Call to arms

Christian Century, August 24, 2004 by Daniel Born

Most significant is Frantzen's assertion that "most histories fail to analyze the theological assumptions of chivalry, even as they correctly place prowess at the center of the knight's world." Bloody Good urges readers to think more theologically about how a peculiar interpretation of the cross came to undergird the actions of Christian knights and modern European warriors alike. We still don't fully understand the uncanny power of this theology of sacrifice. And to consign the ancient codes of chivalry and knightly behavior to the dustbin of history--or to the geeky dungeons-and-dragons kingdoms of adolescence--is to be in denial.

The realization that we are still very much in the grip of medieval codes of thinking that define bravery, heroism and the value of sacrificing our lives and the lives of others may force us to look at those burnished museum suits of armor with new respect mad fear. Figuratively and theologically, we are still bound by what that armor represents.

Reviewed by Daniel Born, the editor of the Common Review, the quarterly magazine of the Great Books Foundation,