Robert Farrar CaponCritiques

The world of theological discourse, writes Robert Farrar Capon, is frequently filled with flawless perfectly matched king size wedges of baloney. It should be, he insists, a serious but loving word game whose basic rule is that every word, and particularly every image, must be examined and used with the greatest possible care. In this book he shows us why no words of ours can ever be trusted to mean the same thing when used about ourselves on the one hand and about God on the other.

"To anyone who presumes to lecture you on housewifery as an abject capitulation to the feminine mystique. Simply let him see you presiding over your kitchen with steel in one hand and butcher knife in the other. Execute six well-drawn strokes, and his words will turn to ashes in his mouth." — Capon

Some of the recipes hold up, notwithstanding a certain theological casuistry which dissolves the lamb (shank) into a parade of symbols justifying its own consumption (this is the other kind of Tin Violin-ing). The Compleat Angler remains the novel model for "the [gentleman] who considers everything more important than [eating] and yet has discovered very few better things to do." (Frye)

Though it is remarkable how the misogyny of the contemporary american neonazi is not incomparable to that of the mid-century deipnosophist writing for a general audience. (This is due to a characteristic lack of imagination.)

Gospel parables today

I’m not a cook, and I don’t enjoy it when I have to do it. I’m more willing to go without a meal than spend time on cooking one. So I have no business reading a book about cooking. But since this book is about more than that, I figure I haven’t broken any laws by reading it.
Since I’m usually such a stickler for reading every word (or it doesn’t count), I must admit I did not read the 70 or so pages of recipes at the end of the book. If I were a cook, I would buy it for the recipes, because this guy sure knows what he’s doing.
This collection of essays that all tie into a recipe called Lamb for Eight Persons Four Times was written by an Episcopalian priest in the late sixties. So besides getting his thoughts on food and the way we approach cooking, eating, and life in general, I felt like I got a peek into a different culture from a different time.
His essays were thoughtful, well-written, and often quite funny. There were two parts that made me laugh the most: when he cursed margarine to outer darkness in one chapter, and in the last chapter “The Heart that Burns,” where he sang the praises of baking soda as a heartburn remedy to the extent that he presented an imaginary reward to it.
This is one I wish I’d been reading on my kindle so I could highlight all the goodness.
Highly recommended, whether or not you love cooking.

This is a book that I needed to read this season. It teaches sacred and full attention to the facts of creation.

"Man's real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God's image for nothing."

It is almost certain that this is the only book of theology that has an entire chapter on bread which does not mention the Eucharist. The chapter is about the radical simplicity, complexity, and universality of bread, especially in combination with two other beauties of creation, butter and cheese. It is about humans (you) getting your hands covered in God's creation while you knead it into an unexpected delight, bread.

Father Capon probably uses "you" on every page. I'm a lector in our church, and when I read Paul, I always find where he says "you", because he really means you, personally. Not some generic "you", but you yourself, now. Who might benefit from kneading some bread.

Take one author, combine a priestly vocation with a culinary avocation, simmer for a couple of decades, and you’ll end up with The Supper of the Lamb. This book is a deeply theological reflection on food, its preparation, and fellowship around the table. The title, borrowed from Revelation 19, hints at the eschatological momentum of the text, as the loving preparation of each meal leads us ever closer to the ultimate feast – the heavenly marriage supper of the Lamb.

And there are recipes.½

Wow, whadda book.

20.75

Once again, it's almost impossible to classify Capon's writing. Part parable, sermon, and coffee-chat, this book tackles the concept of grace with a perspective I've never quite considered. No one can write like Capon, and I'm tempted to just list a bunch of quotes. With his signature dry wit, Capon angered and annoyed me with his description of grace, and then casually pulled the rug out from under me, showing me how performance-oriented I still am. Added bonus: this is the best defense against antinomianism I've encountered - not because of the theological arguments (that was there) but because Capon's imagery and storytelling convey his points so much more organically. Capon uncannily anticipates and answers my logical pushbacks just before I've quite articulated them myself.

And because I can't resist:
"The church, by and large, has a poor record of encouraging freedom. She has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that she has made us like ill-taught piano students: we play our songs, but we never really hear them because our main concern is not to make music but to avoid some flub that will get us in the dutch... [we] live, not in fear of mistakes, but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love that draws us home. ...Grace - the imperative to hear the music, not just listen for errors - makes all infirmities occasions for glory."

"Now then. Ask yourself a question. Do you seriously think that, in their joy at having been admitted with all their deformity, they will somehow begin to think more kindly of their ugliness? Do you imagine that the man with no nose will suddenly come to the conclusion that he has been given *permission* to have no nose? Do you think he will stop wanting a nose? Can you believe that at this moment of unmerited acceptance he will begin to take pleasure, not in our acceptance of him but in his own noselessness? That he will, as a logical consequence, begin to advocate cutting off everybody's nose? Of course you don't."

I picked up this book ignorantly expecting a theological discussion of the Eucharist, only to find I'll never look at an onion the same way, and I'm re-inspired to try my hand again at baking croissants. Capon writes in a slow, meandering, whimsical style; perhaps reminiscent of Chesterton, and certainly lending itself to savouring.

"Cookbook" is too mean a classification; although I'll refer to it time and again for the recipes, I realized this book is more a celebration of simple, material things, giving hope and anticipation for the great feast that awaits us in the life to come. In mindfulness of the goodness of even the smallest and most insignificant of God's gifts (mushrooms!), we become aware of C. S. Lewis's 'sehnsucht' - that 'inconsolable longing' of being made in God's image yet waiting to be finally realized into the fullness of what he's created us to be.

The book is billed as a fresh, adventurous look at the parables of Jesus, so we'll see how it goes. I don't remember how I came to have this book, but from what I have read, it may be a little too free and adventurous for my taste. Could be a challenge.

I simply cannot cut an onion without thinking on this book!

Capon has an admirably colloquial prose style and a light touch, which suits his theological angle well: though the author insists he's no universalist, he leans in that direction, and God's grace is his central theme. He argues that the salvific work of Christ is automatically applied to all of humanity and that only positive rejection of it is grounds for anything approaching damnation. In his treatment of the three categories of parables, he works from clear paradigms: the kingdom parables are about God's use of "left-handed power" (weakness and near non-intervention as opposed to the usual "right-handed" sort), the parables of grace are all about death and resurrection, and the parables of judgment proclaim inclusion before exclusion. All these themes weave throughout all the parables, but each category has its strongest thread.

(I ramble a bit more here: http://readingatwhim.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/kingdom-grace-judgment-by-robert-f...

A scrumptious book that will literally leave your mouth watering, Capon’s Supper of the Lamb is to be recommended not just to foodies as it is much more than the celebration of food. It is the celebration of life itself.

This book is not so much a deep theological book, however, the material it does present is done so quite adeptly. Capon is a genius with the English language and his imagery is exquisite.

I wanted to write this book, myself! Oh well, Mr. Farrar beat me to it (a long time ago) and he probably did a better job. Excellent in every sense.

So awesome. Especially love his exposition on the differences between cocktail and dinner parties.

Within seven pages of the beginning, this book had hit my all-time favorites list. Anyone who has ever eaten food, or plans to eat food in the future, must read this book; buoyant, joyful, gritty, delicious, hilarious, and reverent, it richly deserves every accolade.

Within seven pages of the beginning, this book had hit my all-time favorites list. Anyone who has ever eaten food, or plans to eat food in the future, must read this book; buoyant, joyful, gritty, delicious, hilarious, and reverent, it richly deserves every accolade.

Within seven pages of the beginning, this book had hit my all-time favorites list. Anyone who has ever eaten food, or plans to eat food in the future, must read this book; buoyant, joyful, gritty, delicious, hilarious, and reverent, it richly deserves every accolade.

The author accurately described this book as "culinary and theological snack food." It consists of twenty six very short stories on theology or cooking. They are set about the characters of Pietro and Madeleine, who parallel the author and his wife. In many of them the two are having a conversation.

It is "snack food" in that the theology portions are very light and leave you wanting more. Not in the bad way, but in the way that prompts you to go on to have a more fulfilling meal later.

The cooking portions are a bit over my head, even though I'm a more accomplished cook than most of my peers. I can only aspire to be able to have such an easy familiarity with food as the author exhibits in this text.

As a whole I was left with the feeling that I missed a lot of the implications of the stories. I fear I am not quite clever enough to get everything he was trying to say.

There are two quotes I bookmarked to save.

From "Carlo the Crass"
Heresy cannot profitably be attacked by telling heretics they are wrong. To do so betrays a fatal ignorance of what heresy is. It is not an error; rather, it is a truth held in such isolation from other truths that it necessarily becomes only a half-truth.

From "Mystery Train"
"But if certain behavior is wrong, doesn't the church have an obligation to tell people so? And aren't even parents under the same obligation to help their children say No to cigarette smoking?"

"They certainly may do so as representatives of the Friend of Sinners, but not, I think, at the price of giving the world the impression that either the church's or the family's principal business is sin-prevention. God in Jesus didn't prevent sinners from sinning, he went around forgiving them right and left. If we want to represent him, we shouldn't misrepresent his methods. We should instead busy ourselves with the twin jobs of forgiveness and healing--with, in short, the Gospel work of raising the dead by laying down our lives for our friends. The world is not a collection of good listeners waiting for the right advice to come down the track; it's a bunch of corpses totally immune to talk. Its resurrection is not in the least facilitated by a surgeon-general's warning that sin should have been avoided in the first place."½

Slow, beautiful - great read for mindful cooking and eating.½

Precisely the right sort of book for shaking you out of your evangelical presuppositions without assaulting your orthodoxy. Fr. Capon unpacks the first three chapters of Genesis, gores lots of Sacred Bulls, and honors the Gospel and Christ without ever leaving the bounds or orthodox Christian belief. One of the more memorable and worthwhile books I own. Highly recommended.½

I like this guy. My problem is that I think this is the sort of cookery book I'd write. He's a windbag, like me. He's always aware of just how clever he is, like me. He reminds me in his writing of all the things I dislike about my writing. Having said that, he's a pretty good writer in spite of my qualms.

Robert Farrar Capon describes himself as having had, for almost fifty years, a vacation to the priesthood. It is a vacation he has shared in an array of breezy, sometimes flippant, always dependably and engagingly playful writing. He is still on vacation, and readers who know him as well as those who don't will be grateful. Needless to say, there is nothing formal about this history; but it is packed with information gleaned from decades of pastoral experience and theological reflection. And it is a serious proposal for a transformation of Christianity thoroughly grounded in Christian tradition. Capon maintains that the heart of Christianity is a proclamation of the end of religion; that much of church history has been a denial of that heart in the construction of Christendom; and that the transformation of Christianity demands the death (not just the prolonged dying) of Christendom. Capon's message to Christendom is "Drop dead"-an astonishing message from a priest, perhaps, but astonishment is what resurrection is all about.