Letter to EDWARD LOFSTROM from C S Lewis...
16 January 1959
1. I am afraid I don’t know the answer to your question about books of Christian instruction for children. Most of those I have seen—but I haven’t seen many—seem to me namby-pamby and ‘sissie’ and calculated to nauseate any child worth his salt. Of course I have tried to do what I can for children—in a mythical and fantastic form by my seven ‘Narnian’ fairy tales. They work well with some children but not with others. Sorry this looks like salesmanship: but honestly if I knew anything else I’d mention it.
2. Of course. ‘Gentle Jesus’, my elbow! The most striking thing about Our Lord is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness. (Remember Pascal? ‘I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one’s greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between.’)
Add to this that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist. So go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. He’ll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired as the doll can’t.
3. ‘For him who is haunted by the smell of invisible roses the cure is work’ (MacDonald). If we feel we have talents that don’t find expression in our ordinary duties and recreations, I think we must just go on doing the ordinary things as well as we can. If God wants to use these suspected talents, He will: in His own time and way. At all costs one must keep clear of all the witchdoctors and their patent cures—as you say yourself.
From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Showing posts with label Lamb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lamb. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2015
Monday, May 06, 2013
Denying Imperialisms
The Christian points to Jesus as the master-clue in the common search of humanity for salvation and invites others to follow. It is true that this invitation, when it is given by Christians who are in positions of power and privilege, may be radically corrupted into a kind of spiritual imperialism which is oppressive rather than liberating. Missions have been guilty of this distortion and we have to acknowledge it. But it is also worth noting that most of the vigorous evangelism in our contemporary world is being done by the churches of the Third World which have no such power or privilege.
In similar vein Dr. Samartha calls on Christians to "contribute to the pool of human values such as justice and compassion, truth and righteousness in the quest of different people for spiritual and moral values to undergird viable political structures to hold together different religions, cultures, languages and ethnic groups" (ibid., p. 323). He indicates that we must work for secular political structures which will give space for the different religions to make their contributions. It is indeed the duty of Christians in multifaith societies to cooperate with people of other faiths in seeking a just ordering of society, but this is in no sense a substitute for the missionary preaching of the Church. In using the language of values, Dr. Samartha reveals his captivity to the post-Enlightenment worldview which separates facts from values and supposes that what are called values can be permanently sustained apart from some agreement about what are the facts. For centuries Orthodox Hindus believed that the miserable condition of the outcastes or untouchable communities was the result of the sins of their previous birth and that it was therefore part of the cosmic order not to be interfered with. By common consent the preaching of missionaries among these communities was one of the major factors, if not the decisive factor, in bringing about the change of view which has led to legislation (often-alas-ineffective) to give them justice. There is a struggle within Hinduism to relate the demand for justice and compassion to the traditional belief. The "values" of justice and compassion cannot be permanently sustained apart from some belief about the facts which correspond to these values. Christians cannot simply "contribute" these values as if they were contributions to a potluck supper. Questions of ultimate truth are involved. There is a longing for unity among all human beings, for unity offers the promise of peace. The problem is that we want unity on our terms, and it is our rival programs for unity which tear us apart. As Augustine said, all for secular political structures which will give space for the different religions to make their contributions. It is indeed the duty of Christians in multifaith societies to cooperate with people of other faiths in seeking a just ordering of society, but this is in no sense a substitute for the missionary preaching of the Church. In using the language of values, Dr. Samartha reveals his captivity to the post-Enlightenment worldview which separates facts from values and supposes that what are called values can be permanently sustained apart from some agreement about what are the facts. For centuries Orthodox Hindus believed that the miserable condition of the outcastes or untouchable communities was the result of the sins of their previous birth and that it was therefore part of the cosmic order not to be interfered with. By common consent the preaching of missionaries among these communities was one of the major factors, if not the decisive factor, in bringing about the change of view which has led to legislation (often-alas-ineffective) to give them justice. There is a struggle within Hinduism to relate the demand for justice and compassion to the traditional belief. The "values" of justice and compassion cannot be permanently sustained apart from some belief about the facts which correspond to these values. Christians cannot simply "contribute" these values as if they were contributions to a potluck supper. Questions of ultimate truth are involved.
There is a longing for unity among all human beings, for unity offers the promise of peace. The problem is that we want unity on our terms, and it is our rival programs for unity which tear us apart. As Augustine said, all wars are fought for the sake of peace. The history of the world could be told as the story of successive efforts to bring unity to the world, and of course the name we give to these efforts is "imperialism." The Christian gospel has sometimes been made the tool of an imperialism, and of that we have to repent. But at its heart it is the denial of all imperialisms, for at its center there is the cross where all imperialisms are humbled and we are invited to find the center of human unity in the One who was made nothing so that all might be one. The very heart of the biblical vision for the unity of humankind is that its center is not an imperial power but the slain Lamb.
Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, pages 158-9
In similar vein Dr. Samartha calls on Christians to "contribute to the pool of human values such as justice and compassion, truth and righteousness in the quest of different people for spiritual and moral values to undergird viable political structures to hold together different religions, cultures, languages and ethnic groups" (ibid., p. 323). He indicates that we must work for secular political structures which will give space for the different religions to make their contributions. It is indeed the duty of Christians in multifaith societies to cooperate with people of other faiths in seeking a just ordering of society, but this is in no sense a substitute for the missionary preaching of the Church. In using the language of values, Dr. Samartha reveals his captivity to the post-Enlightenment worldview which separates facts from values and supposes that what are called values can be permanently sustained apart from some agreement about what are the facts. For centuries Orthodox Hindus believed that the miserable condition of the outcastes or untouchable communities was the result of the sins of their previous birth and that it was therefore part of the cosmic order not to be interfered with. By common consent the preaching of missionaries among these communities was one of the major factors, if not the decisive factor, in bringing about the change of view which has led to legislation (often-alas-ineffective) to give them justice. There is a struggle within Hinduism to relate the demand for justice and compassion to the traditional belief. The "values" of justice and compassion cannot be permanently sustained apart from some belief about the facts which correspond to these values. Christians cannot simply "contribute" these values as if they were contributions to a potluck supper. Questions of ultimate truth are involved. There is a longing for unity among all human beings, for unity offers the promise of peace. The problem is that we want unity on our terms, and it is our rival programs for unity which tear us apart. As Augustine said, all for secular political structures which will give space for the different religions to make their contributions. It is indeed the duty of Christians in multifaith societies to cooperate with people of other faiths in seeking a just ordering of society, but this is in no sense a substitute for the missionary preaching of the Church. In using the language of values, Dr. Samartha reveals his captivity to the post-Enlightenment worldview which separates facts from values and supposes that what are called values can be permanently sustained apart from some agreement about what are the facts. For centuries Orthodox Hindus believed that the miserable condition of the outcastes or untouchable communities was the result of the sins of their previous birth and that it was therefore part of the cosmic order not to be interfered with. By common consent the preaching of missionaries among these communities was one of the major factors, if not the decisive factor, in bringing about the change of view which has led to legislation (often-alas-ineffective) to give them justice. There is a struggle within Hinduism to relate the demand for justice and compassion to the traditional belief. The "values" of justice and compassion cannot be permanently sustained apart from some belief about the facts which correspond to these values. Christians cannot simply "contribute" these values as if they were contributions to a potluck supper. Questions of ultimate truth are involved.
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| St Augustine |
Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, pages 158-9
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Creative
God makes wine. For all its difficulties, there is no way around the doctrine of creation. But notice the tense: He makes; not made. He did not create once upon a time, only to find himself saddled now with the unavoidable and embarrassing result of that first rash decision.... It was St. Thomas, I think, who pointed out long ago that if God wanted to get rid of the universe, He would not have to do anything; He would have to stop doing something. Wine is -- the fruit of the vine stands in act, outside of nothing -- because it is His very present pleasure to have it so. The creative act is contemporary, intimate, and immediate to each part, parcel and period of the world.Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Beatitudes
Too often those characteristics [of the Beatitudes] - the poor in spirit, those that mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted - are turned into ideals we must strive to attain. As ideals, they can become formulas for power rather than descriptions of the kind of people characteristic of the new age brought by Christ; for the beatitudes are not general recommendations for anyone but describe those who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb. It is they who will hunger and thirst no more, having had their lives transformed by Christ's cross and resurrection.
Stanley Hauerwas: Hannah's Child - a theologian's memoir, pg 38 [Kindle edition]
Stanley Hauerwas: Hannah's Child - a theologian's memoir, pg 38 [Kindle edition]
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