The Year of Our Lord 1943
Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
by Alan Jacobs
reviewed by Eighth Day Books
Feast of the Holy Powder which Emitted from the Tomb of St John the Theologian
Anno Domini 2020, May 8
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
by Alan Jacobs
“We create men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise… We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” C. S. Lewis wrote these words for a lecture in 1943 that would later be published as The Abolition of Man. He was living in a world where it had become almost certain that the Allied forces would win WWII. Why was Lewis so concerned with moral education in the midst of a literal World War? Alan Jacobs’ book expands that question and asks: What were five major—and very different—Christian thinkers (Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil) doing in 1943 thinking about how western civilization would morally educate its people? WWII was fought and won with incredibly powerful technology and all five of these Christian intellectuals foresaw in their own way (perhaps too late, writes Jacobs) that technocrats would end up in power as a result. What is shocking is how consistent their diagnoses and prescriptions were. Jacobs takes the reader on a unique and thrilling journey through the writings and lives of these five intellectuals as they began to articulate their critique of modern western society. What needs to be done to preserve liberty even in a world where Hitler has been defeated? People must be educated to know their limits. Democracy is a fine thing to fight for, but, as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, without morality democracy doesn’t work.
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