Eugene Peterson on G. M. Hopkins

There’s nothing like finding one of my favorite contemporary authors commenting on one of my favorite authors from another era.

I love the works of Eugene Peterson. His works on pastoral theology are outstanding, as have been the first three books of his new series on spiritual theology (see my comments on a few of them here and his influence on U2 here). He is best known for his paraphrase of the Bible, The Message.

I also love the poetry and writing of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was a Victorian era poet who went practically unknown until after his death. While living in the Victorian era, his poetry was really one of the clearest forerunners of Modern poetry, influencing numerous key modern poets such as T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. His poem “God’s Grandeur” awakened me to true, meaningful Christian artistry during my senior year of high school. I’ll never forget reading it for the first time. I was shocked by his rich and powerful language.

Take a listen to this ten-minute excerpt of Ken Myers’ interview with Eugene Peterson about his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. This is an outtake from Peterson’s interview for Mars Hill Audio, an excellent audio journal about the intersection of faith and culture. It’s not a fast-paced interview, but Peterson could never be accused of being fast-paced. In it, he discusses a wide variety of things from Hopkins’ poetry to A. W. Tozer’s understanding of idolatry and more in-between.