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Rallying The Really Human Things: Moral Imagination In Politics Literature & Everyday Life
For Vigen Guroian, contemporary culture is distinguished by its relentless assault on the moral imagination. In the stories it tells us, in the way it has degraded courtship and sexualized our institutions of higher education, in the ever-more-radical doctrines of human rights it propounds, and in the way it threatens to remake human nature via biotechnology, contemporary culture conspires to deprive men and women of the kind of imagination that Edmund Burke claimed allowed us to raise our perception of our own human dignity, or to "cover the defects of our own naked shivering nature." In Rallying the Really Human Things, Guroian combines a theologian's keen sensitivity to the things of the spirit with his immersion in the works of Burke, Russell Kirk, G. K. Chesterton, Flannery O'Connor, St. John Chrysostom, and other exemplars of the religious humanist tradition to diagnose our cultural crisis. But he also points the way towards a culture more solicitous of the "really human things," the Chesterton phrase from which he takes his title. Guroian's wide-ranging analysis of these times provides a fresh and inimitable perspective on the practices and mores of contemporary life.
270 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2005
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About the author
Vigen Guroian
26 books55 followersVigen Guroian resides with his wife June Vranian in Culpeper, Virginia, where he mostly tends to his large perennial and vegetable gardens. June is an Interior Designer. Vigen and June have two children. Their son Rafi is 28 years of age, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, and employed at Cox Newspapers in Washington D.C. Their daughter Victoria is 24 years old, a graduate of Washington and Lee University, and employed at the NRA.
Dr. Guroian received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (1970) and his Ph. D. in Theology from Drew University (1978). He is presently Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Guroian was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia from 1978-81 and held a post there as well in the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has been a visiting lecturer at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and was the Seminary's Director of Academic Affairs from 1990-92. Dr. Guroian has served for many years as a member of and consultant to the Armenian Religious Education Council of the Prelacy of the Armenian Church of North America.
Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University teaching courses there regularly. For the academic year 1995-1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.
Dr. Guroian has been on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Religious Ethics, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and Christian Bio-Ethics. He has served terms on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the executive committees of the American Theological Society and Christians Associated for Relations with Eastern Europe. He has been active in both the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.
He is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University; Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan; Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum; and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson.
Recent significant consultations and projects on which Dr. Guroian has served include: "The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Project on Christian Jurisprudence," Emory University (2004-2009); "The Vocation of the Child," commissioned by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2005-2006); A Consultation: "American Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy in America," sponsored by the Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University and Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2004); Christian Jurisprudence Project on "Law and Human Nature: The Teaching of Modern Christianity," sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts (2001-2004); and "Consultation on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism," sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (2000-2003).
Dr. Guroian has published more than 150 articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, liturgy and ethics, marriage and family, children's literature, ecology, genocide, and medical ethics. He has authored a monthly column entitled "Really Human Things" on the Prison Fellowship Ministries' BreakPoint site. Dr. Guroian's books, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999) and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1998), received national press and media attention. Feature stories on his books have appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and more than a dozen other newspapers around the country. Dr. Guroian has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "T
Dr. Guroian received his B.A. from the University of Virginia (1970) and his Ph. D. in Theology from Drew University (1978). He is presently Professor of Theology and Ethics at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Guroian was an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia from 1978-81 and held a post there as well in the Center for Russian and East European Studies. He has been a visiting lecturer at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, New York, and was the Seminary's Director of Academic Affairs from 1990-92. Dr. Guroian has served for many years as a member of and consultant to the Armenian Religious Education Council of the Prelacy of the Armenian Church of North America.
Since 1986 Dr. Guroian has been a member of the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary's Seminary and University teaching courses there regularly. For the academic year 1995-1996 he was named the Distinguished Lecturer in Moral and Religious Education at the Institute.
Dr. Guroian has been on numerous editorial boards including The Journal of Religious Ethics, Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and Christian Bio-Ethics. He has served terms on the Board of Directors of the Society of Christian Ethics and the executive committees of the American Theological Society and Christians Associated for Relations with Eastern Europe. He has been active in both the National Council of Churches and in the World Council of Churches.
He is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University; Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan; Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum; and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson.
Recent significant consultations and projects on which Dr. Guroian has served include: "The Alonzo L. McDonald Family Project on Christian Jurisprudence," Emory University (2004-2009); "The Vocation of the Child," commissioned by the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University (2005-2006); A Consultation: "American Orthodoxy or Orthodoxy in America," sponsored by the Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University and Pew Charitable Trusts (2003-2004); Christian Jurisprudence Project on "Law and Human Nature: The Teaching of Modern Christianity," sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts (2001-2004); and "Consultation on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism," sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (2000-2003).
Dr. Guroian has published more than 150 articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, liturgy and ethics, marriage and family, children's literature, ecology, genocide, and medical ethics. He has authored a monthly column entitled "Really Human Things" on the Prison Fellowship Ministries' BreakPoint site. Dr. Guroian's books, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1999) and Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination (Oxford University Press, 1998), received national press and media attention. Feature stories on his books have appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and more than a dozen other newspapers around the country. Dr. Guroian has been a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," "T
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 23, 2012
I met Dr. Guroian at a conference last summer where he gave a seminar on the original Grimm's Cinderella. It was pretty amazing, which moved me to buy a copy of the book under review. I finally got around to reading it this summer. I'm sorry I waited.
Dr. Guroian writes in an attempt to revive, rally, recover the moral imagination. I'm not sure how to define the term, something I'm still working through in my own mind. It has been around awhile (since Edmund Burke, I believe). But it is an important idea, one I am ever more convinced we are in need of rallying.
In the first part of the book, Dr. Guroian goes through a series of examples of folks (Flannery O'Connor, Russell Kirk, and G.K. Chesterton) who have done much work toward the recovery of the moral imagination.
In part two, he discusses the moral imagination: what it is, how it is affected, it's status in our own age.
In parts three and four, he discusses the moral imagination and how a recovery of it would affect our thoughts on marriage, abortion, childhood, honor, sex, politics, human rights, and more.
We humanize and understand how to use power morally through the use and exercise of our moral imagination. Rallying the Really Human Things may in fact help to rally us around the moral imagination and move us toward a humanized and right use of power.
Dr. Guroian writes in an attempt to revive, rally, recover the moral imagination. I'm not sure how to define the term, something I'm still working through in my own mind. It has been around awhile (since Edmund Burke, I believe). But it is an important idea, one I am ever more convinced we are in need of rallying.
In the first part of the book, Dr. Guroian goes through a series of examples of folks (Flannery O'Connor, Russell Kirk, and G.K. Chesterton) who have done much work toward the recovery of the moral imagination.
"A vision of the good has far greater power to move men and women to do the right thing than all the horrible images we may conjure up to terrify them into doing it."
In part two, he discusses the moral imagination: what it is, how it is affected, it's status in our own age.
"The moral imagination is the distinctively human power to conceive of men and women as moral beings, that is, as persons, not as things or animals whose value to us is their usefulness."
In parts three and four, he discusses the moral imagination and how a recovery of it would affect our thoughts on marriage, abortion, childhood, honor, sex, politics, human rights, and more.
"in every society, power must be humanized and used morally in order that free and civilized life might prosper.
We humanize and understand how to use power morally through the use and exercise of our moral imagination. Rallying the Really Human Things may in fact help to rally us around the moral imagination and move us toward a humanized and right use of power.
July 4, 2013
This collection of essays is very good: it challenges, it reminds, and it broadens our conception of worldwide morality. It's much better than the cover makes it seem. The range of essays is fairly wide, but before too long the collection covers some of the same ground - yet even the familiarity is always improved and expanded, making this worth reading from beginning to end, multiple times. Guroian's influences are certainly top-notch: G.K. Chesterton, Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, and Orthodox Christianity. It's hard to top that list, especially when he knew and worked with Russell Kirk personally. Guroian definitely has the credentials to back up his assertions, which he makes with a forceful vocabulary tempered by a humble style - yet he is not simply "starting a conversation" or "opening up debates." Guroian is telling us like it is, like it used to be, and like it should be, without pretension or hesitation. His Orthodoxy does not come through until late, when he discusses politics and morality, but when it comes, it comes through in a very convincing manner, free of anti-Protestantism. He makes claims about human rights, gay marriage, the state of college dorms today, the differences between East and West, roles in family life, international politics, fairy tales, and more that seem bold ... but only because he's right. Our culture and understanding of these ideas/issues have fallen so far from the truth the basic truth seems bold or radical. Thank you, friends at ISI, for bringing this collection of essays to the light of day.
May 23, 2010
I enjoyed this a great deal. The book is essentially a series of Guroian's essays that he has collected and feels comment upon what it means for us to be truly human. More specifically, Guroian believes that a well-developed moral imagination is essential to living as truly human in this life.
Guroian is most successful when writing on the moral imagination directly, as well as those chapters which cover children (up to and including college students). In particular, his theological insight into the value of children, particularly when we think of them in relation to the child, Jesus, was helpful. In addition, his chapter on the insight of fourth century preacher John Chrysostom as to the purpose and goal of the Christian family was well conceived and executed.
I wasn't as taken with the political chapters, though I suspect that has at least something to do with my distaste for politics in general at least as much as it has to do with any failing on his part.
Guroian is most successful when writing on the moral imagination directly, as well as those chapters which cover children (up to and including college students). In particular, his theological insight into the value of children, particularly when we think of them in relation to the child, Jesus, was helpful. In addition, his chapter on the insight of fourth century preacher John Chrysostom as to the purpose and goal of the Christian family was well conceived and executed.
I wasn't as taken with the political chapters, though I suspect that has at least something to do with my distaste for politics in general at least as much as it has to do with any failing on his part.
Read
July 24, 2011This author is a delight in person, and I look forward to diving deeper into his written works. I had the priviledge of hearing him speak three times in the last week, on issues from Gnosticism in Modern Education to issues involving gardening, to finding the theological symbolism in Grimm's version of Cinderella.
July 8, 2013
A collection of essays. Some were excellent, some were a bit over my head (probably due to my ignorance on the Orthodox Armenian church and its terminology). The essays on the moral imagination (fairy tales, etc) are excellent and worth the price of the book. All of the chapters prove that Guroian is a clear thinker and behelped me develop my thinking as well.
August 25, 2017
I'm a bit obsessed with the whole idea of the degradation of our culture this summer, and my reading pile has reflected it. A lack of moral imagination seems just as likely a cause as any, and Rallying, unlike the other several books on culture I read this year, even includes a solution. Its a bit deep for me and I struggled not a small amount, but it was worth it.
April 1, 2009
Just really good.
Read
November 21, 2009None
April 30, 2010
encouraging...
December 2, 2011
terrific book that spells out what the moral imagination is. His chapters on Huxley's Brave New World are amazing.
August 30, 2016
A wonderful collection of essays about human morality and imagination.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews