The Gospel According to Peanuts (35th anniversary edition)
Robert L. Short; foreward by Martin E. Marty
Westminister John Knox Press
Why re-issue a book that is out-of-date and certainly out-of-touch with life today? Good question. Martin E. Marty tries to answer it in the foreward and pretty well says Short and Shultz have captured the essence of the greatest thinkers who impacted the mid-twentieth century… and it will do us all a great deal of good to go back and retrieve their gospel captured in cartoon. Besides, the youngest of those born after the writing of The Gospel According to Peanuts is now well over 40, a whole new generation can go back and see what shaped the thought of many people back in 1965 (as the Simpsons have shaped more thought than this world dreams possible and Harry Potter is still shaping in his never-ending quest for … whatever).
So, are you hooked yet? Do you want to travel back in time to an age when ordinary people were treated to a dose of Barth or Niebuhr in their morning cartoons, and Kierkegaard or Kafka were quoted in quips to go with your morning Corn Flakes?
My dog-eared copy of the original 1965 version (a gift from a colleague of another generation) still sits on my shelf. It hasn't been down for awhile but it also has never made it to the discard bin. Every time I think of parting company with it, I merely flip through the pages to …
Charlie Brown: "Snoopy looks kind of cold doesn't he?"
Linus: "I'll say he does … maybe we'd better go over and comfort him." "Be of good cheer, Snoopy."
Charlie Brown: "Yes, be of good cheer."
Snoopy: (left confused as Linus and Charlie walk away into the falling snow.)
I can never think of James 2:15 or Matthew 25 without this particular cartoon coming to mind… and the book slips back on my shelf for another decade (or two).
Have you ever thought of Charlie Brown as the personification of a Presbyterian? I have (and do). The likeable and loveable butt of everyone's anger or angst or …
(Violet yelling at Charlie Brown): "… and you're weak and spineless and wishy-washy!"
Linus: "She really took you apart, didn't she, Charlie Brown?"
Charlie: "Uh-huh … step by step, verse by verse and line by line …."
Linus: "You sound like a victim of higher learning."
Such a good-natured guy (Charlie the Presbyterian). So …
Why is the football always pulled away at the last minute? Charlie Brown: "Do you think I'm crazy? Do you think you can fool me with the same trick every year?"
Or the ball game always lost: Charlie Brown: "Another ball game lost! Good grief! I get tired of losing… everything I do, I lose!" Lucy: "Look at it this way, Charlie Brown … we learn more from losing than we do from winning." Charlie: "That makes me the smartest person in the world!!"
Or the advice so devastating? Lucy: "Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown? You know what your trouble is? The whole trouble with you is that you're YOU."
Charlie Brown: "Well, what in the world can I do about that?"
Lucy: "I don't pretend to be able to give advice … I merely point out the trouble." (Please send her comments onto the Long Range Strategic Planning Committee of the church!).
And Charlie Brown muddles his way through life, always groping for understanding and meaning from the big picture that transcends the everyday difficulties he encounters … and his world really is no kinder or gentler than ours but he still touches everyone of us where it counts: in the soul and in our quest for significance in a world we rarely understand and a universe we hardly comprehend.
Lucy and Charlie under a star-studded sky: Charlie Brown: "And, as I am alone here on earth among millions of people, that tiny star is out there alone among millions and millions of stars … Does that make any sense, Lucy? Do you think it means anything?"
Lucy: "Certainly … It means you're cracking up, Charlie Brown!"
