C.S. Lewis: The Nooks and Crannies of Sin

*** “I felt sure that the creature was what we call ‘good,’ but I wasn’t sure whether I liked ‘goodness’ so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat, and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible; the last card has been played” (Perelandra).

Lewis combined a love of goodness and virtue without the typical concomitant pretense to having achieved much of it himself. Lewis was not politically correct. He believed in depravity all the more as his vision of God grew. Lewis loved truth more than his own honor. By his own account Lewis suffered more from selfishness (the desire to have one’s way) than from self-centeredness (fixation upon and fascination with oneself and how one is viewed by others). This comparative division of weakness freed Lewis to “let God be true and every man a liar,” more clearly and boldly than is usual.

Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher: Theological Fair Play

*** Barth on Schleiermacher:

“We have to do with a hero, the like of which is but seldom bestowed upon theology. Anyone who has never noticed anything of the splendor this figure radiated and still does―I am almost tempted to say, who has never succumbed to it―may honorably pass on to other and possibly better ways, but let him never raise so much as a finger against Schleiermacher. Anyone who has never loved here, and is not in a position to love again and again may not hate here either.”

No more profound, no more thoroughgoing, no more devastating critique of the theology of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher compares to the one Barth would bring. Barth traced most of what he found objectionable in modern theology from around 1825 until his death in 1968 to the influence of Schleiermacher. When it comes to theological persnicketiness and the leveling of withering critiques against rival theological approaches, Barth takes a back seat to no one.

But Barth evidenced acceptance of two convictions held and propagated by my doctoral supervisor: (1) We cannot critique what we have not understood and (2) we usually do not understand what we have not first engaged sympathetically. Barth’s tip of the hat to Schleiermacher was prompted in part by the appearance of a scathing rejection of Schleiermacher published by Emil Brunner in 1924. By not taking seriously the two pre-conditions for understanding and critique, Barth believed Brunner not only “got Schleiermacher wrong,” but fell into the trap Schleiermacher set for theology in the 19th and 20th centuries; namely, the abandonment of theology for anthropology.

Be that as it my, the two convictions certainly help define a “do unto others” context for theological dispute.

Taking a Break from Luther

***“Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin” (Letter to Eduard Thurneysen, June 8, 1922).

The musings of the 36 year old Karl Barth upon acceptance of the Chair in Reformed Theology at Göttingen after his own “bombshell dropped into the playground of the theologians,” his peculiar commentary “The Epistle to the Romans,” made him a star in the theological world.

Do not imagine that acquaintance with Calvin’s disciples or Calvin’s interpreters approaches acquaintance with the man himself. He did not get to be Calvin by spoiling otherwise happy gatherings with fierce debates about predestination and an angry God. Read him for yourself. Start with the Institutes (1559) in the Battles/McNeill edition. You will meet more of yourself there than you expected and you will begin to understand how Barth could become so alternately awestruck and smitten.

C.S. Lewis and Karl Barth: Happy Dogmatism Meets Tenacious Tolerance

***I suppose I first learned of the inevitable idolatrous tendency of protestant liberalism (and apologetic approaches to theology generally) from Karl Barth. He convinced me that unless we allow the God borne witness to in Holy Scripture to speak for Himself, we find ourselves speaking in His place, and so, wittingly or not, we make a “god.”

Now that I am writing on C.S. Lewis, I find in him something of that distinctive, hard-nosed dogmatism I found in Barth. Note this passage from Mere Christianity: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive. . . . And half of you already want me to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much. . . .I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do―I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it.”

Those words could as easily have been written by Karl Barth. Dogmatism is justly associated with the darker dimensions of human nature and behavior; the furrowed brow, the protruded neck vein, the angrily pointed finger. But in Lewis and Barth, dogmatism puts on a happy face. Lewis found a way to let Christianity be itself while pursuing Christian unity. He shied away from internecine Christian squabbles. He found it unseemly. Barth loved a good debate, but also enjoyed good faith ecumenical dialogue and insisted that theology, above all else, is a “happy science,” because it deals, first and last, with Good News.

Evangelicals, Liberals, and the Poor

***Check out the article in the November 27 Wall Street Journal by Arthur C. Brooks, "A Charitable Explanation." Everybody knows that France cares more and does more for the poor than other nations. And everybody knows that liberals in America care more and do more for the poor than conservatives. NOT! on both counts.

Americans give, per capita (gross as well, by a long shot, but the per capita is the real kicker) more in the month of December than most countries give all year. France turns out to be one of the stingiest, laziest, and least couragous countries on the planet when it comes to giving to charity or lifting a finger to help the poor.

Conservatives in America are not only four times more likely to attend church, they outpace liberals by a long shot on giving to charity, volunteering for charitable causes and offering hands-on help to the poor. Conservatives even out-pace liberals and secularists with money and time contributed to non-church-related social organizations.

But wait! Conservative evangelicals are fixated on making money, stopping abortion, and yelling at homosexuals, right? Well, liberals are carrying home barrels full of money too, and now we know they are choosing to keep much more of it for themselves than conservatives do. Go figure. And apparantly, conservatives have energy left over to actually help the poor even after expending themselves in making money (so they can give more than the liberals I guess), defending the unborn, and speaking biblical truth to power regarding God's loving warning against homosexual behavior.

And conservatives do all this in the face of patronizing ridicule from everybody from the Mainstream Media to the cultural secularists to Oprah and especially their own liberal and progressive Christian brothers and sisters who scold them for not caring more about the poor!

I just know Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo must be tickled about these numbers. A next book title suggestion for either author: Learning to Love the Poor From Conservative Evangelicals--And Getting our Own House in Order.

Message from conservative evangelicals to liberals looking for ways to help the poor: "Jump on in. The water is fine."