Newman 101

Newman 101: An Introduction to the Life and Philosophy of John Cardinal Newman, by Roderick Strange, Christian Classics, 2008.

 

John Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) is one of the most prominent figures in nineteenth-century English Catholicism, but like many great religious notables, his life and work remain sadly underappreciated by the broader public today.  Roderick Strange’s book is meant to give the broader public a new appreciation of a brilliant and fascinating man, as well as the relevance of his thoughts and philosophy on contemporary society.

 

Strange did an excellent job in selecting his title.  This is first and foremost an introduction to Newman’s life and work.  Using the college-course-like title Newman 101 illustrates that this ought to be only the first of many books consulted by the individual who wants to learn more about Newman.  By emphasizing the introductory nature of this book, Strange wisely forestalls the sharpest criticism that could justifiably be leveled against this book, namely that it provides only a basic overview of Newman’s biography and major writings, and needs to a lot more to put Newman’s ideas and controversies in their full social and historical context, as well as analyze and explain Newman’s writings thoroughly.  These are valid points, but addressing them properly might fill volumes of tomes, and Newman 101 is meant to be a quick but informative read.

 

Those who are already familiar with Newman’s life will therefore find a fair amount of things they already know in Newman 101, but Strange’s personal reflections on Newman’s relevance ought to make this book worth reading for even the most confirmed Newman experts.  As for Newman novices, Newman 101 provides a concise, readable, and easy to understand look at a complex and compelling figure.

 

Strange wisely opens his book with a brief overview of Newman’s life.  Newman believed that he was destined to devote his life to religion from an early age, and at first he began his religious vocation in the Anglican Church in which he was raised.  As time passed and he wrestled increasingly with theological doctrines, historical interpretations, and moral questions; Newman decided to convert to the Roman Catholic Church.  Not surprisingly, this decision came at a major price.  Many of Newman’s Anglican former colleagues were scandalized, and Newman’s conversion was often treated as a temporary passing whimsy, an opinion that never ceased to annoy Newman himself.  Newman dealt with numerous career annoyances and even a lawsuit that he lost only because of another person’s carelessness, but eventually Newman gained a level of prestige and respect he had thought he would never attain when he was appointed a cardinal.

 

Furthermore, Strange notes that Newman needs to be viewed as both a major Catholic intellectual and one of England’s greatest intellectual minds.  All too often, Newman has been classified as one or the other over the decades, and Strange suggests that Newman’s influence in the Oxford Movement is often under-recognized because of his Catholic identity.  It is unfair, Strange argues, to rank Newman as a second-tier figure in English intellectual life because of the perceived “outsider” nature of his religion.  Oppositely, some critics have habitually downplayed Newman’s spiritual side when they applaud his intellect.  The need to secularize Newman in order to praise him is confounding and abhorrent to Strange.

 

The book’s brief chapters each contain compelling capsule summaries of major aspects of Newman’s life and career.  The first two chapters are biographical.  One revolves around Strange’s own religious education and the formative influence that Newman had upon him.  The next summarizes Newman’s life and major works.  Most of the remaining chapters take a look at Newman’s views on contentious or confusing topics.  Papal infallibility, Marian devotion, the role of the laity, and ecumenicalism all receive thoughtful attention in Strange’s chapters.  

 

One way that the book could have been enriched would be if there was a chapter addressing Newman’s critics over the years.  There are frequent instances where Strange lists charges leveled against Newman by Protestant contemporaries who felt betrayed, as well as Newman’s own responses to this hostility, but it would have been interesting to see Strange address the early twentieth-century attacks on Newman, such as Lytton Strachey’s snide caricatures, as well as more recent attempts by various pundits and activists to twist Newman into an instrument for their own non-traditional views on culture and religion, regardless of the lack of evidence to support such usurpations of the man and his work.

 

Although a many of Newman’s books and major articles are mentioned in this study, further details on the contents of each one, coupled with the circumstances and intellectual and social atmosphere of the time, might have also helped further readers’ understanding of Newman’s work and influence.  Furthermore, Strange understandably strives to keep his book from becoming argumentative or polemical, but Newman has been misrepresented and misinterpreted so many times over the years that more detailed explanations of why these views are wrong, flawed, or at least dubious might have added a fuller understanding of the man and his influence.  Strange does address such issues on numerous occasions (and does so with dispassionate clarity), but this is a case where more would probably have been better.

 

Strange inserts a fair amount of his own life and biography into his book, explaining how he was first introduced to Newman’s work, how he came to study Newman in depth, and how Newman has shaped his own spiritual outlook and career choices.  Monsignor Strange serves as Beda College’s rector in Rome, directing vocations, and he has also worked throughout England as a priest and chaplain.  Strange’s personal journey with Newman is definitely enlightening, but some additional stories about the various other people who have been shaped intellectually by Newman might also have been fascinating.

 

Indeed, it is the personal touch that Strange inserts into his writing that truly makes Newman 101 indispensable.  Many literary and biographical studies are utterly flat and uninvolving due to their inability to connect to the material.  When Strange writes, however, we can see how Newman has shaped the trajectory of one man’s mind and career.  We see more than just a disconnected criticism to the source material, we see conclusive evidence that Newman remain relevant and capable of influencing people over a century after his death. 

 

If this book provokes the desired responses in its readers, after finishing Newman 101, people will want to find out more about the great man and his legacy.  Any of Newman’s own books will be superb resources for curious readers (his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua and his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine are excellent places to start), and there are many other fine critical and biographical works on Newman (Fr. Stanley L. Jaki’s Newman’s Challenge is an excellent analysis of how best to contextualize Newman’s philosophy and role in the broader debate over the state of contemporary culture, and a biography by Avery Robert Cardinal Dulles was recently published).  With Newman’s upcoming beatification and subsequent media coverage, it is certainly possible that a new wave of interest in Newman will emerge in the coming years.