These types of books can be very helpful as they give an overview of someones life and thinking. You can also see how someones thinking has evolved in the course of time. This is certainly true of Reinhold Niebuhr, and towards the end of his life he wrote, "Man's Nature and His Communities", a collection of essays where he revisits and even revises some of the ideas he had developed in earliest writings.
There can also be a problem with such books if once read people think they are now an authority on the subject. As it is said a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It can lead to picking the part you like to support opinions that you may have. In modern times it seems that both Democrats and Republicans in America have cited his thinking to support one position or another.
One of the reasons I am probably finding reading Niebuhr hard going on occasions is because what he writes is not just opinion, but based on careful thinking, experience and a deep understanding of humanity. Before expressing an opinion on a subject it is perhaps wise to find out as much as we can about it and even have some experience of it.
In "The Road to Wigan Pier" what Orwell writes is based on just such experience. Early on in the book he describes going down a coal mine in the 1930s. Now I have been down a coal mine a few times at museums but it was nothing like what Orwell describes. What I learnt from his description was that even before getting to the coal face the miners had to walk/crouch/crawl at least a mile along the narrow tunnels. Orwell finds the experience exhausting and likens the effort needed in doing this to climbing a small mountain before and after a days work. He makes the comment that it is only because miners work so hard that others can lead the comfortable lives that they do. This is because at the time everything in an industrialised nation depended on coal. Today coal is not as important in this way in Britain, but there are still people like those miners of old, perhaps in different parts of the world, who work very hard so that we can lead comfortable lives.
Loving God
We thank you for the gift of learning.
For those who teach us in different ways.
We thank you for all the different resources
there are to help us learn.
Help us to use what we learn to grow
into the people you want us to be.
When we have the gift of
knowledge and understanding,
guide us to use it wisely,
for the good of others
and not for selfish ends.
Today we pray for people across
the world who work so hard
so that we can live in comfort.
We especially pray for justice
in the work place so that all
may have a fair days wage for
a fair days labour.
As the Methodist Conference meets
over the next few days;
we pray that your spirit will guide
it in the decisions it has to make
and uphold those in
positions of responsibility.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ
Our Lord and Saviour.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment