Presbyterian Literary Lights, Part I

In last weeks newsletter, I reprinted an article from Presbyterian News Service about Ann Weems, poet and Presbyterian, and it got me thinking: we Presbyterians are a literate bunch, aren’t we? We pride ourselves on education, our denomination has split over the issue in the past, and we seem to have our share of literary lights, as well. Besides Weems there’s that other Anne, Anne LaMott and lest we forget, South Dakota’s finest, Kathleen Norris.

Perhaps the best-known is Frederick Buechner, who has an entire shelf to devoted to his writings at many a Christian bookstore. In fact, over a long career Buechner has authored more than thirty volumes, and if you go to Amazon.com and search on his name, you’ll find twenty-five or so still available in one form or another. He was born in 1926 in New York City and named after his father, who committed suicide when Frederick was only ten. He graduated from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and was accepted at Princeton University in 1943. As a senior, he won the prestigious Glascock Award for poetry, and began his first novel, A Long Day’s Dying, published in 1950. That novel was a critical and financial success, and he quit his job as schoolteacher to pursue writing full time. It was during that period that he began attending a Presbyterian church pastored by the great preacher George Buttrick and converted to Christianity. Buttrick convinced him to go to seminary, and he entered Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1954. Upon graduation, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in Buttrick’s church.

Although Buechner never pastored a church—the closest he came was as the head of religion and school minister at a private school—he maintains that writing is his ministry, and considered the word “apologist” to most accurately describe his vocation. “My job,” he said, “was to present the faith as appealingly, honestly, relevantly and skillfully as I could.” That skill is well attested by that long bibliography, and the fact that his works have been nominated for awards such as the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

My two favorite books by Buechner are re-workings of scripture. The first, On the Road with the Archangel, is a delightful retelling of the book of Tobit (from what we Protestants call “Apocrypha” but Catholics simply “Scripture”). On the Road is funny and humane, and made me want to read the original. The second of my favorite Buechners is Son of Laughter, an exploration of the story of Jacob from Genesis. In it, the author’s full literary powers are on display, producing a pungent, authentic retelling that caused me to see the story of Jacob and his offspring with new eyes. I highly recommend both Son of Laughter and On the Road with the Archangel to Buechner newcomers as well as those looking to reconnect to an old friend.