The Conference on Christianity & Literature

Winter 1989, Vol. 38, No. 2

Articles
The Very Style of Faith: Frederick Buechner as Homilist and Essayist
CHRIS ANDERSON     7

"If it's a symbol, the hell with it": The Medieval Gothic Style of Flannery O'Connor in Everything That Rises Must Converge
JAMES ANDREAS     23

"A Sister, dipped in blood": Satiric Inversion of the Formation Techniques of Women Religious in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
ANNE K. KALER     43

The Metaphor that will not Perish: "The Dream of the Rood" and the New Hermeneutic
JOHN MARK JONES     63

Book Reviews
John Edward Hardy, The Fiction of Walker Percy
JOHN F. DESMOND     75

David R. Dickson, The Foundation of Living Waters: The Typology of the Waters of Life in Herbert, Vaughan, and Traherne
EDWARD E. ERICSON     76

Jill Baumgaertner, Flannery O'Connor: A Proper Scaring
KATHLEEN FEELEY, SSND     78

Ruth apRoberts, The Ancient Dialect: Thomas Carlyle and Comparative Religion
G.G. HARPER     79

Rivkah Zim, English Metrical Psalms: Poetry as Praise and Prayer, 1535-1601
NOEL J. KINNAMON     81

C.N. Manlove, C.S. Lewis: His Literary Achievement
PETER J. SCHAKEL     82

Peter H. Marshall, William Godwin
ROBERT LANCE SNYDER     84

Beatrice Batson, John Bunyan's "Grace Abounding" and "The Pilgrim's Progress": An Overview of Literary Studies 1960-1987
SARA VAN DEN BERG     86

Mark Taylor, Altarity
MICHAEL VANDER WEELE     88

Ted R. Spivey, Beyond Modernism: Toward A New Myth Criticsm
SUE WIENHORST     90

Poetry
There is no god in heaven who
WILLIAM FANNING     22

Midnight Sun
THARIN WILLIAMSON     42

The Guard
DONALD T. WILLIAMS     73

jesu
WILLIAM FANNING     74

The Nude as Sarai's Maid     92
The Nude in Bed with Lights     93
JAMES BARFOOT

Afterwards
THARIN WILLIAMSON     94

Questions to Tammy Ditmore (tammy.ditmore@pepperdine.edu)

In the Latest Issue of Christianity & Literature:


Skylight

Joseph A. Chelius

For hours under a
  freezing hole
we huddled in
  thin jackets,
shuffled our
  numbed feet
to Yes and
  early Genesis tunes
on the paint-spattered
  CD player
my brother had
  set down
on a brown milk crate.
In the clutter of tools
  and hoagie wrappers,
bottles of Yuengling
  Lite chilling
in the spare
  refrigerator by the
  pool table,
we traded quips,
 talked point spreads--
spoke the language
  that passes
for affection among
  unshaven men
at sport or on the job
  on Saturday
  afternoons--
but then came the
  lofty play of hands
as we helped to ease
  the big skylight
  in place.
How solemn we grew,
how hushed in our
  concentration:
the four of us with
  our palms extended
in silent communion,
  reaching up
to take it in--a chore
  transformed
into sacred work;
the forbearance of
  the fingers--
gentle wayfarers,
little plodders
  in the dark,
resting, resuming,
grappling above
  our heads,
probing for signs with
  their common touch.

    Summer 2008