{"id":124,"date":"2010-01-22T10:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T10:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html"},"modified":"2010-01-22T10:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T10:01:00","slug":"cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m hoping to write more about this later today, but the grocery store calls. So for the moment, I&#8217;ll just quote myself from a recent post on 843 Acres. Check back in this afternoon for further reflections. If, that is, my kids nap simultaneously this afternoon:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height: 19px;font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;font-size:13px\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 0px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 10px;padding-left: 0px\">Embedded in Daniel Mendelsohn\u2019s new article, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/arts\/critics\/books\/2010\/01\/25\/100125crbo_books_mendelsohn?currentPage=all\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cBut Enough About Me\u201d<\/a> (The New Yorker) are connections between Christianity and memoir as a literary genre. The genre\u2019s history traces back to St. Augustine\u2019s <em>Confessions<\/em> (and, one might argue, King David in the Psalms). Mendelsohn wonders, however, what happens to memoir now that it is divorced from the Christian faith:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 0px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 10px;padding-left: 0px\">Once the memoir stopped being about God and started being about Man, once \u201cconfession\u201d came to mean nothing more than getting a shameful secret off your chest \u2014 and, maybe worse, once \u201credemption\u201d came to mean nothing more than the cozy acceptance offered by other people, many of whom might well share the same secret \u2014 it was but a short step to what the<em>Times<\/em> book critic Michiko Kakutani recently characterized as the motivating force behind certain other products of the recent \u201cmemoir craze\u201d: \u201cthe belief that confession is therapeutic and therapy is redemptive and redemption somehow equals art.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px;margin-right: 0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-left: 0px;padding-top: 0px;padding-right: 0px;padding-bottom: 10px;padding-left: 0px\">In Philippians 4:8, Paul writes, \u201cFinally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable \u2014 if anything is excellent or praiseworthy \u2014 think about such things.\u201d Mendelsohn provides a faint echo of Paul\u2019s words as he suggests that memoirs worth reading are ones rooted in a deeper spiritual reality, or at least ones rooted in Truth with a capital T.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m hoping to write more about this later today, but the grocery store calls. So for the moment, I&#8217;ll just quote myself from a recent post on 843 Acres. Check back in this afternoon for further reflections. If, that is, my kids nap simultaneously this afternoon: Embedded in Daniel Mendelsohn\u2019s new article, \u201cBut Enough About&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m hoping to write more about this later today, but the grocery store calls. So for the moment, I&#8217;ll just quote myself from a recent post on 843 Acres. Check back in this afternoon for further reflections. If, that is, my kids nap simultaneously this afternoon: Embedded in Daniel Mendelsohn\u2019s new article, \u201cBut Enough About&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-22T10:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God? - Thin Places","og_description":"I&#8217;m hoping to write more about this later today, but the grocery store calls. 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If, that is, my kids nap simultaneously this afternoon: Embedded in Daniel Mendelsohn\u2019s new article, \u201cBut Enough About&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-01-22T10:01:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html","name":"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-01-22T10:01:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-22T10:01:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/cultural-narcissism-and-memoir-confession-and-redemption-without-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cultural Narcissism and Memoir: Confession and Redemption Without God?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}