Welcome to BOOKS AND LETTERS

It is perhaps one of the few uncontested beliefs that books and letters have been the bedrock of flourishing civilizations and thriving cultures. Certainly, that has been the case for the West.

“Until lately, the West has regarded it as self-evident that the road to education lay through great books,” wrote the editors of The Great Books series published in 1952. Additionally, “The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day.”

Books and letters informed Medieval Scholasticism, shaped Renaissance humanism, inspired the Reformation, and drove the Enlightenment.

Those who have been involved in this great literary conversation are what Richard Weaver called language citizens, or what Percy Bysshe Shelley called the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In the broadest sense of the expression, we are talking about The Republic of Letters, an intellectual community that has spanned centuries and transcended geographical borders, connecting poets, historians, linguists, philosophers, and theologians in a network of correspondence and mutual refinement.1

Standing alongside these previously mentioned, I too believe ideas shape culture, and that books and letters are the tools through which these ideas are forged and preserved. They are indispensable for learning, for dialogue, and for a shared pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. In other words, since books and letters are the cornerstone of civilization and culture, it follows they are also essential for human flourishing.

Today, our culture is fragmented, transient, and untethered from this great conversation, such that rational public discourse is nearly impossible. Because we lack a realized sensus communis there is an urgent need to recover this legacy. To rekindle any sense of thoughtful engagement in an age that is dominated by fleeting trends and digital noise will be no small task, but it is one worth pursuing.

BOOKS AND LETTERS is my attempt to participate in the noble tradition of the great conversation and do my part to help recovery its legacy. I believe books are not merely to be read but to be engaged with, and letters—whether literal or figurative—should be written to converse with the past, critique the present, and anticipate the future.

BOOKS AND LETTERS explores the fullness of what it means to live as a steward of words in this modern world. Whether it is grappling with the works of modern writers like G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, or Josef Pieper, reflecting on the enduring relevance of Greek philosophers and Church Fathers, engaging the medieval scholastics and humanists, or simply savoring the tactile joy of a well-loved book, my constant endeavor will be to lead my readers to think deeply, communicate clearly, and live wisely.

BOOKS AND LETTERS is furthermore, and ultimately, an attempt to recover a Christian Humanism for the 21st Century.

Prima facie, Christian Humanism appears to be an oxymoron, but that popular assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. When most people think of Christianity, they tend to conjure images from their personal experience of one of the many versions of anti-intellectual fundamentalists. When they think of humanism, they likely think of “enlightened,” anti-religious secularists. In popular lore, these visions of life would seem to be worlds apart, mutually exclusive, and fundamentally at odds with one another.

History tells a different story, however. Christianity is the ultimate (and arguably the first) humanism, deeply concerned with human flourishing and society’s common good. The Incarnation of Christ is the key to Christian humanism because “it insists on the mediation of transcendence through the material,” ending all forms of dualism, “thus uniting reason and faith, nature and grace, religion and institutions.”2

With the Incarnation as its core, Christianity is the ultimate means for us to become more fully human. Secular humanism, on the other hand, is cut-flower. It’s an attempt to steal the bloom while discarding—even trampling under foot—the sacred root of human flourishing. In our age, secular humanism has run its course. Having raised “objectivity and pure reason” to be the measure of all things, certainty about the nature of reality was, on these grounds, finally throttled by postmodernism.

Even now, we are witnessing the anti-humanism of the postmodern project collapse in on itself. Language and literature that doesn’t affirm a certain narrative is regularly canceled, those who challenge the status quo are scapegoated, and (to re-emphasize something I mentioned previously) rational public discourse is severely impoverished. Further, our political institutions are disintegrating; meanwhile, a concerted effort is being made to erase the past on which the pillars of Western civilization have been built. Even the basic definitions of truth, goodness, and beauty are now up for debate.

As Mark Greif has astutely observed, in times of such cultural crisis, various forms of humanism—deepened interest in human rights and flourishing—inevitably emerge, and always animated texts (i.e., books and letters).3 In this respect, humanism is necessarily more than mere laissez faire education; it inexorably seeks to rescue humanity from its barbarism.

For this reason, my project is an attempt to recover a Christian humanism. Since Christian humanism is ultimately about education and character transformation that is animated by texts and rooted in the Incarnation toward the goal of human flourishing, BOOKS AND LETTERS can be viewed as an attempt to embody Desiderius Erasmus’s famous adage: lectio transit in mores (reading shapes moral character).

Join the Great Conversation!

You are cordially invited to join this “great conversation” renaissance; and if you find balm for your soul, light for your path, or help with your intellectual or artistic pursuits, please consider supporting this work by sharing it with others and becoming a paid subscriber.

Post Categories (What to Expect)

Crumbs From Our Master’s Table is a daily morsel of theological soul food—not a sermon mind you—just a crumb of nourishment from the Bible. If’d prefer not to receive a daily post, you can navigate to your.substack.com/account and toggle off Crumbs From Our Master’s Table and receive a Sunday Roundup instead.

Paideia and Piety are thoughtful reflections on education that challenge the status quo. Although I’m not using precise definitions here, paideia can be understood as the right manner of education—enculturation. Piety, on the other hand, is the right mark of education—ordered loves.

The Stuff of Stones are meditations on philosophy and culture. C. S. Lewis wrote that "Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." Often attributed to Thomas Aquinas, “The purpose of the study of philosophy is not to learn what others have thought, but to learn how the truth of things stands.” I’m taking this approach to philosophy and the title of this column from Richard Wilbur’s clever and charming little poem titled, “Epistemology.”

Literary Leaf-mould is an attempt at literary critique. Drawing wisdom from Tolkien’s notable essay, On Fairy-Stories, my approach to literary criticism here will be to not only strive toward enhancing the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of the story, but also to honor the author’s intentions as much as possible, seek to re-enchant the reader’s world with wonder and meaning, and by all means avoid over-analysis or the deconstructive annihilation of the text.

Write to Think is all about the craft of writing—including the art of thinking. It's been said that “Good writing is clear thinking made visible,” and “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.” These expressions emphasizes the indispensable relationship between writing and thinking.

Corkscrews and Cathedrals are helpful book reviews. I’ll be leaning on C. S. Lewis’s approach, the one he explained in his Preface to Milton’s Paradise Lost: “The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used…[until then]…you can say nothing to the purpose about them.

Rumbling Toward Heaven is taken from FOC’s short story, “Revelation.” It’s a reminder that there is a place where heaven meets earth, and it’s on that vast swinging bridge that all our virtues must be burned away as we find our place in grand procession rumbling toward heaven. These posts are personal letters and essays that tend to “lean away from typical social patterns, toward mystery and the unexpected.”

Because ideas have consequences and the truth of matters is best conceived in dialectic, I invite you to engage in the conversation by reading, subscribing, and commenting.

All of my posts are free for 6 months. Posts older than 6 months, along with resources, are paywalled. If you discover the content here is meaningful, please consider upgrading to being a paid subscriber. You’ll not only gain access to older content and resources, you’ll be helping support the work of recovering Christian humanism for the 21st Century.

About Scott

Scott Postma is Christian humanist who lives in the chimney of Idaho with his wife of more than 30 years. He has four adult children and more than a handful of delightfully rambunctious grand babies. He is the president of Kepler Education, teaches humanities courses for high school and college students, and is a religious practitioner of the ancient art of Tsundoku.

C.S. Lewis once said, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

If you're the kind of person who desires to cultivate the life of the mind, values the good, true, and beautiful, and enjoys reading good books-often with a pipe in your teeth and pencil in your hand-consider yourself among friends.

Why not join our our merry band of bards, bishops, and bibliophiles, students, scholars, and philosophers, and poets, preachers, and pirates?