A Subversive Gospel

Flannery O'Connor and the Reimagining of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth

By: Michael Mears Bruner

Narrated by: Michael Mears Bruner

Conference on Christianity and Literature (CCL) 2020 Book of the Year - Literary Criticism.

The good news of Jesus Christ is a subversive gospel, and following Jesus is a subversive act. These notions were embodied in the literary work of American author Flannery O'Connor, whose writing was deeply informed by both her Southern context and her Christian faith. In this volume in IVP Academic's Studies in Theology and the Arts series, theologian Michael Bruner explores O'Connor's theological aesthetic and argues that she reveals what discipleship to Christ entails by subverting the traditional understandings of beauty, truth, and goodness through her fiction. In addition, Bruner challenges recent scholarship by exploring the little-known influence of Baron Friedrich von Hügel, a 20th-century Roman Catholic theologian, on her work. Bruner's study thus serves as a guide for those who enjoy reading O'Connor and - even more so - those who, like O'Connor herself, follow the subversive path of the crucified and risen one.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2017 Michael Mears Bruner (P)2020 Oasis Audio

Excellent In-depth View of Flannery O'Connor

“A Subversive Gospel: Flannery O’Connor” a very good and in-depth look at Flannery O’Connor and her writings. If you are the “Christian” in the pew experience this read as a audio book. If you are a “Christian” scholar experiencing this book as a physical read. Either way the references and bibliography are great and can lead you into other avenues of exploring and understanding Flannery O’Connor. This is my second book searching for an understanding of Flannery O’Connor and her writing for determining if I will read her 3 novels. In my humble opinion and not being a “Christian” scholar, I feel the author, Michael Bruner, has researched and presented a very “on the level” presentation of Flannery O’Connor, her life, her Catholic/Christian understanding, and writing perspective in providing the reader with how we are affected by “God” thru his teachings (Bible) and our fellow humans, “created in the image of God”. Highly recommend! Experienced as an Audio book

Literary criticism

The performance of this book made it hard to listen to and therefore hard to follow. I got this book hoping to understand more fully how to proclaim the gospel. However this is more a book about Flannery OConnor than it is about the gospel. As a fan of OConnor though I did find it insightful and enjoyable.

Grace in the "Bleeding, Stinking, and the Foolish"

If you are a Christian, this book is likely to change your understanding of the world around you and the price of your faith. If you are a Christian fiction writer or a reader of Christian fiction, then this book is likely to make you a better reader and writer. If you are non-Christian because all the Christians you have met seemed to be overly sentimental, this book may well change your understanding of Christianity.
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Centering his study on Baron von Hugel's theological influence on Flannery O'Connor and using O'Connor's second novel, The Violent Bear it Away, as his primary case study, while connecting and comparing it with her other work, Michael Means Bruner unpacks O'Connor's "subversive gospel," and the allegorical, typological, and especially the anagogical reading of her work. Bruner relies heavily on O'Connor's own letters about her work as well as the sources she read that inspired her. He also engages contemporary scholarship on O'Connor. The result is a challenging theological perspective that equips the reader to be what O'Connor might call a "Catholic realist." The work does not ignore the role that the Protestant South played on O'Connor's Old Testament theological perspective.

Bruner explores O'Connor's subversion of transcendentals of "beauty, goodness, and truth," finding the offering of grace in the grotesque, the violent, and the foolish, otherwise stated as following embracing discipleship through the "bleeding, the stinking, and the mad." Never separating grace from nature, Bruner builds a case that O'Connor saw God's beauty as a "terrible" beauty, God's goodness as "violent" goodness, and God's truth as a "foolish" truth. The Christian life is costly for the Christian; the highest realities are expressed in the lowest forms, and at the center of our faith is a mystery.

Far from an escape from reality, Bruner's book and O'Connor's fiction will enable the discerning reader to enter more deeply and more meaningfully into it -- and get deeper meaning out of some of the most difficult and disturbing passages in the Bible.

Bruner's narration is lively and personable, like having a conversation with a scholar who is passionate about his work and who is able to make you passionate about it too. I especially appreciate the way he went "off script" (I think it was in the case study section) to describe the chart in his book that lays out his theo-literacy framework with which he approaches O'Connor's work.