When None Will Follow
Authority & Obedience in Our Stories
Our American society cultivates in us a strong distaste for obeying authority. Anyone who desires evidence of this need look no further than the heroes furnished by our popular media. To compare the heroes of our modern movies or TV shows with those of traditional Western literature (Hector, Aeneas, Charlemagne, Aragorn, etc.) is to compare two radically different sets of archetypes. Each has its own distinct approach to authority and to the practice of submission, and each implicitly values a different kind of behavior in a human
being.
In traditional epics, the hero frequently has a band of men at his command. Beowulf lands on the Danish shore with fourteen armed warriors at his back; at the close of his story, he is the king of Geatland, and meets his noble end still leading a troop of his vassals against a dragon. So also in other traditional works: Aeneas musters the survivors of Troy; King Arthur rules the knights of his Round Table; Aragorn marshals the armies of
Gondor.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Christopher Hoyt is the organist/choirmaster at Good Shepherd Church in Tyler, Texas, and teaches Sacred Music at Cranmer Theological House (Reformed Episcopal) in Dallas. He was general editor of the hymnal, The Book of Common Praise/Magnify the Lord (2017) and is a composer of hymns and other church music (hoytcomposer.com).
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on literature from the online archives
24.1—January/February 2011
Ruminations on the Monstrous Envy of the Soul-Devouring State by Anthony Esolen
20.6—July/August 2007
The Beowulf Poet Was a Shrewd Christian Apologist by Douglas Wilson
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
On Flight & Fight in the Present Tribulation by Douglas Farrow
29.3—May/June 2016
Our Choice Is Obedience or Jesus as Anti-Christ by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
