Tag: Charles Taylor

The Modern Malaise

Do you ever feel that life is a little flat? If you do, you are not alone according to Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor.  He calls it "the modern malaise." Taylor says that the experience of living in a secular age is one of “flatness.”   This feeling comes about because of a new view of reality which affects...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — Two Inconsistencies

John Wheelwright’s faith is built on radical transcendence (God is there, but he's so very, very far away).  This results in his inability to experience a flourishing faith like that of Owen Meany or many of his spiritual mentors since. I can't help but wonder if this is a result of...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — “The Shot”

In A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving presents an incarnational spirituality in the novel. Owen is the character that embodies this view of reality. That Irving is not able to embrace the incarnational view is manifest in the conversion of the story’s narrator, John Wheelwright. Wheelwright ends up believing...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — “The Finger”

This post will not be about the finger.  You probably already figured out that through the removal of his finger, John Wheelwright joins Chief Watahantowet, the armadillo, the dressmaker's dummy, the Mary Magdalene statue in armlessness. By this point in the novel we have a pretty good understanding of the person...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — “The Dream”

In the seventh chapter of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen's life continues to parallel that of Jesus: Because of Owen's attacks on the establishment, especially the hypocrisy of the new headmaster. Owen is brought before the Sanhedrin –he is called irreverent (289) and antireligious (409, 413). Eventually Owen’s enemies...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — “The Little Lord Jesus”

In A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen and Johnny function as foils in Irving’s exploration of faith and doubt. Owen represents an incarnational position where transcendence is seen to be within the material world, and the young Johnny sees the transcendent as far off and irrelevant (likely nonexistent) to the world...

“A Prayer for Owen Meany” — “The Angel”

"The Angel," chapter 3 of A Prayer for Owen Meany, is one example of the pattern of rebirth built into the structure of the novel. Tabitha Wheelwright’s death is recounted in the first chapter, but in the following chapters we meet and get to know the living Tabby; after her...

A Prayer for Owen Meany — “The Armadillo”

The second chapter of the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany presents a clash of worldviews.  Owen sees and understands the world in a much different way than do the young Johnny and the other characters in the novel. The key difference is that Owen is not as strongly influenced by...

The Cosmos

Carl Sagan's The Cosmos was one of my favourite television shows of all time.  It wasn't just that it was intellectually stimulating, there was also an emotional or even spiritual dimension that drew me in.  I was in awe of the beauty and complexity of the cosmos and caught the...

Zombies Represent the Crisis of the Modern Idenity

The zombie functions as a monstrous other, transgressing boundaries and unsettling the modern identity, as monsters have always done.  But, it goes beyond the scope of traditional monsters in that it also holds a mirror up to the secular self, and suggests, without the transcendent, we may nothing more than animated...