The New Pantagruel

"The New Pantagruel" (also known as "tNP" or "TNP") was an ecumenical Christian electronic journal published from 2004-2006 and patterned after hard-nosed "little magazines" like "The Partisan Review" with a satirical element reminiscent of "The Wittenburg Door", "Ship of Fools", and "The Onion". "tNP" was also billed by "Christianity Today" as the successor of the recently defunct "" (RQ). [Two "tNP" editors had in fact collaborated on a feature article for "RQ" that ended up appearing in the first issue of "tNP". (One had material already published in "RQ".) All the founding editors of "tNP" had been long-time participants in RQ's online discussion forum, several had written for RQ, and a few were regular critics of the magazine and its articles. "tNP" was founded in the fall of 2003 as an online publication after efforts to preserve or purchase the content of the RQ discussion forum from its owner, Christianity Today International, failed and the forum was lost. The first issue was published online in January 2004.]

In July 2004, a Saturday issue, page A1 feature in the "New York Times" by David D. Kirkpatrick deemed "tNP" a central voice in the debate over the future of American Conservatism [Kirkpatrick, David D., [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/arts/17CONS.final.html?ei=5090&en=828102e3a05108e4&ex=1247803200&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&adxnnlx=1091720200-/YKUvnwjdQc7bf7nNp6VXQ&pagewanted=print&position"Young Right Tries to Define Post-Buckley Future"] , "New York Times", July 17, 2004] . Throughout its three years of publication, the journal received national media attention in conservative and mainstream circles including "First Things", "Intercollegiate Review", "National Review", "Godspy", the "Dallas Morning News", and the "Lawrence Journal-World & News".

Namesake to the classic sixteenth-century work "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by French Humanist Francois Rabelais, "tNP" published essays on religion, politics, and culture on a quarterly basis, as well as reviews, original prose and poetry. "tNP"'s motto was "Hymns in the Whorehouse," a reference to a remark by Malcolm Muggeridge about his role as a journalist who criticized journalism. The Japery, the blog of a fictitious editor named Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J., provided running commentary of a satirical nature. A multi-user blog called Gargantua's Mouth was also developed at the "tNP" site but was never put into production.

"tNP" investigated various social and political topics such as localism, agrarianism, and anarchism, e.g., Christian anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. Indicative of its Chestertonian, distributist, and personalist tendencies, "tNP" promoted a catholic religious sensibility that implied a set of values and habits favoring commitment to land, family, local communities and their economies. A recurrent theme in "tNP"'s editorial material, many of its articles, and its discussion forum was to contrast the depth and wealth of Classical and Catholic culture with the superficiality and poverty of the contemporary West, particularly within the varieties of Anglo-American (and primarily conservative) Protestantism. Western Christianity in general tended to be seen as hollowed out and, if not liberalized on a theological level, neutered by tacit acceptance of the mundane habits, assumptions, and reflexes of life in wealthy, technocratic, advanced capitalist societies. In essence "tNP" was assimilating principally European and Catholic critiques of modernity that sought a "middle way" between Marxism and once, briefly, had a significant presence outside the United States, as in the British and Canadian Red Tory political tradition. Within U.S. history, "tNP" associated itself most strongly with the populist and agrarian traditions of the old Northeast, Southeast, and Great Plains regions.

In keeping with the editors' philosophical and theological views as well as their mundane commitments, editor Caleb Stegall and others frequently referred to "tNP" as a compromising, contradictory, and probably unsustainable effort in which any significant commercial success would be a kind of essential failure. Some of the life-deadening habits identified with blogging and being a "professional Christian" were outlined in a Jape essay entitled " [http://japery.newpantagruel.com/2005/12/05/blogging_kills.php Blogging Kills] ." The seriocomic argument made in this piece was perhaps reinforced by the experience of one-time "tNP" editor Rod Dreher. [Dreher, Rod., " [http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/2006/10/orthodoxy-and-me.html Orthodoxy and Me] ," BeliefNet, October 12, 2006.]

Probably due to this outlook, "tNP" never seriously pursued establishing itself as a commercially viable entity. It was operated under the auspices of Pantagruel Press, a Missouri non-profit incorporated by the head editors in order to receive tax-deductible donations. "tNP" ceased active publication of new material when its main editors felt they had achieved their goals with it as a no-budget operation, limited investigation of funding sources turned up few prospects, and no one involved aspired to make a career out of the journal.

Appearance and design

The journal's main publishing engine was Movable Type, and its typography, graphics, and layout aimed at making each page look like that of incunabula and sixteenth-century books, which in their time retained certain design features of manuscript books, such as incipits. "tNP"'s ornamental graphics, such as its dropcaps, were taken from scanned images of woodblocks used in the European Renaissance. Comments and trackbacks would appear as glosses in the margins around the main text of articles. Aesthetically this design alluded to the similarity between the "new media" culture of the early 21st century and the "old new media" culture from Gutenberg to the colonial news presses Ben Franklin worked on in his youth. The dialogic aspects of these technologies and traditions were self-consciously exploited by "tNP".

Editors

Caleb Stegall was "tNP"'s editor-in-chief for the duration of the journal's existence. Its editorial board was mostly composed of Evangelical and/or Reformed Protestants in their thirties with young families. Most of the editors were lawyers or academics in the arts or humanities. Most lived in the American midwest and had done their undergraduate studies at small, traditional, liberal arts colleges, usually ones with a Reformed or Evangelical identity and tradition. This no doubt contributed to their ideas, interests, populist sensibility and disdain for bi-coastal elites.

Politics

According to its [http://www.newpantagruel.com/issues/1.1/welcome_to_the_new_pantagruel.php stated purpose] , "tNP" was founded to resist the destructive, yet culturally dominant forces of western modernity by recovering the loose tradition of Pantagruelism [See a collection of entries about Pantagruelism at http://www.newpantagruel.com/pantagruelism.php] and the carnivalesque nature of Christian Humanism. Among these dominant forces to be resisted, Liberalism was the chief target though its definition, nature, and history were frequently debated. In general, Liberalism was understood as being the unrivalled political philosophy and cultural logic of the modern West and thus essential to the political right as well as the left. This view of Liberalism's dominance accounted for the overall dissatisfaction at "tNP" with mainstream political discourse and parties. While many involved with "tNP" had a kind of paleoconservative, traditionalist or social conservative and sometimes communitarian orientation, "tNP" editors and contributors frequently eschewed common political labels and categories, and their voting patterns and party affiliations varied widely. Critiques of liberalism at "tNP" drew from the political left and right or sources that are not possible to categorize or that explicitly reject the left-right taxonomy.

In a 2004 presidential election roundtable, most of the editors involved referred to having backed Ralph Nader and the Green Party in 2000. In 2004, opposition to President George W. Bush and the Iraq War seemed to make John Kerry the favored candidate, but Stegall and others tended to see the Republican Party as grievously dysfunctional but the least worst option. Nevertheless, current partisan politics were never the point of focus in articles published by "tNP". In one small instance of political activism, some of the editors signed and disseminated [http://www.newpantagruel.com/issues/2.1/editorial_statement_on_terri_s.php a statement of support] for the friends and family of Terry Schiavo, saying they were "morally free to contemplate and take extra-legal action as they deem it necessary to save Terri’s life, up to and including forcible resistance to the State’s coercive and unjust implementation of Terri’s death by starvation."

Stegall sometimes described "tNP" as providing a kind of "loyal opposition" nipping at the heels of leading Christian institutions (particularly those with ties to the Pew Charitable Trusts), public intellectuals, and political activists like neo-conservative Richard John Neuhaus. In one instance, [http://www.newpantagruel.com/images/NP-poster2.jpga poster advertising the first issue of "tNP"] drew special attention to a blast against Neuhaus and "embedded intellectuals" by contributing editor Eugene McCarraher. Undoubtedly tNP writers were harder in their opposition to people toward whom they felt they had no loyalty to at all, from Evangelical leftists Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren to Jonah Goldberg of "National Review" on the right. Goldberg, like Neuhaus, was [http://www.newpantagruel.com/images/NP-poster2.jpgan ongoing target] and engaged with Stegall in [http://crunchycon.nationalreview.com/ a month-long online debate] published at the "National Review" website. This debate about Conservatism was occasioned by Rod Dreher's book (which contained a section on Stegall), "Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)".

"tNP" found natural friends and allies among the proponents of the defunct "Caelum et Terra", the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and its various publications, and the pseudonymous "Spengler," a columnist for "Asia Times Online". Aside from a large number of pre-twentieth-century sources and influences, "tNP"'s editors and contributors took ideas from contemporary and twentieth-century maverick intellectuals who are not usually grouped together, defy political categorization, or occupy seemingly opposed political categories. Some of these figures are Roger Scruton, Wendell Berry, Christopher Lasch, Neil Postman, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan Illich, Eric Voegelin, T. S. Eliot, H. L. Mencken, Richard Weaver, Michael Oakeshott, George Grant, Eugene Genovese, Alasdair MacIntyre, Slavoj Žižek, and various Frankfurt School theorists.

Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

Fr. Jape's title at "tNP" was "expectorator, inquisitor et magister implicatus," and his blog's motto was from the Bible: "because ye were neither hot nor cold, I will spew you from my mouth." His "biography" in the journal's masthead alluded to Douglas Adams's and Umberto Eco's fiction and referred to leading Christian publications through crude comic variations of their titles:::Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S.J. was raised by Ukrainian peasants who sent him to be educated at the Jesuit mission in Crim Tartary where he studied bistromathics and metalogical pessimistics. He sends us his ingenious missives by carrier pigeon from the Cathedral of the Day Before Tomorrow. As far as he knows, Fr. Jape has only spiritual children. He is an avid reader of "What Crisis?", "Commonwhelp", "Christians Born Yesterday", "InterVarsity Press Books & Haute Couture", "Philosophers Stoned: A Journal of Marijuana Alchemy", and "Last Rites: the Journal of Sententious Prose and Mental Repose".

Fr. Jape's name was lifted from Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary". As Bierce states in his preface, "A conspicuous, and it is hoped not unpleasant, feature of the book is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenious cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father Jape's kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly indebted." The "quotations" attributed to Jape provide humorous information and doggerel for a number of entries on topics of a religious and/or sexual nature.

In the Japery and "tNP" Fr. Jape's usual targets were prominent Evangelical and Reformed Protestants or their publications, such as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and his journal, "First Things". Fr. Jape also had a somewhat regular, picaresque and frequently scatalogical editorial section in "tNP" which mixed a diverse array of cultural and intellectual topics with satire and toilet humor. This section of the journal was called "Swarming the Pub(l)ic Square: a continuing survey of the farce; or, where the folks are given the last word; or, a pointed laugh." This was a clear parody of Neuhaus's editorial commentary in "First Things" with a nod to Mikhail Bakhtin and his famous study of Rabelais. Fr. Jape also frequently commented on writing published in "Books & Culture", "National Review", "Christianity Today", and "Comment", a Neo-Calvinist publication of the Work Research Foundation which has ties to the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC). Most of these publications had, while "tNP" was active, created or were in the process of creating websites or blogs. Fr. Jape occasionally engaged other religion and politics' oriented online-only publications like "The Revealer" and GetReligion on various points where he agreed or disagreed with them, usually with regard to reportage about American religion and culture, particularly Evangelicalism. Many of the print publications named here published material by editors or contributors to "tNP" or had some of the same people on their own editorial rosters. This generated a variety of inter-related coterie audiences for the publication.

Various details about Fr. Jape's life and wanderings were disclosed in his writings, which were said to be received by carrier pigeon. Inspired by the fiction of Umberto Eco, Fr. Jape's character was reminiscent of the Wandering Jew or the Count of St Germain. His writings exhibited grotesque realism and disclosed that he was an exceptionally long-living participant in many famous and/or esoteric events from the sixteenth-century onward. Mildly mad, partly deaf, and always in possession of a swordcane, Fr. Jape responded to email correspondence and often added comments to other blogs.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.newpantagruel.com The New Pantagruel] website
* [http://japery.newpantagruel.com The Japery]
* [http://www.blogger.com/profile/11089347 Fr. Jape's Blogger Profile]
* [http://www.godspy.com/reviews/Reconnecting-with-Reality-Interview-with-Caleb-Stegall-by-David-Jones.cfm Interview with New Pantagruel editor Caleb Stegall] on [http://www.godspy.com Godspy.com]
* [http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2004/nov/20/local_conservatives_web/ Local conservative’s Web site catching on nationally] , "Lawrence Journal-World & News", by Eric Weslander, November 20, 2004
* [http://www.radioopensource.org/garry-wills-on-jesus/ Caleb Stegall with Harvey Cox and Garry Wills on the topic of Jesus] , Open Source Radio, broadcast April 11, 2006.