Word: wilder
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...surprised and disappointed to find the letter on Amos Wilder's lectures to be a rather shabby and vague criticism based on misunderstanding, whose publication, it seems to me, is more of a disservice than a service...
...Wilder's lectures... were unfairly represented by Mr. Thayer and probably misunderstood. The reason is ironic: for, rather than spelling things out in the usual academic way, Wilder, himself a poet, created lectures which were artistic wholes whose suggestive parts were given unity by the cumulative effect of all that was said. Speaking honestly but with restraint, he did not attempt to appear profound and relevant (as many do) by repeating what have come to be cliches about man's "existential predicament" as seen by both theologians and artists. Probably he assumed that most of the audience would already...
With all due respect for the scholastic sensibilities of Dr. Amos Wilder, the William Belden Noble lecturer for 1956, his first two lectures seemed to me to be little more than a piling up, one on top of the other, of authors, theologians, illustrations and analogies.... He avoided the question of basic tensions and compatibilities between theology and modern literature by his tendency to give a chronicle, albeit concrete, of contemporary activities.... His only venturing statements were that first, the literary world in becoming more realistic is getting closer to faith in God, but he failed to show how. Secondly...
...first two lectures seemed to me to be cast in the wrong mold. Instead of describing the common struggles for meaning and direction which the theologian and artist are now sharing, instead of clearly showing these struggles in their relation to the older problems of both men, Dr. Wilder described only the conversation which these similar struggles are producing. He failed to get to the heart of the affair. It greatly disturbs me as a Protestant because I fear it is indicative of a whole tone in theological circles to be superficial when nearly everybody in the Church is questioning...
...Wilder will deliver his final lecture of the 1956 series, "Theology and Modern Literature," at 8 p.m. this evening in Memorial Church. He will speak on "Faulkner and Vestigial Moralities...