Duane Alexander Miller's Blog, page 20
May 11, 2017
The Trinity in the Qur’an
Great quote here from “What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an” by James R. White –
“We simply must insist that if its author believed Christians hold to three gods, Allah, Mary, and evidently their offspring, Jesus, then the Qur’an is the result of human effort, is marked by ignorance and error, and so is not what Muslims claim it to be.”
Start reading this book for free: http://a.co/3SSrmSv
May 9, 2017
Comments on ‘A Clockwork Orange’
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
[Spoiler Alert] Dark, haunting, disturbing. I enjoyed reading the full, original version–the one published in the UK. That is not where the book ends off in the American version or the movie for that matter.
This is not exactly an end-of-the-world book, but it does show you England in a state of decline under a decadent, socialist (?) government. The violence towards humans and the license afforded the entitled and, to be frank, useless Alex (and his droogs) will ring a bell with some of youth culture today. In this Burgess was able to glimpse the shape of future things to come.
At the end of the book Alex starts to think about the permanent things in life–family, work, marriage, children. In this, I think, he was wrong. The shape of our modern post-WW2 ‘liberal’ world order is one of the disenchantment–teaching people not to love anything at all, with the assumption that people will not fight. After all, people only fight about things they care about. And if people don’t care about anything–their homeland, their people, their heritage, their god, their future–then we will have that twisted vision of peace which assumes that peace is nothing more than an absence of violence. The revival of populism (Trump) and nationalism (Brexit) reveal the disintegration of this program for disenchantment.
But Alex (and Burgess) was living in a world wherein marriage and family still had a sort of enchantment to them–a sense that they were among the permanent things. But we, in the West, have destroyed that enchantment. The only thing truly wicked anyone can do anymore is tell someone else that what they are doing is wicked. We have traded meaning for power. But a rootless power carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Ergo, the West: a civilization without a future and unable to consider its past, and is actively breeding itself out of existence. Call it unnatural desolation, if you will.
If anything, our present is darker than the world of Alex because redemption and maturation were options for Alex. Not so for the droogs of today, who are more mediocre in their pernicious acts just as they are beyond redemption in our disenchanted saecula.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 4 of 5 s...
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
[Spoiler Alert] Dark, haunting, disturbing. I enjoyed reading the full, original version–the one published in the UK. That is not where the book ends off in the American version or the movie for that matter.
This is not exactly an end-of-the-world book, but it does show you England in a state of decline under a decadent, socialist (?) government. The violence towards humans and the license afforded the entitled and, to be frank, useless Alex (and his droogs) will ring a bell with some of youth culture today. In this Burgess was able to glimpse the shape of future things to come.
At the end of the book Alex starts to think about the permanent things in life–family, work, marriage, children. In this, I think, he was wrong. The shape of our modern post-WW2 ‘liberal’ world order is one of the disenchantment–teaching people not to love anything at all, with the assumption that people will not fight. After all, people only fight about things they care about. And if people don’t care about anything–their homeland, their people, their heritage, their god, their future–then we will have that twisted vision of peace which assumes that peace is nothing more than an absence of violence. The revival of populism (Trump) and nationalism (Brexit) reveal the disintegration of this program for disenchantment.
But Alex (and Burgess) was living in a world wherein marriage and family still had a sort of enchantment to them–a sense that they were among the permanent things. But we, in the West, have destroyed that enchantment. The only thing truly wicked anyone can do anymore is tell someone else that what they are doing is wicked. We have traded meaning for power. But a rootless power carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Ergo, the West: a civilization without a future and unable to consider its past, and is actively breeding itself out of existence. Call it unnatural desolation, if you will.
If anything, our present is darker than the world of Alex because redemption and maturation were options for Alex. Not so for the droogs of today, who are more mediocre in their pernicious acts just as they are beyond redemption in our disenchanted saecula.
April 27, 2017
Devotional on 3 John (w translation into Kiswahili)
I delivered this devotional some time ago (2015) in Kenya to a group of evangelists and pastors.
Ran across the audio file while clearing up space on my phone, and thought I would share it here.
https://duanemiller.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/3-john.m4a
April 6, 2017
Obituary of Wallace Ruben Miller
Some time ago I took the DNA analysis test offered by Ancestry.com. It didn’t yield too much in the way of surprises, but it did give me a new found respect for people who record and document vital records. For example, I enjoyed seeing immigration documents for my most famous relative, Fernando Botero.
So, when a cousin of mine shared this document with me, I was very thankful. I thought I might share it here, so that anyone related to Mr. Wallace Ruben Miller of Culbertson, Montana—my great-grandfather—might be able to access this obituary. His son, my grandfather, Duane Wallace Miller, is noted here, as is my great-grandmother, Gudrun Nelson.
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April 5, 2017
Of Knights Templar, Venice, Constantinople, and Crusades
Some time ago I was approached about writing some entries for the newly released War and Religion: an encyclopedia of faith and conflict (ABC-CLIO, 2017). And I’m glad to share that it has now been published in three volumes.
My own humble contributions were (in alphabetical order) on the Fourth Crusade, the Knights Templar, the Sixth Crusade, and the Venetian Crusade. That last one was quite successful and does not get the attention it deserves, in my opinion.
Feel free to sample my own entries above and please do consider asking your institution’s library to acquire this valuable resource.
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April 3, 2017
A tidy list of all my publications…
A while back I realized I really didn’t know how much I had published or where. So I decided to keep a file with that information. And even then, I miss out on stuff from time to time.
I was just updating it tonight and thought I should share it on academia.edu. So I did that (here). But then I thought, why not post it at my blog too. So if you want to download the PDF with all my publications ever, here it is: 2017 03 Miller Publications.
March 28, 2017
Review of ‘A Canticle for Liebowitz’
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am continuing with my trek through all the end-of-the-world type books I can find. And this is one of the most famous.
There is not a single main character throughout the whole book. Rather, it follows the history of a Roman Catholic monastic order (think monks living together for worship and scholarship). The order was founded by an engineer turned monk after a great nuclear cataclysm that killed most of humanity. Learning and books had become despised and dangerous, so Saint Leibowitz founded his community to gather and safeguard the few books that had not been destroyed after the cataclysm. His hope was that once humanity had recovered from its state of barbarity the preserved books would then be of use again.
One might compare it to Asimov’s Foundation, except that here the community is explicitly religious and it is formed after civilization has been eradicated. It is a pleasure to see how, with many twists and turns, the vision of St Leibowitz comes to fruition–sort of.
Strengths: there is a lot of philosophy and ethical reasoning in the book. I like philosophy. I like religion. I find both topics interesting, so I enjoyed the fact that the author focused on these topics more deeply than other books in the sub-genre, like The Dog Stars or Earth Abides.
Note to readers: If you know anything about Roman Catholicism before the second Vatican Council (1962-5) it will help. The form of Roman Catholicism envisioned by Walter M. Miller Jr. was very clearly the continuation of the Church before the major changes introduced at Vatican II.
As noted, the overarching narrative continues for centuries in the book. I found it satisfying and surprising. My main complaint is that I didn’t realize we’d be jumping centuries down the road every now and then. But once I got used to it, it was fine. Some of the secondary characters felt a little flat to me.
March 26, 2017
The Quest for Truth: A Sermon on John 9
I don’t often post sermons here, as I don’t preach sermons very often. But this morning I had the pleasure of preaching at St Andrew’s in the beautiful little city of Port Isabel.
Thought I would share the sermon, and here it is.
https://duanemiller.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/john-9-sermon.m4a
This sermon is for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (year cycle A), and the passages are 1 Samuel 16:1–13 and John 9:1–41. Those are the passages for Samuel finding and anointing David and Jesus healing the man born blind.
March 20, 2017
From All Points podcast: interview on conversion from Islam to Christianity
I enjoyed being interviewed for this podcast, which is hosted over at Episcopal Cafe. Check it out and share it with others.
