Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue through Our Words

by Richard Hughes Gibson; James E. Beitler III

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2020

Overview

Our written words carry weight.

Unfortunately, in today’s cultural climate, our writing is too often laced with harsh judgments and vitriol rather than careful consideration and generosity. But might the Christian faith transform how we approach the task of writing? How might we love God and our neighbors through our writing?

This book is not a style guide that teaches you where to place the comma and how to cite your sources (as important as those things are). Rather, it offers a vision for expressing one’s faith through writing and for understanding writing itself as a spiritual practice that cultivates virtue.

Under the guidance of two experienced Christian writers who draw on authors and artists throughout the church’s history, we learn how we might embrace writing as an act of discipleship for today—and how we might faithfully bear the weight of our written words.

Key Features

• Addresses how we can love God and our neighbors through our writing
• Offers a vision for expressing one’s faith through writing
• Explores how can embrace writing as an act of discipleship

Contents

• Foreword by Anne Ruggles Gere
• Opening Meditation: At the Gallery
• Introduction: At the Threshold

Part I: Humble Listening

• Entering the Study
• On Humility
• Humble Listening in Local Writing Communities
• Humble Listening in Discourse Communities

Part II: Loving Argument

• The Law of Charitable Writing
• On Argument
• On Charity
• Charitable Writing as Love’s Banquet
• Beastly Feasting
• Making Space at the Table

Part III: Keeping Time Hopefully

• Slow Writing
• Liturgies of Writing
• Closing Meditation: At the Gallery
• Afterword by Alan Jacobs
• Appendix A: Practicing Charitable Writing: Discussion Questions and Writing Prompts
• Appendix B: Teaching Charitable Writing: Choosing a Via Nova, by Jeffry C. Davis
• Appendix C: Writing as a Spiritual Discipline, by Stephanie Paulsell

Praise for the Print Edition

Richard Hughes Gibson and James E. Beitler III offer a refreshing alternative to agonistic argumentation, inviting us—readers and writers, teachers and students—to reimagine writing with humility as its cornerstone. Assembling a polyptych of saints as models for what such charitable writing might look like, Gibson and Beitler have added themselves to this great cloud of witnesses. Their nuanced and generous book led me to rethink the habits informing my own reading, writing, and teaching; may it do the same for you.

—Peter Wayne Moe, assistant professor of English and director of campus writing at Seattle Pacific University, author of Touching This Leviathan

Product Details

• Title: Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue through Our Words
• Authors: Richard Hughes Gibson, James E. Beitler III
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2020
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Pages: 231
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Communication › Religious aspects--Christianity; Authorship › Religious aspects--Christianity
• ISBNs: 9780830854844, 9780830854837, 0830854843, 0830854835
• Resource ID: LLS:CHRTBLWRITING
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:43:00Z

About the Authors

Richard Hughes Gibson (PhD, University of Virginia) is associate professor of English at Wheaton College. He is the author of Forgiveness in Victorian Literature: Grammar, Narrative, and Community. With designer Jeremy Botts, he codirects Manibus Press, an occasional publisher of artists’ books.

James Edward Beitler III (PhD, University of Michigan) is associate professor of English at Wheaton College, where he is the director of First-Year Writing and also coordinates the Writing Fellows Program. He is the author of Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church and Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States: The Rhetorical Authorization of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Sample Pages from Charitable Writing: Cultivating Virtue through Our Words