Timothy Larsen is the McManis Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of History at Wheaton College. He is a Contributing Editor at Current and as of this summer, the author of four books on the nineteenth-century Scottish George MacDonald. This has to be some sort of record, and so, I appreciated the chance to ask him some questions recently in honor of the release of the fourth one—an annotated edition of MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul.
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Congratulations on this book—it is just a beautiful work, from the perspective of both content and book production. My first question for you, though, is about George MacDonald and you, specifically. You have spent more time writing about him, I think, than on any other topic: I am thinking of your book George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles, and also your editions with introductions of his novels The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie (both of which my kids loved—thank you!). So, this book is your fourth major project involving him! Why MacDonald? What about him and his work first interested you, and what keeps bringing you back?
It actually took my career a long time to turn to George MacDonald—not until I was turning fifty. Wheaton College, where I teach, has this jewel of a place called the Wade Center. It has C. S. Lewis’s papers, the wardrobe that Lewis’s grandfather carved that inspired The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the desk on which Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, Dorothy L. Sayer’s address book and glasses—just all kinds of delightful and extraordinary things that one would never expect to find out on the prairies in the American Midwest.
The Wade Center is dedicated to seven authors, one of whom is George MacDonald. The Hansen family generously endowed a lecture series, and I was invited to give some lectures. I have spent my whole career focusing on religion in nineteenth-century Britain, so it made sense that I would lecture on MacDonald, the only one of the seven whose works were written in the nineteenth rather than the twentieth century.
What I found was that it’s always been literary scholars who have written about MacDonald. This meant that as a historian, I could approach him from a somewhat different perspective and add something to the conversation. He wrote in many different genres—often in hauntingly intriguing ways—so there is so much to ponder, discover, and explore. I usually write academic books mostly just read by other academics, but both children and adults from many different walks of life still avidly read MacDonald for pleasure and insight, so it has been exciting to connect with that readership. I had not really thought about it until your question, but I was invited to write all four of those books. I’m open to more such requests—and maybe I will initiate a MacDonald project on my own sometime!
This present book is a devotional, but it is an unusual one. Could you explain more? Who is the ideal reader of this book, in your view?
MacDonald wrote a devotional poem for every day of the year. The poems are also prayers; they are a way of approaching God and, most especially, desiring to become closer to the Lord and to have our will align with his will. My ideal reader is someone who is willing to use the book as part of their daily devotions; to read the poem of the day and let it be a prompt for prayer, meditation, and reflection. As MacDonald wished, the poem is faced by a blank page which is there for you to write down your own thoughts and prayers – maybe even your own poem.
You mention that C.S. Lewis gave a copy of this book to Joy Davidman as a Christmas gift in 1952. So naturally I’m curious: What did she think of it? Do we know?
Well, she agreed to marry him, so obviously a copy of Diary of an Old Soul is the perfect gift whereby to win the heart of the romantic partner of your dreams! More seriously, as far as I know, we don’t know what she thought of it, but the Wade Center actually has that very copy of the book, and C. S. Lewis inscribed in it a charming poem of his own. As I have been saying, this is exactly what MacDonald hoped for the book. I have no doubt Joy treasured this copy because Lewis had clearly put a lot of thought into the gift.
Other than, of course, the work of George MacDonald, what big questions and themes fascinate you in your thinking, reading, and writing? And what is next for you?
I tend to gravitate towards subjects where I think a negative impression of the Christian faith has developed that is simply mistaken, if you know the history better.
I wrote a book once on Christabel Pankhurst, the leader of the Suffragettes who went on to be a popular Christian preacher and author in fundamentalist circles. People assume those worlds are incompatible but, in truth, conservative Christians were much more in favor of votes for women than was society as a whole. They generally believed that politics would become more moral if women had more influence.
The discipline of anthropology is usually seen as anti-Christian, but I did another book on how some of the most respected anthropologists have been deeply committed to the Christian faith and how it informed the very theories they developed that secular anthropologists so admire. I am currently trying hard to finish a book that feels like it is taking too long—on military chaplains during World War I.
I am also scheming up a future project on the devotional reading of the Bible. This sort of fits the pattern that I have been outlining, as I have come to realize that most secular people don’t understand why people read the Bible. They think they are hunting for improbable doctrines to try to insist other people must believe or oppressive moral rules to impose on others and they totally miss the devotional heart of ordinary Bible reading—how it comforts the anxious, encourages the embattled, and renews the weary.