Towards a Clearing: Humanist and Christian Values in Children's Literature

Abstract

Towards a Clearing:Humanist and Christian Values in Children's Literature Hamida Bosmajian (bio) Milner, Joseph O'Beirne and Milner, Lucy Floyd Morcock . Webs and Wardrobes; Humanist and Religious World Views in Children's Literature. New York: University Press of America, 1987. The raison d'etre of Webs and Wardrobes originates with the American cultural value that if people discuss and converse intelligently, rationally and civilly with one another, they can overcome their differences. The polarities that divide our discourse about values, reading and education have been generated from the humanist and Christian cultural traditions, both traditions now being reductively and dangerously politicized in the invectives of the "New Christian Right" and the "secular humanists." The Milners are to be lauded for their "civil tolerance," but the inclusionary values of tolerance neglect to take into account that the "New Christian Right" subsumes tolerance under the context "truth." "A 'good Christian' is tolerant because he or she is following Biblical injunctions that describe the current way of life and belief" (Branham and Pearce). The voices in the essays included in Webs and Wardrobes are intelligent, rational, and civil, but they do not lead to public discourse or conversation. They are as yet incompatible in that one says "yes" and the other says "no" when answering questions such as: What does it mean to be human? What kind of community shall we have? What is our language of discourse? How do we cope with our fears and desires? The essays articulate intelligently but confirm the humanist-Christian dialectic. Many school board and library controversies as well as court cases about literature and other reading matters for children and young adults (Bosmajian, 1983, 1987) demonstrate the need for intelligent public discourse, but the question of reconcilability remains open. It is no accident that the editors title two of the main sections in their collection "The Humanist Case" and "The Religious View." Humanists relate their story in the context of the polis, the legal union framed by the humanist deists of the eighteenth century; Christians bring the view or vision revealed to the community by divine authority. So dichotomous has public debate become on these issues, visions and ways of discourse that one almost despairs of the "culture of argument" (White, 1985) needed for a civilization that constitutes itself through a discourse acceptant of differences based on shared values. The Milners' collection raises the level of the quality of speaking about humanist and Christian ways of being in the world, but a synthesis seems as yet impossible. The several essays that offer alternative visions, such as a sacralization of nature, would be tolerated and very likely romanticized by the secular humanist, but would not be part of the revealed truth of the New Christian Right. The editors' acute awareness of the chasm that divides the Christian and humanist views is evident in their choice of the two touchstone works that raise our consciousness to the problem: E. B. White's Charlotte's Web and C.S. Lewis's The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe, both read by the Milners with their children and their students. Thus the editors practised what they hoped for, namely, recognition of difference in the context of shared values as to what constitutes good children's literature. Their collection deepens our understanding of differences and enhances our appreciation of young readers' literature. Joseph O'Beirne Milner's introductory "When Worlds Collide: The Humanist-Religious Ethos in Children's Literature" defines that ethos dialectically: White perceives of "other worlds" as created by the human imagination; Lewis accepts the other world separate from humans who may or may not become part of it. White considers human natures a mixture of ambiguities, moral or otherwise, all engaged in the struggle of an intrinsically valued development and growth; Lewis defines characters as primarily good or evil. White rejoices in change; Lewis seeks permanence. The most profound distinction between the two, however, is in their sense of "death and transformation." Charlotte's death is mourned as a personally felt loss by Wilbur, but is ultimately understood as part of the eternal quality of Nature, the rhythm of life-death. Lewis, through Asian, shows how...