.

They burned the Bounty in what is now called “Bounty Bay” in order to hide the evidence of their crime and to prevent the women from fleeing.

There was plenty of water and food on the island and at first things were going well. However, many of the women felt like they were treated like slaves and revolted. The Tahitian men killed many of the mutineers in a revolt, including Fletcher Christian. The widows of the mutineers murdered the Tahitian men in revenge. The remaining mutineers could not get along with each other either, and so eventually due to fights, drunkenness and murder, only two men survived. One of them, Ned Young, died of Asthma in 1800, the first to die of natural causes.

This left one mutineer, and the last surviving man, John Adams, in charge of nine Tahitian women and dozens of children. Adams was a murderer and a mutineer. But he was also a man looking for hope. One day he found the H.M.S. Bounty’s Bible at the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it and his life changed. He dedicated his life to Christ and began to lead worship services on the Island. He taught the women and children of the island from the Bible.

Eventually they all became Christians.

Today the population of Pitcairn island numbers a little over 50. They are the descendants of the Bounty’s mutineers and still bear those surnames. And every person on the island is a Christian.

Though he didn’t live to see it, the way that Fletcher Christian’s people became actual Christians was through the power of God’s word.
The Bible has the power to change your life and the lives of those around you as well. “

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it—no matter what” (Hebrews 4:12-13, The Message.)

The next time you pick up a Bible, don’t just go through it, let it go through you. It might change your life.

Sources under comments...

Back in Billy Graham's hay-day, not everyone was thrilled about him. Theologians in particular were not so sure about his approach.

From this blog:

“The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth once stood in the rain to hear Graham preach in Basel. When he told Graham that the sermon from John 3:3 was good but should not have stressed the must in ‘you must be born again,’ Graham begged to differ (and was soon gratified to hear another great theologian, Emil Brunner, affirm his position). But then Graham closes this account concerning Barth with these words: ‘In spite of our theological differences, we remained good friends.’” (Mark Noll, American Evangelical Christianity: An Introduction, Blackwell 2001, p. 47)

Another important theologian, Helmut Thielicke, also attended a Billy Graham crusade, but with certain preconceived notions which put Thielicke in an ill disposition toward the popular preacher. However, after coming under the preaching of Graham, Thielicke experienced an awakening of sort...

In Thielicke’s autobiography, Notes from a Wayfarer, he recounts the situation:

My meeting with Billy Graham, who was at that time holding his huge evangelization crusades in Los Angeles stadium, was of great importance to me. I at first had reservations about accepting his invitation to sit next to him on the balustrade.

When I then did indeed do so on the insistence of my friends, I kept my eyes wide open critically. As the people came forward in their thousands to confess their faith, however, I was aware only of calm meditation on the part of his crew and detected no expressions of triumph. His message was good solid stuff. His warmhearted, unpretentious humanity made a great impression on me.

Afterwards I wrote him a thank you letter in which I confessed that whenever I had previously been asked for my opinion of him I had said that I felt that many essential elements were lacking in his proclamation of the Gospel; he advocated an individualistic doctrine of salvation, and even this took place only in relation to the initial stages of faith. Although I had now personally experienced his message, I did not feel compelled to revise the objective side of this criticism, but I had resolved to modify the question in which I raised my criticism; it now ran: “What is lacking in my and the conventional Christian proclamation of the Gospel that makes Billy Graham necessary?”

I found the answer he gave me extremely significant. I was, he said, completely right in my criticism. What he was doing was certainly the most dubious form of evangelization. But what other alternative did he have if the flocks that had no shepherds would not otherwise be served? This answer gave him credibility in my eyes and convinced me of his spiritual substance.

Graham would take Thielicke’s constructive criticism to heart, as exhibited in his later emphasis on continuing discipleship and the importance of the local church, the latter which caused him much criticism (from fundamentalists) as he worked with local mainline Protestant churches and Roman Catholics whenever his crusade would come to a town.

I don't know if Thielicke really deserves all the credit for Graham's later emphasis on continuing discipleship and follow-up, but I think we should give him some... :-)

You can't make this stuff up. First Baptist Church, Fort Worth has a history better than fiction.

A new, long chapter in the church's history began when it called as pastor John Franklyn Norris, owner-editor of the Baptist Standard from 1907 to 1909. Norris accepted the pastorate in 1909 and remained at First Baptist for the rest of his life. The church lost at least 600 members in 1911 after a division, and the following year lost its building and pastor's home by fire. Though Norris was indicted for arson, he was acquitted after a month-long trial. During his long tenure, the church's personality became inseparably entwined with that of its pastor. It aligned with the prohibition movement, sponsored an interdenominational Bible school, and became the leader of the World's Christian Fundamentals Conference in 1919. That year the church built a 5,000-seat auditorium, and four years later it helped to form the Baptist Bible Union of America. Because of Norris's continued open criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention, his decision to discard SBC literature, his attacks on SBC schools (particularly Baylor University, which he charged with teaching "evolution and infidelity"), and his spirit of noncooperation, the Tarrant County Baptist Association withdrew fellowship from the church in 1922. The Baptist General Convention of Texas refused Norris a seat at the state convention in 1923 and permanently excluded him in 1924.

On July 18, 1926, Norris shot and killed a Fort Worth lumberman, Dexter Elliot Chipps, in the church office. He was charged with murder but was acquitted on a ruling of self-defense at his trial in Austin. Two years later the church and parsonage were burned again. By 1931 the church reported 12,000 members, with 6,000 attending Sunday school, and property valued at $1.5 million. Throughout the next two decades Norris and the First Baptist Church stood solidly against Modernism, Communism, liberalism, evolution, ecclesiasticism, and organized crime. The growing congregation gained notoriety for extreme independence, a controversial and pugilistic attitude, and a flare for sensationalism.

Discord and internal rivalry surfaced in 1945, when Norris's son George became pastor of a dissenting party that split from the First Baptist Church. Norris's health began to fail in 1948, and the Premillennium Fellowship fractured in May 1950, the same month Norris was dismissed by the church in Detroit.

Norris died on August 20, 1952, and the First Baptist Church called Homer Ritchie as pastor four days later. Ritchie served in that capacity until October 11, 1981, much of that time with his twin brother Omer serving as his co-pastor.

Did you get all that?
The pastor was acquitted of arson! Later he shot and killed a man in his church office. He was acquitted of murder on the grounds that it was self-defense. And two years later the church and parsonage burned again.

And here's my favorite part. Four days after he died, Homer Ritchie became pastor. Over the next 30 years, Homer and his brother Omer co-pastored the church. Homer and Omer. Man, even the Coen brothers couldn't make up stuff this good.

Of course the history on the church's official website doesn't mention any of that stuff. I guess I don't blame them.

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Now her fascinating life, with all its challenges and successes is being brought to the screen. HBO has produced the full-length film Temple Grandin, which premieres on Saturday, February 6th on HBO. She has been featured on NPR (National Public Radio), major television programs, such as the BBC special "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow", ABC's Primetime Live, The Today Show, Larry King Live, 48 Hours and 20/20, and has been written about in many national publications, such as Time magazine, People magazine, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and New York Times. Among numerous other recognitions by media, Bravo Cable did a half-hour show on her life, and she was featured in the best-selling book, Anthropologist from Mars.

Dr. Grandin didn't talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She tells her story of "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.

Dr. Grandin has become a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism because "I have read enough to know that there are still many parents, and yes, professionals too, who believe that 'once autistic, always autistic.' This dictum has meant sad and sorry lives for many children diagnosed, as I was in early life, as autistic. To these people, it is incomprehensible that the characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled. However, I feel strongly that I am living proof that they can" (from Emergence: Labeled Autistic).

Even though she was considered "weird" in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor, who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift, and others.

Dr. Grandin presently works as a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. She also speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling. At every Future Horizons conference on autism, the audience rates her presentation as 10+.

I watched a bit of the film Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, tonight. Fascinating and moving stuff. I've never thought much of Danes as an actress, but that changed tonight.

I discovered Mississippi John Hurt quite by accident a few weeks ago surfing around YouTube. Started consuming everything of his I could. One difficult night I listened to his songs on repeat, and God really ministered to me through them. There's something about his voice . . . I don't know, maybe it's just me. My friend Jason heard about my newfound appreciation, and being a long-time fan of the man's music, he sent me almost Hurt's entire catalog.

Here's one of the few video clips of Mississippi John Hurt available online, filmed shortly before his death on some television program along with Pete Seeger and Hedy West.



There's a really interesting story here. Hurt recorded a couple of albums in the early 20s that were commercial failures and then basically disappeared into obscurity for forty years, working as a sharecropper and playing the occasional party. Having grown to love the existing recordings, in 1963 a scholar tracked him down in Avalon, Mississippi and brought Hurt into the spotlight. Hurt played the Newport Folk Festival in 1964 and did some more recording, a long time coming. He died in 1966.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. ~ Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda

I saw this quote as the heading of an editorial a while back... and since we also have it in our quote rotation here at thinklings, it got me thinking, "Did Goebbels really say that? And if so,what did he mean?"

So here's what I found out from some internet research. It is listed at a quote website although I don't know if you can even trust websites anymore. It bugs me to run into quotes without a reference to when it was said or where it was written. (Though I've been guilty of just listing the author without saying where I found it myself.) I wish that everyone would say where and when a quote came from. In this day and age where anyone can say anything on the internet or in an email, it is all the more important. I'm a real stickler for authenticity and I try never to attribute a quote to someone unless I can personally verify it.

And so the quotes website I link to above may be just proliferating a myth. I never found an actual citation for this quote. I did however learn from wikiquote, if that can be trusted, that a similar quote is often misattributed.

Misattributed
* But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. -o Actually from "War Propaganda", in volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925), by Adolf Hitler.

* (multiple alternatives) If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. // If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. // If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. // If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth. // If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
o no reliable source; probably misquotations of the Big Lie idea

The "Big Lie" idea was not Goebbels revealing some secret of Nazi propaganda. (At least not willingly.) His point in context was that it is the British who are lying. Oh the irony, that this quote has been repeated so often and attributed to Goebbels that it doesn't seem to be questioned anymore.

The following is an authentic Goebbels quote. Or at least I think it is, becomes it comes from wikiquote and the actual original source is cited.

That is of course rather painful for those involved. One should not as a rule reveal one's secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

* "Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik" ("Churchill's Lie Factory"), 12 January 1941, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1941), pp. 364-369
* This and similar lines in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf about what he claimed to be a strategem of Jewish lies using "the principle & which is quite true in itself & that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily," are often misquoted or paraphrased as: "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed."

Here's my conclusion: It looks like Goebbels never said what is attributed to him at the top of this post, or the more common, "If you tell a lie often enough (or big enough) it will be believed."

And if he did say that or something like it, I don't think he meant it as it appears - Like the inside secret confession of a Nazi propagandist...though that implication makes it rather delicious for the modern day propagandist...er opinion writer. Drawing a conclusion from the actually verifiable quotes and speeches of Goebbels, if he did say anything like this, he most likely meant it as a criticism of what his enemies were doing. (i.e. claiming that Jews and the Allies were the liars.) He was not admitting that he was a purveyor of lies. (Although you and I know he was an evil liar, that's probably not what he meant.)

Here's a pretty good selection of Goebbels speeches and articles.

So doubting that he said it in the first place, and believing that if he did, he was actually criticizing Jews or the English, I will never use that quote again. That's my take.

If there's one thing I hate more than a made-up or misattributed quote, it's a quote taken out of context. Imagine how shocked I was when I learned that when Mark Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me, it's the ones that I do understand." He meant something entirely different than how many pastors and books had quoted it to me. I had heard it quoted as meaning that rather than Christians spending too much time on the difficult passages, we should spend more time dealing with the parts we do understand. i.e. we should spend more time obeying, and less time worrying about who the sons of God were that married the daughters of men.

So in researching the quote for something I was working on to make sure it was authentic, I found out that Twain was actually criticizing the Bible! When he said that the parts he understood troubled him, he was talking about God commanding the Israelites to slaughter men, women and children. He was explaining why he didn't believe the Bible was the word of God, and criticizing how awful it was.

So how about you? Can you shed light on the authenticity and meaning of the Goebbels quote?

Is there another quote that people use all the time that is wrong, misattributed or out of context?