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Deeper Magic: Re-engaging the Virtues in School and Parish1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2015

Alison Milbank
Alison Milbank*
Affiliation:
Alison.milbank@nottingham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This essay argues that modern society lacks a vision of the common good, which prevents education from having an adequate telos or goal. It calls for a restoration of the language of virtue and the ethical tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas. The Anglican parish and the church primary or elementary school are examined as sites where virtue ethics is still active: particularly in the intercessory work of parish prayer, and in the mimetic approach to learning employed with younger children. The article then addresses ways in which these institutions depend upon what C.S. Lewis called ‘deeper magic’ of a transcendent reality, and ways in which the school especially might develop further a pedagogy of the virtues using J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories as exemplars. Finally, it argues for a dimension of the beautiful in a recovery of an education in Christian virtue.

Keywords

virtuevirtue ethicseducationparishchurch schoolJ.K. RowlingHarry Potter
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 215 - 229
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Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2015 

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Footnotes

1.

Delivered as part of the colloquium ‘Church, Communities and Society’ held to mark the tenth anniversary of the Lincoln Theological Institute, 25–26 October 2013, at the University of Manchester.

2.

Alison Milbank is Associate Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Nottingham.

References

3. Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ speech of 9 July 2013 is available at http://www.labour.org.uk/one-nation-politics-speech (accessed 30 January 2014).

4. MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Bloomsbury, 3rd edn, 2007), p. xvGoogle Scholar.

5. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 221.

6. See Hollenbach, David, The Common Good and Christian Ethics (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), Part 1, Chapter 4, 1/ 2, at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html (accessed 12 November 2013).

7. The Alternative Service Book 1980: Services Authorized for us in the Church of England in conjunction with The Book of Common Prayer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 125.

8. Aristotle, , The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics (trans. J.A.K. Thomson, rev. Hugh Tredennick, intro. Jonathan Barnes; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), 1097a, p. 73.Google Scholar

9. Lewis, C.S., The Magician’s Nephew (London: Collins, 1980 [1955]), p. 61Google Scholar.

10. Ritchie, Angus, From Goodness to God: Why Religion Makes Sense of our Moral Commitments (London: Theos, 2012), p. 37Google Scholar.

11. Cox argues that the vesture also symbolizes the derivation of authority from the people, but this in no way precludes the divine. See Cox, N., ‘The Coronation Robes of the Sovereign’, Arma 5.1 (1999), pp. 271–280Google Scholar.

12. These ideas are explored further in Davison, Andrew and Milbank, Alison, For the Parish: A Critique of Fresh Expressions (London: SCM Press, 2010), pp. 144–169Google Scholar.

13. Johnson, Kelly S., ‘Praying: Poverty’, in Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 225–236 (232)Google Scholar.

14. Johnson, ‘Praying: Poverty’, p. 232.

15. Aristotle, Ethics, p. 222.

16. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2a2ae, Q. 23, art. 7.

17. Aristotle, Ethics, Book 2, p. 91.

18. Piaget, Jean and Inhelder, Bärbel, The Early Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (New York: Basic Books; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958)Google Scholar.

19. See the entry on ‘value’, Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn, OED online, Oxford University Press, available at: http://dictionary.oed.com (accessed 13 November 2013).

20. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/27/contents/enacted for the ‘best value’ section of this legislation.

21. http://www.churchofengland.org/education/faqs-about-church-schools.aspx (accessed 21 October 2013).

22. More information can be found at http://www.openthebook.net/home.php (accessed 30 January 2014).

23. Mr Men and Little Miss series were written by Roger Hargreaves, and published by Egremont from 1971 onwards.

24. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), p. 117Google Scholar.

25. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (London: Bloomsbury, 2000), p. 157Google Scholar.

26. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), p. 206Google Scholar.

27. Rowling, J.K., Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), p. 245Google Scholar.

28. J.R.R. Tolkien discriminates between the dominatory use of magic as instrument of power and the enchantment of the elves both in his own fiction and in his essay ‘On Fairy-stories’, where magic is defined as ‘not art but a technique; its desire is power in this world, domination of things and wills.’ Tree and Leaf (London: HarperCollins, 2012), p. 39.

29. Goddard, Andrew, ‘Harry Potter and the Quest for Virtue’, Anvil 18.3 (2001), pp. 181–193Google Scholar.

30. Aristotle, Ethics, Book 1, pp. 82–84; for the Shorter Catechism see http://www.reformed.org/documents/WSC.html (accessed 13 November 2013).

31. Maritain, Jacques, Existence and the Existent (trans. Lewis Galantière and Gerald Phelan; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), p. 20Google Scholar.

32. Chesterton, G.K., Thomas Aquinas (London: Hodder, 1933), pp. 198–199.Google Scholar

33. Augustine of Hippo, Literal Commentary on Genesis, 12; St Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Bk 12 (trans. J.H. Taylor, SJ; St Louis University Dissertation, 1948), p. 139.

34. Melina, Livio, Sharing in Christ’s Virtues: For a Renewal of Moral Theology in the Light of ‘Veritatis Splendor’ (trans. William May; Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), p. 19Google Scholar.