R.W. Holmen's Blog: Spirit of a Liberal, page 6

A book review from New Zealand

It's a small world we live in.  The latest scholarly review of A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle, comes from the opposite side of the globe—Dunedin, New Zealand.  Dean of Studies at the Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership, Dr. Jason Goroncy, offers his review which praises the attempt to reimagine theology through art.  The following is an excerpt, but you can read the entire review at Dr. Goroncy's blog, Per Crucem ad Lucem.

[T]he communication of divine truth demands the work of the very imagination it is determined to sanctify. So Jonathan Edwards: 'Unless you use imagination, unless you take a truth and you image it – which of course is art – you don't know what it means'. Or, citing John Henry Newman:

The ways in which we 'see' the world, its story and its destiny; the ways in which we 'see' what human beings are, and what they're for, and how they are related to each other and the world around them; these things are shaped and structured by the stories that we tell, the cities we inhabit, the buildings in which we live, and work, and play; by how we handle – through drama, art and song – the things that give us pain and bring us joy. What does the world look like? What do we look like? What does God look like?

This is precisely why I welcomed reading Obie Holmen's A Wretched Man: A Novel of Paul the Apostle. Holmen seeks to … situate Paul in his geographical, social, historical and psychological landscape, and gift us with a creative way of hearing afresh the letters that make up the bulk of the New Testament.

According to Holmen, prior to his fire-side conversion-encounter with Yeshua (Jesus), 'Paulos (Paul), the defender of orthodoxy, had acquired a proud identity and a status; self-righteousness became the dressing for his wounds, masking his inner torment' (p. 75). Indeed, 'the wretched man wandered the streets of Tarsos, lost and alone, accursed and condemned' (p. 54). Thereafter, Holmen paints Paulos as one who is seeking to carve out the implications – for Torah, for Jewish privilege, for our understanding of God, etc. – of this radical encounter with Yeshua. The entire story takes place, markedly, against Paul's own conflict – the 'inner torment' – between his inherited (and then reconstituted) theology and his homosexuality, the latter manifest in his relationship with Gentile friend Arsenios. Augustine once suggested, to the shock of some of his fellow bishops, that St Paul may have been 'greatly tainted by sexual desires'. In his portrait of the gay Apostle Paul, Holmen exploits this suggestion beyond what the old bishop of Hippo may have had in mind, and some readers may well lay the book down because of such. But such action would, in my view, represent a premature judgement.

… Holmen is a gifted writer, and his well-researched yarn is certain to encourage readers to read the Bible in a new light, with a deepened awareness of the groundedness of its message, with a new appreciation of the real humanity of its figures, and – I suspect most importantly for the author – a renewed wonderment of the magic of divine grace.

The Muse is Found

Regular readers of this blog may wonder where I've been.  Posts have been nearly non-existent recently.  Some have asked, "Have you lost your muse?"

Au contraire!  I have been churning out page after page, but not for this blog.  Since the first of the year, I have penned a pair of short stories, over sixty pages of a sequel to A Wretched Man, and made a good start on a non-fiction piece that grows out of this blog.  More later.

For those of you who have succumbed to the eBook phenomenon, I'm moving that way myself as an author.  Again, more later.  For now, I have published a short story entitled The Woodsman as an eBook (all formats).  From now until the end of the month, readers of this blog may download the eBook free of charge by using a coupon.  Beginning in April, eBook downloads of The Woodsman will carry a slight charge.

Go here, and enter this coupon number: AD29N.  Of course, you may choose to pay for it as a gesture of support.  I have an ulterior motive in making the eBook free for a short time—I would like feedback.  After you download and read, please offer your comments, here, on the book page, and at Amazon; don't forget to click on tags at the bottom of the Amazon page.

This short story is unlike this blog—no religious politics–but I hope there's a bit of creation spirituality.  There's more than a bit of me and my dad in there based on many days spent amongst the oaks and maples of the Burtrum Hills in central Minnesota.

Was Paul the apostle gay?

A week ago, I spent the weekend in Milwaukee promoting my novel to the 2,000 participants of the Roman Catholic Call to Action Conference.  One of the keynote speakers was retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong.  The Bishop is an outspoken proponent of progressive Christian causes, and he has published a dozen or so books in the last several decades that have attracted a huge liberal readership.

I was greatly pleased to have the opportunity to visit with the Bishop for a short time.  For those unfamiliar with my novel, A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle, the characterization of the man from Tarsus suggests he struggled with homosexual urges, which he characterized as his "thorn in his flesh".  Bishop Spong shares this view, and we briefly discussed our common impression.  Bishop Spong said he first read of this idea in a 1930's treatise by the British theologian Arthur Darby Nock.  I offered the bishop a copy of my book as a gift, which he graciously accepted and asked me to sign it for him.

A video of the bishop explaining his rationale has appeared on You Tube.  Watch and enjoy:

The bones of James the Just on trial

James, the brother of Jesus, sometimes known as James the Just, is in the news.  A dealer in antiquities, Oded Golan,  is on trial in Israel.  It is alleged that he fabricated the evidence of the authenticity of an artifact possibly connected to James.

A bit of background is in order. 

Many are surprised that Jesus had siblings, and some would deny it altogether, but the Bible contains several clear references.  Here's a partial list, which includes references in each of the four gospels, Acts, and Paul's letter to the Galatians:

Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Mt 13:55-56
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? Mk 6:3
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd Lk 8:19
After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples Jn 2:12
All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers Acts 1:14
but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother. Gal 1:19  

Acts and Paul's letters make it quite clear that James became leader of the Jerusalem based, Jewish followers of Jesus after the crucifixion, and he remained in charge until his unlawful death over thirty years after the crucifixion, an event recorded by the contemporary historian, Josephus.

Finally, Acts and Paul's letters also report the ongoing disagreement between James and the apostle Paul over the question of Gentile inclusion into the movement.  James was reluctant to allow Gentiles unless they agreed to follow Torah, including circumcision, dietary rules, and calendar observances.  This ongoing conflict between these two leaders forms the plotline of A Wretched Man novel.

Now to the current news of James.

It was the Jewish custom during the 1st century (among the Pharisees and others who believed in the resurrection of the dead) to rebury the bones of deceased family members a year or more after death.  The bones would be carefully placed in a stone box, called an ossuary, and placed in the family tomb.  Nearly a decade ago, an Israeli antiquities dealer claimed to possess an ossuary with the inscription, "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus".  No one questions that the ossuary and the bones date from the correct time period, and it also appears that the first part of the inscription is authentic.  But, prosecutors claim that the defendant skillfully added the words, "brother of Jesus".

It appears that the academic community is split over the authenticity issue.  The judge in the case is now considering his verdict, but the scientific controversy will hardly be settled by his decision in the criminal trial of Oded Golan.  In a later post, I will offer a book review of The Jesus Dynasty by James Tabor which considers the James ossuary controversy in depth.

A Wretched Man Website tweaks

Recently, the novel's website, www.awretchedman.com, received a couple of adjustments.  The two obvious changes were the addition of a product purchase page which enables direct purchases of the novel in either paperback or eBook format, and the second was a revamping of the "reviews" page.  Actually, the reviews page has been broken down into four sub-pages: Scholarly Reviews, Blog Reviews, Reader Comments, and Online Comments (from either Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble).

Late last night, I received another comment from a reader via email that will soon be added to the website but which warrants special mention here.

Last Saturday, I was the guest of the Gustavus Adolphus College bookstore prior to the Gusties homecoming football game with St. Olaf.  A man named Jim stopped by and browsed a bit before moving on, but he took a book flyer with him.  Ten or fifteen minutes later, he returned and purchased a copy of the book.  Another ten or fifteen minutes passed, and he returned again to report that he had read the prologue and first chapter, and he was hooked.  Yesterday, three days after he bought the book, Jim sent me an email, and he said the following:

I just finished the book and congratulate you! Like all good books, it entertained. Like all really good books, it taught and expanded viewpoints. Like the few downright excellent books I have read in the past several years, it challenges me to think and motivates further study.

As you can imagine and have probably heard from others, your thoughts have created some discomfort that I now feel compelled to address. This, to me, is the mark of a truly significant work. This splash will produce ripples to keep me busy for a while and I thank you for what you put into it.

I suppose I'm like most authors—I thought my book was pretty good, or at least hoped, but I also wrestled with doubt.  So, when I receive comments like these, I am more than gratified, I am flattered and more than a little surprised.

A Wretched Man graphic

I happened upon an old  piece of art based upon Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 7, the same  passages that serve as the epigraph to my novel and the inspiration for the title.  The drawing belongs to Hermannus Hugo's Pia Desideria (1624).

Here is the epigraph to my novel:

I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me...

Paul the apostle, the man from Tarsus

Although Paul never mentioned his city of origin, the Book of Acts reports that Tarsus, in modern day Turkey, was the home of the diaspora Jew.  In the first century, Tarsus was a major city, home to a Greek University of the Stoic school of philosophy, and the capitol of the coastland and plains province of Cilicia.  Churning out of the rugged mountain pass known as the Cilician Gates (Alexander's army passed this way), the Cydnus River rushed toward Tarsus before slowing and ribboning the ...

Lutheran response to A Wretched Man

Feedback to A Wretched Man has come in many forms: critical reviews, online bookstore comments (Amazon & Barnes/Noble), private emails, and book blogs.  Recently, a new medium has chimed in—the Lutheran blogosphere.  Those who are familiar with my other blog, Spirit of a Liberal, a blog of progressive, religious themes, may also follow the ELCA news blog of Susan Hogan called Pretty Good Lutherans and ELCA Pastor Brant Clement's blog called Both Saint and Cynic since we all link to each...

More blog attention for A Wretched Man

Another review appeared recently on a book blog, and last week I was interviewed on blog talk radio.  Stephanie, at Curling up by the Fire, wrote the following:

Mr. Holmen was able to show Paul's struggles with his own spiritual self as well as with the political world in this novel, to the point where I felt I was right there along with the people involved.  I felt a connection with the people (I can't use the word characters as these people were actually alive and existed) and a great...

Kindle, iPad, Nook & more; will eBooks rule the world? UPDATED

UPDATE:  A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle is now available as an eBook for $8.99.  It is in Kindle version at Amazon.com and also through the publisher's website.  It is also available in  iPad, Sony Reader, Nook/.epub version through the publisher's website.

The Amazon Kindle has long been the leader in the eBook revolution, but Apple's rollout of the iPad in the past few months has heightened awareness of the eBook phenomenon.  For the uninitiated who haven't been paying...