Resentment and Fear

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Monday, February 06, 2006
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GalleyCat compiles a list of "sudden personal disclosures" made by reviews in yesterday's NYTRB, including this one from novelist Lucy Ellmann:

"I should declare immediately that I resent and fear Christianity, not only for its sexism and incitement of violence but for its deadening effect on the imagination."

The admission comes in the first paragraph of Ellmann's review of The Thin Place, by Kathryn Davis, and she is gracious enough to concede that whatever the state of the Christian imagination in general, Davis's is in "fine working order."

We're all entitled to our own resentments and fears, of course, but it is a little strange to make such a statement in public. This is typically the domain of embarrassing in-laws, not educated reviewers. Imagine, for example, how odd it would be for an author reviewing a book about Jewish mysticism to begin the piece by admitting her "fear and resentment of Jews." When Christians complain about being the only acceptable target in a multicultural world, I tend to worry that they're protesting too much. After all, you can't expect people who don't agree with you to pretend as if they do. But it does seem that Christianity is the one belief system you can resent and fear without being labeled a fever swamp bigot.

Whether Christianity is sexist or not is a question for someone else to address. I imagine that, as with homophobia, a lot depends on how you define the term. I don't find much incitement to violence in the New Testament, but perhaps I'm reading it too charitably. Klansmen are violent and they call themselves Christians, so I guess Ellmann is right.

And there's a sense in which I agree with the remark about imagination. Evangelicalism descends from a strain of anti-intellectual fundamentalism and still struggles with the implications -- both rational and imaginative -- of the "life of the mind," but is this recent phenomenon really synonymous with Christianity as a whole? It's hard for me to understand how Christianity, which hand in hand with classical learning did so much to create the Western Tradition, has a "deadening effect on the imagination." If anything, I'd like to think the effect is liberating.

To be honest, though, I welcome such admissions. I wish more reviewers would admit to their biases so we could judge how well they've worked to overcome them in evaluating the work under review. It's admirable that Ellmann, in spite of her resentment and fear, tries to weigh the pros and cons of The Thin Place, giving credit where it's due.