Reading Buechner - A Review
Frederick Buechner (spoken: Beak-ner) can be a tough nut to crack. He’s too conservative to be liberal and too liberal to be conservative. He communicates deep truths about God in powerful ways at times, and he writes in beautiful prose that helps exalt the writing of those who read him.
My first encounter with Buechner was his novel Godric, which is a fictionalized biography of a historical saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The prose is poetic, the imagery sometimes earthy, and the subject timeless. The story of a saint who was so wracked with guilt, but so venerated by the fictional biographer seeking to lionize him, makes for an interesting study of God’s grace, humility, and the nature of heroes. As it turns out, this was a good place to start, but I arrived at that starting point by accident.
Jeffrey Munroe has recently published a volume with IVP Academic, Reading Buechner: Exploring the Work of a Master Memoirist, Novelist, Theologian, and Preacher. This is the sort of book that offers a roadmap to a city filled with marvelous attractions. The book is not encyclopedic, but it introduces the reader to the various genres in which Buechner wrote: memoir, novel, theological text, and sermon.
When we read Buechner, we are reading someone who has encountered the God of the Bible and has experienced the beauty of his presence. At points the keen emotions of Buechner’s experience of God comes through even his fiction as he portrays godly sorrow over sin, a deep sense of humility, and the longing for the true, good, and beautiful. Though Buechner handles the text more as a novelist than an exegete, there are times when his flourishes on the meaning of the text help contextualize the biblical narrative in a way that helps the reader step inside the text. When Buechner writes his theology, it is a faith-filled, but provocative theology. Buechner will not always land where a conservative Christian lands, but unlike many progressive Christians, his theology is a theology of faith. Like Wendell Berry, Christians of all stripes can find thoughtful reading, even if we do not agree with the final analysis.
Reading Buechner consists of eleven chapters plus an introduction. Makoto Fukimura, an artist who is a vocal promoter of “care culture” wrote a lovely foreword. The main content of the volume is divided into four parts. Part One includes four chapters on Buechner’s memoirs. Munroe sets the four volumes in context, explaining how the story of Buechner’s life evolved over the four books, why certain details were included in later but not earlier books, and the way that some of Buechner’s early experience appear to shape his telling of his own life.
Part Two delves into two of Buechner’s novels. First is Godric, which is said to be Buechner’s best work. The second is The Son of Laughter, another of Buechner’s best works. Munroe deals with some of Buechner’s other novels throughout these two chapters, but Reading Buechner is an introduction that points the reader to the place to start to get the sense of Buechner’s work before going into many of the other works. In Part Three, Munroe shifts to an exploration of Buechner’s theology. Here it becomes apparent why Buechner can be so helpful: His theology was largely written to help non-Christians, especially skeptics and Christians disaffected by the clinical theology that often comes from the pens of scholars. Buechner’s theology takes his audience seriously and God seriously, but he does not take himself particularly seriously. He is, imperfectly, attempting to do what Lewis and Sayers recommend in translating theology into the vernacular.
In Part Four we get two chapters on Buechner’s preaching. His sermons are not strictly textual, though Buechner does include discussion of texts in faithful terms, but they are masterpieces in rhetoric and expression. The chief benefit of reading Buechner’s sermons is not as a foundation for a young preacher to build his sermonic style, but as illustrations of the power of language that should be a more regular consideration for preachers of all stripes. Munroe is careful to point out, as well, that though Buechner is ordained, he is not a regular member of a congregation, which should flavor our reading of his preaching. These are occasional sermons, not samples of the weekly grind most pastors endure, and are written as an informed outsider, not someone deeply embedded in the work of the body of Christ. The book concludes with a chapter that calls us to read Buechner for the joy that bubbles up from deep beneath the surface. Munroe then adds a personal epilogue about his limited personal relationship with Buechner. Invaluably, at the end of the volume, we get an annotated bibliography of Buechner’s work.
Munroe’s book reads well. It is informative, concise, and clear. Though it is not comprehensive, this is the sort of survey that can provide and entry point into an important writer who is off the beaten path for many Christians. Munroe is correct that more Christians should read Buechner, especially those who wrestle with words and those who are trying to translate Christian doctrine to an unbelieving world. Buechner’s imaginative language is helpful and exemplary. Also, as Munroe reminds readers repeatedly, Buechner came to faith voluntarily and later in life, which helps explain the authenticity of his faith, despite patches of non-conformity with orthodoxy. Buechner is thus not a lode star for faithful Christianity, but a companion along the way. Munroe’s book helps illustrate this. Additionally, those new to Buechner or those who have read some should appreciate the work done in Reading Buechner to provide entry points and context that will make reading Buechner a more rewarding experience.
NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this work from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.
The way we talk about humans also has moral implications, which are more significant than how we treat our pets. In his 2011 book, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, David Livingstone Smith explores how language changes culture and leads to the justification of extreme violence against others, especially when they become perceived as less than human.