Well Said: Eschewing Adjectives and Jesus

Cornwell imputes ugly motivations to people though he has no way of knowing what drives them. Cornwell uses a trowel to smear thick layers of degrading adjectives on every priest, nun, or merely any Catholic he encounters. These are trite and transparent writer's tricks. Again, telling the truth is all about obeying William Carlos Williams' dictum: "no ideas but in things." Again, telling the truth in that way is not just a writer's discipline. It is a Christian's discipline. ...

Again, I marvel at how the Gospel writers didn't lather Jesus with adjectives. He isn't "kindly Jesus" or "angry Jesus" or "helpful Jesus" or "woman-friendly" Jesus. He is a Jesus of eyewitnesses disciplined and integral enough to record only what they saw: Jesus who lets children sit on his lap, Jesus who whips the moneychangers out of the temple, Jesus who turns water into wine at a friend's wedding, Jesus who has his longest and most interesting conversation with a woman, who saves a woman from killers, and who appears, first, to a woman after rising from the dead.

Danusha Goska, God Through Binoculars (unpublished)

I already loved those gospel writers. This just makes me appreciate them even more.