THE AUTHOR WHO DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WROTE

 

Russell Kirk (1918-1994) authored thirty-two books on political theory, the history of ideas, education, cultural criticism, and supernatural tales. Both Time and Newsweek described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when it wrote that Kirk’s 1953 landmark book, The Conservative Mind, “gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.”

One of those 32 tomes is a massive one that chews up 475 pages of wood pulp titled "The Roots of American Order." At the back of the book there's a "Suggested Reading List" for each of the twelve chapters. The list begins on page 479 and ends on 503. That's a lot of books for supplemental reading. Even the casual reader can see that we're not dealing with a dummy. Au contraire, we're dealing with Russell Kirk, a scholar's scholar. 

But yet, one might wonder if he really understood what he wrote in "The Roots of American Order." The reason we ask is because of what he wrote on page 149 in contrast to what he wrote on page 151, a scant three pages later. In the chapter titled, "The Genius of Christianity," he quotes from the book of Acts so the reader can listen to Paul's conversation with Agrippa. 

Paul is giving his account of his Damascus Road experience, a testimony which Paul ends by telling Agrippa what the resurrected Christ told him the purpose of his calling was, ". . . to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me."

That statement is clear: to turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, to have forgiveness of sins and an inheritance requires only faith in Christ. (Acts 28:16). Paul mentions nothing other than that. That's what Kirk copied from his New Testament. The problem is, did he understand what he copied from the Bible? 

When the reader casts his eyes on the last sentence of the second paragraph, on page 151, Kirk writes, "Through repentance and obedience, and the operation of God's grace, redemption is possible." The reader notes that "faith in Me" has dropped out since being inscribed three pages earlier. But that's not all.

Kirk cited Paul as saying that redemption is "by faith in Me [Christ]." The alert reader has to ask, "Which is it? From whence does this redemption come? Through faith or "through repentance, obedience, and the operation of God's grace? 

As that famous line in a movie says, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." On one page, redemption comes in one way and then three pages later it comes another way but by the rules of sane logic, both can't be right. If it's by faith, it can't be by obedience and if it's by obedience, it can't be by grace. We have a train wreck of logic here. 

And this brings us to the point: Russell Kirk was a scholar extraordinaire. But he's like everybody else: when scholars leave their field of expertise, they're as dumb as the rest of us.