CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: ‘Here’s a man with the courage to speak out his beliefs regardless of the consequences’
The princess climbs the castle’s winding staircases, hearing ominous sounds from the goblins deep in the foundations. And then she discovers again the way to the room where the Wise Woman sits spinning, and finds there such warmth, such wisdom, such love.
It’s a scene from The Princess and the Goblin, a fairy story by George MacDonald, one of Scotland’s most notable Victorians, who was born in Huntly on December 10, 1824.
Radical Christian, prolific author, poet, lecturer, one-time Independent Church minister, loving husband and father, friend of many Victorian thinkers and writers, MacDonald is now best remembered as the author of fairy tales and fantasies which delved into the unconscious prior to Freud and inspired several 20th century writers including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
His work is still relevant, not only because the human heart has not changed in two centuries but also because of the many similarities between the Victorian era and our times. MacDonald’s age saw rapid technological development, an accelerating pace of life, the dire social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, the questioning of faith, international unrest.
• Sign up for our free newsletters
He challenges us today in at least three ways. He calls us, firstly, to a re-awakening of Wonder. Following the Enlightenment, theology could, in the process of seeking to be logical and rational, lose sight of the living God, active in all creation. MacDonald uses imagination to open our eyes again to an enchanted universe, alive with God.
Secondly, as he reflected on the austere theology he had experienced while growing up in Huntly - a God who chose some to be saved, and others to face eternal damnation, MacDonald came to realise that God is not like that. God, he believed, is our Father, our Mother who loves us all deeply, and in the end the whole human race will say ‘Yes!’ to this great love. As St Paul writes ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’.
Thirdly, MacDonald was not afraid of death. He came close to dying several times, and saw death often. But he was convinced that death is the gateway to a richer life. ‘Death is not an end but a fresh beginning, the grandest birthday of all, the getting out of the lobby into the theatre.’
How I love this man: such warmth, such love, the clarity of mind to know things for himself and the courage to speak out these beliefs regardless of the consequences.
And those images he gave us! The dark rumblings in the cellars of our subconscious as we climb and search and search until at last we find the door where Wisdom awaits us, and we realise that all is well.
