We all need a “tenth man.”
In the film World War Z Brad Pitt attempts to uncover the origin of a zombie apocalypse. Meeting a leader who saved his nation of Israel from the nightmare, Pitt asks how he knew what to do. The Jewish leader explains that on a council of ten, if nine of the members agree, it is the duty of the “tenth man” to take the opposite tack, to assume the nine are wrong. Alan Jacobs would appreciate the metaphor, the pictorial display of his dictate: we are all in debt to one another. The subliminal question Jacobs asks us to consider is “Who will I think with?” Then, the next is, “Who is trustworthy to think with?” In The Year of Our Lord 1943 Jacob gives us five: Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil (1-4). They, the collective “tenth man,” bore the “responsibility to set direction for churches and society” in their generation (xi).
The five forecasters were prescient in their observations for any future. They circulated ideas (xviii). They knew that ideas change people and people, then, change a culture. In unison these Christian thinkers began with a premise:
“Christianity was uniquely suited” (xv-xvii) to speak to the great questions of the day, of any day (204).
Jacobs’ unique approach is based on the Orson Wells movie A Touch of Evil (xvii-xix): ideation explosions ignite every page. In the first of seven sections Jacobs notes there is always a need for leadership “renewal” for churches, education, and society (30). The progenitor of renewal, second, is theology but also literature and the arts (50). “Learning in War Time,” the famed Lewis title in the third section, focuses on the belief that one’s duty develops the future by importing the past (62). Each of the five forecasters knew that renewal would come with its own “dangers and temptations” (81), a fitting reminder in the fourth place. These “demons,” these “humanistic commitments,” would bring “force” to the world and “we find ourselves subject to force” (99).
After the fifth component, Jacobs inserts an interlude, introducing other “pilgrims” (119-22), including other historic luminaries of the period: Day, Bonhoeffer, Greene, and Liddell. The necessity of affective change, rooted in moral formation within education, is the sixth commitment – and necessarily the longest section of the book (123-66) – to which all adhere. “Approaching the end,” in the seventh place, all consider the coming scientism-technoism and forecast its institutionalization, leaving an empty culture without the humanities (182). Jacobs’ afterword focuses on Jacques Ellul, his critique of technique and the lack of Christian “participation” leaving the world “materially triumphant” yet “spiritually vanquished” (199).
To avoid becoming manipulated, subdued, then conquered, we need to appropriate what Jacobs offers. We continually borrow. We are dialogical beings.
We are made for relationship. We are made for conversation. We are shaped and formed by others. We cannot think for ourselves, nor by ourselves. We are thinking thoughts given by others. Once I think with others, I begin to understand others, loving them, as God does.
I want to think with Jacobs’ five. I want to see the synthesis of education with politics with culture with literature with history. I want to be invested with the inner working of a mindset over a long period of time. We always need the subtitle Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis because we always are “in crisis.” Every year is The Year of Our Lord (Jacobs’ point I surmise). Ageless, the book deserves to be pondered in a Twitter world where Twitter is not the world. Ageless, the book prods us to promote, publish, and present a Christian cultural-relational response to any day. Ageless, the book’s five luminaries open our eyes to consider who among us now appropriates Jesus’ implied command “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Ageless, In the Year of Our Lord 1943 is a consideration of what our current years may need.
The book should be used across a wide audience. Academics, yes. But honestly, Jacob’s writing is an encouragement to all creatives – prophetic voices all – who care to see a Hebraic-Christian foundation for life. Jacobs’ writing is to be savored, sipped slowly. When I read books for reviews, I read them once, taking notes as I do so, then write my review. With Jacobs, I read everything twice then wondered what salient points I may have missed. Even now I am asking myself, “If I include that line, I must include this line,” until, at last, I reason, I must just read the book again. It is my hope for everyone reading this review: read the book again and again and again. If professors want esteemed, positive examples of how to practice reflection – Jacobs’ five luminaries – we might do well to ponder these questions ourselves:
(1) Are we able to distinguish between prophetic voices?
(2) Do we see the artists who simply accommodate to the cultural hierarchies, viewing their musical additions as more of an assembled chorus than an anthem?
(3) Do we hear musicians who accept the accepted views without considering another melody?
(4) Do we examine the artifacts of our own era, digging for finds that will explain our present from our past?
(5) Do we honestly, openly invite a concert of voices to orchestrate a harmonic resolve committed to the same song?
(6) Do we write poetic lines with that same tenacity, knowing we cannot keep “law” or “love” by ourselves (6-7)?
Every time period has its pronounced concerns. It is the responsibility of cultural gatekeepers – the collective “tenth man” of World War Z – to point to problems or call out conditions which need prophetic warning. The creatives, the innovators, are the first line of defense for any people group in any space, in any time who heed the clarion call. Our own time is no different. Artists, poets, cultural commentators illumine dark corners and shadowed rooms of our political, social houses. We need people who can see the past, anticipate the future, see a way forward, and build structures for what is to come. Such was the case before and during World War II. Five contemplative Christian thought leaders saw ahead just as we will need “future thinkers” alerting us “to the signs of the times” (206).
The year of our Lord 1943: Christian humanism in an age of crisis. By Alan Jacobs. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2018. 256 pp. $29.95. hardcover. Published in Christian Education Journal (August 2020)
Review by Mark D. Eckel, President, The Comenius Institute, Indianapolis, IN; Director of Professor Ministries, Ratio Christi, Professor of Leadership, Education and Discipleship, Capital Seminary and Graduate School, Lancaster, PA.