Dante, Milton, Christians, Missiology etc.

Milton or Dante were great poets, and I have read and admired their skill along with Shakespeare in ages past. I write free verse of a philosophic nature in order to jot down ideas. Writing in formal style is something I have put little time in learning.

One might read about Homeric poetic style that kept the dactylic hexameter of earlier ages and be aware of the continuity of method that exists in contemporary rap music construction in that rhythm is an important mnemonic element. Milton was blinded and wrote in his 50s and so one might guess he was influenced by the rhythmic cadences of verse as a calming ocean wave of ideas overtook his thought.

I believe I read somewhere of Milton's experience after leaving Oxford of a friend poet who was drowned offshore of the S.W. coast of England, and that the experience affected Milton's style. Unlike Pilgrim's Progress composed in prison by Bunyan, Milton was a 17th century academically brilliant individual writing in an area where the method of construction was all-important. He wrote during the glory days of English ascendancy over the world of letters and world of sailing.

Today however Christians have a vast realm of ideas to experience as well as compete with. One finds the Evangelist Billy Graham's enduring personal appeal marvelous for the simplicity of his message-it rarely changed its form and was to the point. I have enjoyed listening to Vernon McGee's 'Through the Bible' recordings of Biblical exegesis-they are quite good.

The broadcast media in much of the world essentially puts out trash-have you experienced the U.S. broadcast media? It is a dumbing down experience generally and underutilized for scientific, humanities as well as historical and even Christian education. The media is a tool for the control of the masses and as Sartre said 'the fundamental relation of the listener to the broadcaster is impotence'.

It is possible to have web book computers and telecommunications apps that are readers of content such as the classics of Milton and of Dante, yet people must earn a living too. Christians need to reform their ecclesiastical and liturgical form as it is-the most unlikely thing is that they would embark far into the historical readings of reformation era poets, or even of late renaissance poets like Dante.

I have found as I have surveyed world literature, history and philosophy that I enjoy reading in new areas unknown to my prior experience reading. That is why I ranged abroad from standard U.S. and Western European history and philosophy readings into those of Russia and of the far east, and of course why I read with interest of the first world civilization at Sumer and of Abraham's role in leaving it's decadent phase as it became taken over by foreign control.

World civilization and its history set with the pre-historical researches of anthropology and archeology from the inception of mankind perhaps 200,000 y.b.p. comprise a continuum in which philosophical thought and Christian religious experience cohere. God has a secular history of interaction in human cultures as well as transcendent aspects that are translated in various forms unto the faithful. One becomes interested in the history of the University of Paris as well as of Arabic, Omar Kyham and the history of algebra. There are innumerable theories against God and Christianity today developed by incomplete learning and inadequate reading in history, the sciences and philosophy. Protestants too are interested in Augustine, Aquinas and Pope Gregory the First as well as Constantine the First and the last.

Christianity has obviously for most of its history been a light to the illiterate, however literacy in the modern post-Darwinian era does require that the faithful become aware of the complete database of knowledge that provide extracts for opposition to belief in God. Inadequate readings in Biblical history and scripture form a large part in stimulating wrong-headedness of secularist opposition to belief in God.

The reason for that has a foundation in the historical relationship of the Church to the state. Too often land owning clerics were regarded as oppressors, and of course Marx too made is statement about religion, opiates and the masses. In France clerics had tended to support conservatives. The problems of church and state associations oppressing the masses, or at least being in opposition to random 'liberal' movements is a reason why so many contemporary liberals including the U.S. Government seem to be in opposition to conservativism internationally except as it helps concentrate wealth.

Dante is certainly one of the world's great poets, however the inferno is more Jonathan Edwards-ish than many will accept as reasonable. I believe there may be a translation issue between various problems on the concept of hell today that is beyond Europe and America. The Shinto with volcanism and Kami, the Buddhist with the nihilation of nirvana, the Brahman recreation of a Universe every 50 billion years etc make the Inferno paradigm a little local and in a vernacular not appreciated by English as a second language speakers I would guess.