The following comes from The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis (p. 131):

“For this tangled absurdity of a Need, even a Need-love, which never fully acknowledges its own neediness, Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence.  We become “jolly beggars.”  The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his Need.  He is not entirely sorry for the fresh Need they have produced.  And he is not sorry at all for the innocent Need that is inherent in his creaturely condition.  For all the time this illusion to which nature clings as her last treasure, this pretence that we have anything of our own or could for one hour retain by our own strength any goodness that God may pour into us, has kept us from being happy.  We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet-or one foot-or one toe-on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf.  The consequences of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom, power, or worth, are real freedom, power and worth, really ours just because God gives them and because we know them to be (in another sense) not “ours.”

The true enjoyments must be spontaneous and compulsive and look to no remoter end.

The World’s Last Night

CS Lewis enjoyed much of life.  He found great pleasure in an afternoon walk, a good book and a group of friends.  The simple things of life are very fulfilling.  The simple life is often scorned in our lifetime but somehow I believe we are driven back to the beauty of all things simple.  God’s creation is a constant reminder of the beauty of the simple things.  Flowers in the fields, majestic mountain crests and flowing rivers tell the story of the handiwork of God.  Their beauty is a reflection of God’s greatness.  Enjoy the simple things that God has given.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

“Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.”

The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.

“Welcome, child,” he said.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

–C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian (New York: Harper Collins, 1951), 141.

The ghosts of men are in the breach between hell and heaven and the bright spirits are those that have come to bring some home to heaven, while others decide to stay home in hell (Lewis’ theology on hell was not all that great).  Here is one conversation between the ghost of a man trying to decide on heaven or hell and the “Bright Spirit” of a man attempting to persuade him to heaven.  It is the second block quote that I find penetrating; John Owen expressed the same idea in his Mortification of Sin (in terms of drifting half-consciously into sin).

The ghost of a man:

I’m far from denying that young men may make mistakes. They may well be influenced by current fashions of thought. But it’s not a question of how the opinions are formed. The point is that they were my honest opinions, sincerely expressed.

The Bright Spirit of a man (“Bright Spirit” is capitalized in the book):

Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man’s mind. If that’s what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.

“The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.

Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom.

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.

Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.

Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Harper Collins, 1952/2001), 226-227.

My wife and I have been listening to the newly released audio drama of CS Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”–it’s very well done and enjoyable.  Below is an important thought I heard last night.  For those who haven’t read this great book, Lewis creatively uses a fictional demon named Screwtape to mentor his young nephew Wormwood in the art of temptation, and therefore provides round-about advice for Christians.

(from Chapter 25…)

Screwtape says…

“But the greatest triumph of all is to elevate this horror of the Same Old Thing into a philosophy so that non-sense in the intellect may reinforce corruption in the will.  It is here that the general Evolutionary or Historical character of modern European thought (partly our work) comes in so useful.  The Enemy loves platitudes.  Of a proposed course of action He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep men asking ‘Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?’ they will neglect the relevant (emphasis mine) questions.  And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends laragely on just those choices whcih they now invoke the future to help them to make.  As a result, while their minds are buzzing in this vacuum, we have the better chance to slip in and bend them to the action we have decided on.”

“In the Incarnation God the Son takes the body and human soul of Jesus, and, through that, the whole environment of Nature, all the creaturely predicament, into His own being.

So that ‘He came down from Heaven’ can almost be transposed into ‘Heaven drew earth up into it,’ and locality, limitation, sleep, sweat, footsore weariness, frustration, pain, doubt, and death, are, from before all worlds, known by God from within.

The pure light walks the earth; the darkness, received into the heart of Deity, is there swallowed up. Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?”

–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 70-71.

“I do not think that the life of Heaven bears any analogy to play or dance in respect of frivolity. I do think that while we are in this ‘valley of tears,’ cursed with labour, hemmed round with necessities, tripped up with frustrations, doomed to perpetual plannings, puzzlings, and anxieties, certain qualities that must belong to the celestial condition have no chance to get through, can project no image of themselves, except in activities which, for us here and now, are frivolous.

For surely we must suppose the life of the blessed to be an end in itself, indeed The End: to be utterly spontaneous; to be the complete reconciliation of boundless freedom with order–with the most delicately adjusted, supple, intricate, and beautiful order?

How can you find any image of this in the ’serious’ activities either of our natural or of our (present) spiritual life? Either in our precarious and heart-broken affections or in the Way which is always, in some degree, a via crucis?

No, Malcolm. It is only in our ‘hours-off,’ only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were place here to live.

But in this world everything is upside down. That which , if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 92-93.

Notes from lecture at RZIM by John Lennox

Reasonable Faith.

When he started at Cambridge – someone said to him, ‘Oh you’re Irish, you all believe in God, and fight about him.’

He started to engage more with non believers. Has done so in unusual places. Eg communist atheism.  Russia. More recently debating eg. Hitchens and Dawkins. Comes from the conviction that Christian faith is not only helpful, but TRUE. And if we do not stand up, secularism or atheism will appear to win.

1 Peter 3.13 Can anyone really harm you for being eager to do good deeds? Even if you have to suffer for doing good things, God will bless you. So stop being afraid and don’t worry about what people might do. Honor Christ and let him be the Lord of your life. Always be ready to give an answer when someone asks you about your hope. Give a kind and respectful answer and keep your conscience clear. This way you will make people ashamed for saying bad things about your good conduct as a follower of Christ.  You are better off to obey God and suffer for doing right than to suffer for doing wrong. Christ died once for our sins. An innocent person died for those who are guilty. Christ did this to bring you to God, when his body was put to death and his spirit was made alive.

This passage’s context = FEAR! We all contend with it. Subtle, peer pressure. Looking the odd one out. Not knowing your stuff. PC.

We are told to ALWAYS be ready to give a DEFENSE.

A REASON – a logos…

In the context of fear – nevertheless, get on and do it.

Apologetics is not a subcategory of philosophy. It is just what Christians have always been supposed to be doing. To clear up misrepresentation, misunderstanding. Not just to say WHAT, but WHY. To engage with our society and give REASONS.

Number 1 reason in survey why people don’t come to church = ‘They are not answering the questions we’re asking.’

The precondition for giving a defense is not how many books you’ve read. It’s ‘in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord.’ That requires WORK.  Sanctify him,’ set him apart.’ Then you get the courage to break through the fear. When we start doing this, we’ll get into trouble. In Acts, the gospel is on trial time and again. The apostles were put on trial. Laws these days from Europe etc are looking to outlaw anything that looks like an exclusive claim, we’ll have to contend that Jesus is THE way.

Paul’s answer when under pressure? He described how he encountered the risen Christ. He was NOT a believer, but then he met Christ. So he stands before Agrippa (who accuses him of being under the God delusion – this is not a new challenge!) and gives his testimony and then says, ‘I’m not insane, what I am saying is TRUE and REASONABLE.’ Our world resembles Paul’s world more than any other age has, politically, philosophically and socially.

FAITH in God is reasonable. Faith in atheism is not. Atheists don’t regard what they have as faith. They think faith is an evil. Dawkins damns it, ‘Faith not based in evidence, is the principle vice of any religion.’ The clamour is for the eradication of religion because it doesn’t want to look at the evidence.

The claim of new atheists goes like this:

Faith = belief nor based on evidence

Science = belief based on evidence.

Many accept that without question. But Faith can be evidence based.

We have to look at terms. Dawkins definition of faith is wrong! Oxford English Dictionary. Faith = from Fides. Trust at its heart. Pistis (Greek) = trust. Faith = “Belief = trust. Confidence. That which produces belief, evidence and trust in it.” And this is how we usually think of the word. People used to believe in banks. But they showed there is not much basis to trust them with your money. If you are going to trust anyone, you have to have evidence or you are a fool.

Faith/trust/ belief. The Question is – what’s the evidence for it?

People say, “I won’t believe anything unless you can prove it.’ But in a mathematical sense? Logical? You’ll have infinite regress. It’s ONLY available in pure maths. Nowhere else is proof in that narrow sense. Not certainty. But in ordinary life, we have trust enough to put our life on it. Cf Flying a plane. Trusting your wife.

When you leave your field of expertise, you must check with the experts. What Dawkins/ Hitchens call and dismiss as faith = what we’d call ‘Blind faith.’ And that is of course dangerous, especially when linked with autocratic religious structures.

Is the faith required by the Christian system unreasonable?

Why was gospel of John written? In order that belief can be BASED on it. These statements are based in historical reality.

Paul at Mars Hill did not offer the resurrections as PRODUCT of faith, but a REASON for it, a basis. The resurrection as a fact is the basis on which the Christian can trust in Christ as the Son of God. Not a leap in the dark, but a step into the light, based on evidence.

It’s useful to notice that we use faith followed by  THAT or IN.

Faith in my wife

Faith that London is the capital of England.

One = faith in a fact. One = in a person. You usually need more evidence to trust a person than a fact.

So as Christians we don’t just have faith in a theory, or a worldview (it is all that) but its faith in a person.  A husband on wedding day has faith enough to trust in his wife, without knowing everything. We don’t know everything about God, but we have enough to get started – and as the relationship develops, so does the trust.  Trusting in relationships is multi levelled. Shared interests, etc – multi-orbed. Faith in God is too. There is evidence of all kinds. Can be built up. So the first thing that’s wrong with thenew atheists view of faith is that wrong.

Dawkins has said in discussion with Lennox, “Atheists have no faith.” The answer to that? “So you don’t believe it then?”

Hitchens says: “Our principles are not a faith, our beliefs are not a belief.’ Hmmmm….

They put all religions in the same pot, because they are all dangerous aberrations. That’s a failure of scholarship, because it’s obvious that not all religions are the same.

One of the main accusations new atheists make is that God is communicated out of the barrel of a gun, leads to violence etc. How do we answer that?  Look at the stance of Christ. Jesus was accused of terrorism by Pilate. That’s why his trial is so important. And he was exonerated. ‘My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my followers would fight.’ The message you can’t defend with a gun is the one where you command them to follow the Prince of peace.

They also point out the unreasonableness of Christian faith, and say atheism had nothing to do with the massacres of Stalin, Mao etc., blame everything on God and nothing on atheism. We need to know our history!  Dawkins says he cannot imagine an atheist who would bulldoze a cathedral. Well Stalin used dynamite. Beware revisionist history.

Lennox endorses David Robinson’s book ; The Dawkins letters.

Also http://www.publicchristianity.com/historians response, the new atheists are outside their area and trying to rewrite history.

Dawkins says, “We are all atheists with regard to Odin and Zeus. It’s causing no problem to be A-Woden, what’s the problem with A-theist.’  He says its a negative and so can’t harm anyone. It’s no accident that he concentrates on A-Theism, denial of God, because he has a naturalist agenda.

In terms of the unreasonableness of faith he calls in the psychologists. However, Andrew Sims (President Royal college of Psychiatry) has written, “Is faith delusional?” and states that religion doesn’t damage but greatly helps mental health!

Freud saw faith = projection of your longing for a father.

Manfred Lutz says, ‘If there is no God, the Freudian explanation is spot on. But if there is a God, Freud will also show that there is in atheism a great desire for there NOT to be a God!’  That doesn’t deal in any case with the question, ‘Is there a God or not?’ For that, we have to look at EVIDENCE.

The idea that faith does not appear in science is wrong. All scientists are believers. They have to trust. They are commited to the idea that the universe is rationally intelligible, otherwise science is useless. The one incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible ‘ (Einstein).

So it’s not science vs religion. It’s materialism vs theism. Dawkins wants to argue science must lead to materialism. Not so!

Some say our brains are end product of a mindless process. From that, we get beliefs. Why trust that proposition? Logically incoherent to say that. You can’t do any science until you believe there’s reasonableness. it’s that belief in God which has inspired modern science.

Ford Car or Henry Ford. Which do you believe in? Choose! (that’s what the atheists want to say)

Ford car = laws of combustion.

Ford = designer and maker.

Two different categories!

The old chestnut is, “Who created the creator?” and so on…

Well you are there thinking about a created God, by definition. You are thinking of a created being to start with.

We agree, created Gods are a delusion. (idols). But there is an ETERNAL God.

You can choose to disbelieve that there is an eternal God.

You believe the universe created you? Who created your creator?!

The materialist’s ultimate reality – mass energy created everything. We believe God did it. Look at the evidence.

No thought is valid if it can be explained fully as the result of irrational causes…
A train of thought loses all rational credentials, as soon as it can be shown to be wholly the result of irrational causes.

C.S.Lewis, Miracles, p.27

I don’t know why I’ve put off reading St. Athansius’ On the Incarnation for so long. I’ve read about it and even quoted parts of it but haven’t gotten around to reading it. Sometimes when I’ve heard so much about something, I think I already know it and then don’t have the curiosity that usually motivates me to read it. C.S. Lewis explains another reason why people don’t read classical originals in the Introduction,

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library ashelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about “isms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the geat philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his geatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowedge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.

Eight pages into the original and I’m entranced. I am seeing foreshadowing of St. Dionysius as St. Athanasius talks about God’s creation ex nihilo, and am very much appreciating how he frames why Christ assumed humanity. Dr. (?) Lewis also says, “When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered I was reading a masterpiece… for only a master mind could have written so deeply on a subject with such classical simplicity.”

There’s also a quote from The Shepherd from Hermas that I recognize in the Divine Liturgy, “Believe thou first and foremost that there is One God Who created and arranged all things and brought them out of non-existence into being.” (Book II) p. 28

I’m glad I read Dr. Jones’s lengthy intro to St. Dionysius though, since his Corpus isn’t as simply written. It may be more simply written than Dr. Jones writes, but as I’ve shared before, I had a significant block to the Saint’s use of non-being in reference to God. I had to work through that with Dr. Jones. I’m still reading The Divine Names, but I don’t know if I’ll quote much of it. Now that my blockage has been removed, I’m just going to try to absorb it.

As you know, I am a history buff and I love hearing about some of the strange coincidences of history. As many of you may know and even remember, yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. First in our strange coincidence, is that both Alduous Huxley and C.S. Lewis both died the same exact day. within minutes of each other. Especially here in America, the later two have been mostly overlooked in the past. However, Peter Kreeft has written an interesting looking book called Between Heaven and Hell in which he sets up an imaginary dialogue between the three famous people who died on the same day and who had such differing views.

We will have more on Lewis next week as we celebrate his birthday. Jess is having me build a shrine type thing that we can set up . In light of the historic event that took place in Dallas 46 years ago yesterday I thought it would be interesting to share some interesting coincidences between the two most infamous assassinations in our nation’s history, Lincoln and Kennedy. Before I begin, I am not one of those who buys in to all of these things and I also know that you could do the same types of things for many people. Now that I have that out in the open enjoy reading some of these strange coincidences.

• Both Lincoln and Kennedy were concerned with civil rights
• Both lost children through death while in the White house
• Lincoln was elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960
• Both were slain on a Friday and in the presence of their wives
• Both were shot from behind and in the head
• Lincoln’s secretary, named Kennedy advised him not to go to the theater
• Kennedy’s secretary, named Lincoln advised him not to go to Dallas
• Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater, Kennedy was shot in a car made by Ford
• Both had Vice-Presidents named Johnson
• Both Vice-Presidents were southerners and former Senators
• Andrew Johnson was born in 1808 and Lyndon Johnson in 1908
• John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839, Lee Harvey Oswald in 1939
• Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse (not actually, it was a barn)
• Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater
• Both assassins were killed before being brought to trial.

The list could go on with more and more meaningless facts that we can connect to both cases, but since you have read this far already, I feel that I can’t waste any more of your time, have a great day.

I had the privilege of attending a C.S. Lewis conference in Oxford a few years ago on my sabbatical.  The closing event was a service at St. Mary’s church.  A British actor read Lewis’ sermon preached during WW II.  He called it The Weight of Glory (from a phrase in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Here is the link to the entire sermon. It is a masterpiece that adds greatly to our vision of eternity and to understanding the Imago Dei – humankind made in the image of God.
Christopher Mitchell in a wonderful article on Lewis’ evangelistic zeal demonstrates how Lewis “longed above all else for the unseen things of which this life offers only shadows, for that weight of glory which the Lord Christ won for the human race. And knowing the extraordinary nature of every human person, Lewis longed for and labored for their glory as well.”

An expanded quote we used in today’s sermon at Christ Church will whet your appetite:

It may be possible
for each to think too much of his own
potential glory hereafter; it is hardly
possible for him to think too often or too
deeply about that of his neighbour.
The load, or weight, or burden of my
neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on
my back, a load so heavy that only
humility can carry it, and the backs of the
proud will be broken. It is a serious thing
to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest
and most uninteresting person you talk to
may one day be a creature which, if you
saw it now, you would be strongly tempted
to worship, or else a horror and a
corruption such as you now meet, if at all,
only in a nightmare. All day long we are,
in some degree, helping each other to one
or other of these destinations. It is in the
light of these overwhelming possibilities, it
is with the awe and the circumspection
proper to them, that we should conduct all
our dealings with one another, all
friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations,
cultures, arts, civilization—these are
mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of
a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke
with, work with, marry, snub, and
exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting
splendours. This does not mean that we
are to be perpetually solemn. We must
play. But our merriment must be of that
kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind)
which exists between people who have,
from the outset, taken each other
seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no
presumption. And our charity must be a
real and costly love, with deep feeling for
the sins in spite of which we love the
sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence
which parodies love as flippancy parodies
merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament
itself, your neighbour is the holiest object
presented to your senses. If he is your
Christian neighbour he is holy in almost
the same way, for in him also Christ vere
latitat—the glorifier and the glorified,
Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.

—Christian British scholar C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

The post-modern world is rather fond of saying that there are no absolutes. A logical counter to this is to ask the relativist whether his statement about absolutes is absolute. He is in the difficult position of refuting his own claim whenever he states it. In rational debates this breaks the law of non-contradiction.

For several years, since reading Christian apologists like CS Lewis and Ravi Zacharias, I have been convinced that there is only one internally consistent worldview, and that is the biblical worldview. All other explanations of reason and existence cut the ground out from under themselves. Either the beliefs themselves are self-refuting, like the man who tried to disprove the existence of air; he was using air as he tried to deny it; or they reduce to absurdities; or they never really deal with the fundamental questions, but rely on borrowed but unadmitted presuppositions from other worldviews. In the final case, we consider their beliefs to be arbitrary, rather than rational.

My explanation could not have been termed with such clarity without first reading Dr. Jason Lisle’s new book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation. Creationists have plenty of evidence for the biblical history of the world. They have evidence contradicting the evolutionary and uniformitarian theories of origins. Bible-believing scientists are even doing real science all the time (science of observation and technological advancement to improve our lives), just as they have done for thousands of years. None of these things convinces a man committed to a naturalist worldview. But no naturalist can debate against the Bible, for evolution, or conduct science of his own without assuming things that can only be true if the things the Bible teaches are true. This is the ultimate proof, to engage skeptics on their worldview.

This method has several advantages. First, it keeps in mind that the motive for Christian apologetics is to glorify God and to invite non-Christians to be saved. Thoughtful meekness is what the Bible directs us to have when responding to critics. The Bible also teaches that if we do not live consistently with our beliefs, our critics have reason to ridicule us and those beliefs. Consistency is a biblical tactic.

Second, the Bible does give instructions for debate. Dr. Jason Lisle has applied two verses in Proverbs to his debating style. Do not let a skeptic convince you to fight on neutral ground when the question you are debating is inherently about the reliability of your ground as opposed to all others. For a Christian to abandon, for the sake of argument, his belief in God and dependence on the account of the Bible, is to surrender before he has even lifted his sword. But we can do an internal critique of the skeptic’s position, making apparent where he contradicts himself or leaves questions unanswered.

Third, and I really appreciate this one, a Christian apologist using these techniques does not need to be a PhD or have memorized an encyclopedia of scientific evidence for Creation. Creation science is valid and interesting, but not every believer is called to that kind of knowledge of the world as he is called to give a reason for the hope that is in him and to preach the gospel to every creature. In my experience, it is great for a philosophical person like me to team up with someone who knows a lot of facts, and to tag-team a discussion. Or I could practice a bit more so that I can have some representative cases of creationism scientifically supported.

The Ultimate Proof of Creation is an interesting book on logic and worldviews, exciting as I think of applying it. Think of watching the Discovery Channel and being able to identify the worldview being used, the presuppositions made, and the logical fallacies committed. This book enables you to do that. Or it can help when you’re trying to stay focused when witnessing to a friend who doubts the Bible. Learn to find ways to tie all questions into a question of faith: do you accept the ultimate standard of God, who created you – or do you reject Him and therefore all that depends on Him (including your will and rationality)?

To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn

I always loved reading as a child, and couldn’t understand why others didn’t. When I became a mother, I was sure my kids would share the same love for books that I had–but they didn’t.

For xmas a year back, I bought my daughter a set of Nancy Drew books. They were my fave at her age (9 1/2). I found them all under her bed, torn and ruined. I treasure books, and her lack of care turned me homicidal.

Instead of freaking out, I took a deep breath and formed a plan. There’s no way a child of mine won’t love books, it just can’t be. So I decided to read to her and my son instead. We act out the scenes and use rediculous voices for all the characters. This worked, but they still didn’t want to read for themselves.

Then one weekend, my daughter wanted to have a bunch of friends over. I said hell no, cause she got a C- in english. She’s in classes for gifted kids with above average I.Q.’s, a C- just won’t cut it. I told her the only way she could have friends over, was if they read the whole time. Well she agreed to this, and so did her friends.

I got together with another mom (an avid reader like myself) and we decided to choose a middle grade book for the girls to read. We came up with The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. It’s Harry Potter meets the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
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The girls loved it, and each wanted to get farther into the book than the others. My daughter now spends hours a day reading. Then their book club gets together and we have snacks and talk about the books. To my elated surprize, she’s REALLY reading, not just skimming through the pages (I made sure to read ahead of them so they couldn’t pull the wool over my eyes).

My kids aren’t allowed much sugar, only on certain occations, as is the same for the other kids in the book club. The other mothers and I agreed that the club meetings are the “sugar” days–another insentive to get the kids to continue reading. I want it to be fun for them, and I want them to be rewarded for their efforts. So far it’s working great.

I may seem like a tyrant, but I want my kids to have all the opportunities in life that I didn’t get. Education is so important, especially now. You can’t get to the top with out a degree. Even if my kids choose to do something that doesn’t need extensive education, reading is still a must.

I dropped out of high school early, adopted my brother’s child after he went to prison when I was 19, and struggled (still struggling) as a single mom. Everything I know, everything that got me anywhere, came from books. They are the most important tool out there in my oppinion.

Pot să se mute munţii, pot să se clatine dealurile, dar dragostea Mea nu se va muta de la tine, şi legământul Meu de pace nu se va clătina, zice Domnul, care are milă de tine.

[Isaia 54.10]

Deși sentimentele noastre vin și pleacă, dragostea lui Dumnezeu pentru noi rămîne.

C.S. Lewis

Cuvîntul Meu, care iese din gura Mea, nu se întoarce la Mine fara rod

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 75.

“Sunny day theology” is important.  Thinking deeply about the important issues of life, even things like death and suffering, is important in general, but more so in the times when, quite honestly, you’re not facing many of those problems head-on.  I don’t think reading the book of Job really is that helpful when you’re riding in the funeral limousine or sitting in one of those uncomfortable waiting room chairs in the hospital.  What you believe about the goodness and wisdom of God, the reality of evil and suffering, and the response of human beings to events largely outside their immediate control can’t be figured out in the rainy times.  One’s choices and beliefs during those dark seasons will largely be a reflection of choices/beliefs shaped during the happy times.  What I call “sunny day theology.”

CS Lewis’ book A Grief Observed stands as a great example of this.  This is perhaps one of the most heart-breaking and emotional pieces of anything I have ever read of Lewis.  In the wake of his wife’s death, Lewis simply chronicles the reactions and thoughts of his own heart.  Those who find themselves in or near such a rainy season will probably discover a strong emotional reaction to portions of the book.  Those in the sunny times may honestly not fare much better.

But for those who have read much of Lewis, we see that even in what at times is a tumultuous relationship between himself and God, Lewis’ “sunny day theology” sneaks through.  Major themes of his core beliefs– joy in God himself (not just the gifts), praise as both culmination and act of enjoyment, etc.–show up at key points to help Lewis along in his journey of grief.  It’s not as if his grief and pain caused him to abandon his sunny day theology, but rather they caused him to ask new questions which found many of the same answers he had known before.

New questions for old answers.  I like that.  But you don’t that without having some old answers…aka “Sunny Day Theology.”

This is a followup to writing about multi-ethnicity, race and culture and the culturally insensitive and offensive book, Deadly Viper. I’ve concluded that the only way to change that story is to boycott the book but even that is ineffective. And apparently the authors are “good guys” and they didn’t mean any harm. Okay.  Beyond that, I’m going to continue to follow and cheer on, virtually, my (new) Asian American contacts, for they must continue to raise their concerns about WHY this is so inappropriate.  If you want to do something, here’s the email for the appropriate person to contact at Zondervan, the VP of PR and Communication, Jason.Vines@Zondervan.com.

I keep reading on (mostly) from women blogging, and here, that aspects of Deadly Viper are offensive to women, to which I heave a sigh of frustration!  I don’t want to read their silly book.  I’m not ready to talk about my pain and concerns for Christian women in the church.  And I do not look forward to writing this post which is essentially about PAIN! Yes, pain.

Before you, dear reader, get annoyed because we women are always offended, please understand how much I do not want to talk about this, knowing you think I should stop whining.

For me it starts with questioning why people, but Christians especially, cause one another pain so needlessly?  And especially why do we cause pain for those that are different from us?  Why are Christians so dogmatic, so closed-minded, so unwilling to change, so proud, and so damn selfish?  This is a serious generalization, but I cannot stand the reputations that Christians have right now in the media and in any secular context.  I cannot stand the way many, many Christians behave, it’s embarrassing!  We, above all, as followers of Christ are instructed to love, as Jesus loved (Remember the poor, the meek, the widow, the prisoner.)

If a person is in pain, whose fault is it?  I’m especially cognizant of this question because I have three kids very close in age and my husband and I are constantly being called upon to administer justice. (i.e. break up fights.)  Is it: a) their own fault for being too sensitive or getting hurt? b) the fault of the person who caused the pain in the past so it’s pushing buttons and causing additional anguish, or c) the fault of the person who caused the pain this time?

I suspect though, as we try to figure out who did what to whom and why, that we are asking the wrong questions.  Someone was hurt and pain occurred.  Where do we go from here?  How to make it right.  How to create conversation and learn?  These are the things I try to work through with my children and these are the things we should focus on now, as it relates to very difficult painful experiences.

Let’s be real. Racism exists.  Homophobia is very real. And I can step up boldly to the mike and say: SEXISM IS REAL and alive, though I genuinely wish it were not so.  And it causes minorities, gays and women pain, sometimes deeply, scarring because it is often repeatedly happening.

And yet we live with it.  We learn to get along. Sometimes we even smile and act polite; we don’t want to offend.  occasionally, we get angry.  Women don’t want to be perceived as a bitch.  Christians don’t want to be perceived a liberal.  Many don’t want to be labeled a feminist.  Hardly anyone is willing to, dare I say it, admit to being a person that loves gay people.  And so we live with the pain of repeated offenses, getting along, and leaning on those who are the lightning rods for us, like Dr. Soong Chan Rah and Kathy Khang .   I’m not so sure who other lightning rods are for women but I appreciated Julie Clawson on the topic this week.

So where do we go from here?

I haven’t been in the fray for a long time.  And I haven’t missed it, not really.  But allow me to tell you a true story, the short version of nearly ten years of my life.  Every word is true although admittedly my perspective. I worked for many years for a para-church organization.  I was lucky in that  I was given tons of responsibility and opportunities for leadership.  I was using my abilities, influencing, it was a good place.   As fast as I could catch I was being thrown responsibility and I love it.  I was Gen X right when Gen X was a hot topic and I was able to bring that to the organization’s communications efforts.  admittedly, I was promoted quickly over just a few years.

Running parallel to this was a tension growing between myself and another leader.   He was older (by two decades ), intellectual, theological, super influential and made a big splash all the time and he had made himself integral to all aspects of the organization.

I was an up and comer and although people liked my work, and my work ethic and my productivity, it wasn’t long before it was clear that we were competitors.  There are more spiritual ways of saying it without sounding crass, but there’s only so much turf in a small organization and we both wanted it.  Were fighting for it all the time.  Oh, not to each others’ faces but in everything we did we were working toward taking charge of the area of communication. Trust me I was not a perfect leader by any means, but I would say probably my greatest vice (other than an insane desire to be perfect and in control of everything and working too hard) was working my staff too hard and not providing enough coaching.  No one had ever coached me and I didn’t know how, but that’s another topic (throwing leaders into the fire without grooming them.)  His vice?  Temper temper.  He threw a Bible at my friend in anger.  He treated people (below him) horribly.  Severe abuse which I would hear about and would bring up with my supervisor and it hit the President’s office and stayed there.  They were buddies.

Being an emotional person, I cried floods of tears at home in bed to my husband and I prayed, but at work I tried to prove to everyone what I “just knew” — that I was supposed to be the one in charge.  I was young, innovative, I was ‘the future.’  Meanwhile, I was also having babies while working full-time.  I would have these meetings with my supervisor where I would try to make him understand how horrible it all was the infighting and how people were being treated and that people were leaving the organization because of this person, and as he said “We waded through blood together.”

Then one day he brought me into his office and he had a time line on the whiteboard.  I kid you not, he had a time line for my life where I would finish out the current assignment, I would go be a mommy for a few years, and this person would have retired and then I would come back and rule!  Once I got over the hurt, knowing that he was done advocating for me AND  he was essentially telling me I had gone as far as I was going to there.  So I finished the gig I had and quit.  That was nine years ago and I haven’t gone back and they haven’t asked me.  Draw your own conclusions.

AND SO I FOUND A PARTIAL COPY OF DEADLY VIPERS ONLINE.

I began to read.  I first learned one of the authors owns a Media Firm (Yikes! What a revelation!)  They need some sensitivity training.  But I digress, sort of.  I’d like to ask the authors of Deadly Vipers if they have daughters.  Because if they do, how can they speak so diminutively about girls and women?  Here’s an example:

“there’s little old us looking like school girls with plaid skirts on, because we are unskilled and undisciplined in the area of character. We’re weaklings with rail skinny arms and toothpick legs.” DV, page 8

I have a daughter.  I am a daughter and a woman and I must say I resent being used as an example of weak and pathetic, totally lacking in character and discipline and I do not want my daughter thinking that she is either.  Even worse, would be my sons learning about “leadership” from macho, cool, trendy dewdes.

These guys are my worst nightmare.  They even make fun of ugly people!! Yes, I mean nerds, geeks, “four eyes,” me.  Yep guys, you’ve gone and made me mad.  How can you use ugly people in such a way?  So that did make me cringe and wonder at their sophomoric attempts at humor, and cool, and their strange lingo.  But I stopped reading when I read the phrase:  “We are asking you to go balls out with us.” mostly because I had to look it up.  They can’t mean what I think they mean …?  Go look for yourself, but I can tell you that you exclude women from your book at this point boys, as this is something that we just physically can’t do.

So forget about Deadly Vipers.  I’m tired of that topic already and I don’t really want to beat up on these poor guys.  They are just trying to be cool, and hip and relevant.  Just trying is what they are doing, trying too hard.

I shall put my Communications hat on for a second and tell Zondervan and their PR people what I think.

1) Say you’re sorry and you messed up, when you’re sorry and you mess up. Just do it cause it will make you a stronger person. Humility is a part of integrity.  Then, fix it.

Once I produced a poster for a convention featuring all sorts of images of people serving in different capacities.  What I didn’t notice, nor did the graphic designer, or a whole slew of other people who saw the thing, that all of the servees were ethnic and/or darker skinned and the servers were lighter skin.  The posters got a reaction from our multi-ethnic staff.  I was crushed.  But I had messed up.  So, I pulled the posters and they were trashed.  We quickly redid a promo poster and I can tell you that I will never forget that.  Not because I messed up, but becuase I saw how you can do so and survive if your heart is remorseful and you are willing to change.

2) Change your infrastructure. You must have women and minorities at the table on all levels of your organization if you want to stop making these huge grotesque blunders.  (Well they are huge and grotesque to me.)  In the board room, in the leadership, in the communications team, as your artists and ideas people.  I’m not an ethnic minority so I can’t speak to that, but there are people who consult on such things who could generally help the communications of an organization by having advice on the ways that you communicate and what you’re saying.  I am a woman with a background in communications/marketing and I could easily look over anything quickly to tell you if it’s insulting to women.

3) If that seems too impossible a task (to hire us I mean) then get your organization some cultural sensitivity training.  Again, tons of firms that could help both secular and Christian.  Every person on staff should get such training.

And then tonight I read about Presidential hiring process at Wheaton College and to be honest I had no idea it had gotten to be so backward.  One would assume that Wheaton would hire the best qualified person.  Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex is not only illegal, but morally wrong.  I cannot believe that people feel they need to ask that some women and minority candidates be considered,but like Justice Sonia Sotomeyor said,

“if you are a white male who thinks that race and gender don’t matter, conjure up the image of a Supreme Court made up of all-hispanic and black women, and you will know how the rest of the US feels when faced by the prospect of an overwhelmingly white male Supreme Court.”

If women want an equal world, we have to work for it by accepting positions of authority and responsibility.  Not by walking away from the fight, like I did.  But I gave it everything and frankly almost lost my faith in the process.  And so, I have to look forward to a day when men work side by side with women,  people of every color and stripe, with joy and common purpose. That did not happen for me, but I speak out because I hope that things will be better for my sons and daughters, for my nieces and nephews who are all bi-racial or of a minority culture.   It will be a better world for them.  It just has to be.

Fundamentally, it is our hearts that give us up every time.  And out of our hearts spew what we believe.  It’s our hearts that need changing.

CS Lewis wrote: The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.

Enough for tonight.

“Every church service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best– if you like, it ‘works’ best– when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it.

As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling.

The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping…

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the question ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion to waste.

There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put.

But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship.”

–C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 4-5.

In my last post, I said that C. S. Lewis did not begin his journey to faith by trying to substantiate the claim of the Bible; he started with no claim at all and came to believe in the Bible by gradual steps.

It is always better to underestimate the value of a claim and be proven wrong than to be proven wrong at overestimating the value of a claim. This is a principle that most of us know all too well. Since our world is cluttered with advertisements, many of us are well aware that we should be cautious at overestimating the value of a catchy slogan or an incredible promise. If we read an advertisement and think “That’s too good to be true,” most of the time it really is. We still have to read the small print to find out the catch to it.

It is the same with the Bible. Better to start by supposing it is not divinely inspired and to later find out that Got is behind it after all, than to start by believing an outrageous claim only to be disappointed.

If you’re interested, you can read more about C. S. Lewis’ faith in relation to the Bible in The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible: What the Greatest Christian Writer Thought About the Greatest Book.