Penguins and Golden Calves : Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Unexpected Places (Wheaton Literary Series)

Rating:
Summary: A good read for Madeleine L'Engle fans
Review: I have read nearly all of Madeleine L'Engle's books and while Penguins and Golden Calves is not her best work, it is interesting and well-written. Like most of L'Engle's non-fiction the book combines Christianity, social commentary, personal stories, poetry, and the spark that illuminates so many of L'Engle's books. To L'Engle, Penguins are icons and Golden Calves are idols. Each chapter focuses on a specific subject and ties it to spirituality. One chapter focuses on the importance of words, another on Abba, and another on Amma. Like always, L'Engle is opinionated, but even when I disagreed with her opinions I still enjoyed the book.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I remembered
Review: I started reading this book a number of years ago when I was in high school, but only recently did I get the book and finish it.

While I still enjoy L'Engle's writing and craft, her content let me down here. I was disappointed in what I had remembered as a brilliant piece of Christian writing -- though apparently I hadn't read far enough into the book to encounter anything at odds with orthodoxy.

Maybe it is growing as a reader or as a Christian or both, but my perspective on this book has changed, and I have to agree with the reader from Ohio that Ms. L'Engle's work here is riddled with contradictions, experience-over-Scripture reasonings, and a few vaguely disturbing conclusions.

I was also surprised and disappointed with the almost one-sided and flat picture she seems to have of God, even while she claims that He is so big and outside of us that we cannot hope to comprehend Him. Scripturally, this is true to a point, however, Scripture also tells us that He has revealed Himself to us . . . in Scripture and through the incarnation of the Word, Christ.

Almost in contradiction to God's revelation, however, L'Engle warns us not to take His Word literally -- leaving me to wonder if she truly believes the Bible is God's Word, that He had anything to do with writing it, or if she reads it as if only human authors are responsible. This seems rather likely, actually, as she at one point considers dismissing part of the Old Testament as simply "wrong" because she doesn't like it and doesn't think it sounds like the God she has formed in her mind.

The only attribute of God she talks about is love. While this is undoubtably an extremely important attribute of God, He has also told us about many other attributes: holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy . . . even righteous jealousy and anger. The only times she speaks of such ideas, tho, is if they support her lovey-dovey amorphous image of God. Otherwise she ignores them.

Though she claims that literalists (she uses this name as tantamount to an insult) limit the character of God by their literalism, it is in fact L'Engle who creates a limited, flat, and powerless God by her completely subjective image of Him.

By ignoring the other aspects of His character that He Himself has revealed in Scripture, she comes up with a God who is at odds with Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. So what does she do with this conflict? She ignores anything in the OT that disagrees with her, almost saying that it has no meaning.

And that "almost" is what I find most difficult about L'Engle. She "almost" says a lot of things. She almost says she has the right to pick and choose which parts of the Bible are real and which aren't. She almost says that experience is more important than special revelation. She almost says that the Bible is really just a big allegory.

Understand me, she doesn't SAY any of these things, at least not in this book. Not being a theologian, I cannot be certain of this, but I am pretty sure she never actually crosses over into heresy . . . she just flits around very close to it.

On the whole, I find L'Engle can be a refreshing reminder of the mystical, experiential, loving side of God -- something that, it is true, the "literalists" (like myself) often forget or are even afraid of. However, she offers little else, and it is dangerous to read her as if she is a student/teacher of Scripture, for she seems quite willing to place her own "God experience" above what God actually says in Scripture.

Rating:
Summary: Ms. L'Engle has mastered the art of self-contradiction!
Review: This book is loaded with positive, faith-filled statements and then retractions on the same subjects of faith! I couldn't believe some of the hypocrisy and thinly-veiled attempts to 'get back' at two Christian women who suggested that her books read more like liberal manifestos than Christian presentations. She suggests that the bible can become an idol when taken literally. I expect Christians to take the words of Christ to heart if this is their religion, whatever does she mean? I read this entire book and came away more perplexed than inspired. Her vague, abstract notions of the spiritual life are disturbing at the very least. Not what I would consider a positive Christian book, but more of a philosophical treatise on how God "should" be like (which happens to be a God who ultimately forgives Satan in the next life--say what?!). She claims to have read the bible many times in her life, which is very good, but her faith is in a God of her experience rather than the God who reveals himself in the bible as a God of Love but also a God who demands obedience.