Thank you! My brother in law told me that, too–we would both enjoy that (he’s a Lewis fan, too). And I’d like to read more about Sayers.
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I think that some of that stems from Paul’s “And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”… basically, redemption.
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Maybe Owen Barfield? The last of the Inklings - and also an influence on Lewis I think I recall reading somewhere.
Thank you for that, Kendel! I needed to hear that. And then …
I needed to hear that too, Randy! Indeed, I fancy - both to my hope and to my shame, that I have felt both of those directions, and the “backward working nature” of each just from my personal experience; leaving open to me the frightening terrors / joyful hopes of each new day of new choices and new actions … leading to either withering or to hopeful growth in all relationship.
The way Lewis describes it makes me sure that he too felt this on both sides. What a keen perception is brought to light in Lewis words as he responds to MacDonald. This is why I so love this pair.
And as I am a couple chapters in to “Losing Our Religion…” by Moore, I also love his tributes to Lewis. And to that point, Moore describes some of his own crises of faith as a young man wondering about the nature of the universe; he writes:
My parents had read the Chronicles of Narnia, though, and then I read them over and over again on my own, so as a teenager in terror I returned to C.S. Lewis and read everything he wrote that I could find. What made the difference for me were not his arguments. My problems weren’t primarily intellectual. What made the difference for me was the tone of voice I could almost hear in his writing. He was not trying to mobilize me or market to me, and I was able to follow that voice right through the wardrobe and into the broader streams of the broader church that spans heaven and earth, time and eternity, awesome as an army with banners. The crisis was terrible, and the crucible of it is never too far from the surface of my psyche, but I’m glad it happened. It was a manageable crisis that taught me how to tell the difference between the glories of Christ and the terrors that could be the church. But what, I wonder, would have happened to fifteen-year-old Russell Moore if that crisis had happened not in the 1980s but in the 2020s?
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Me, too. I have listened a bit to her book “Letters to a Diminished Church” recently; each chapter is a short, indepedent essay. I haven’t finished it, but some of the essays I liked a lot. There’s a particularly good one on creativity. I need to look that back over.
I bought at Wade a book on her called “Subversive” by Crystal Downing, a prof at Wheaton. Sometime……Downing has also written a lot on Postmodernism as well, and I”m really looking forward to reading more from a Christian who takes the work seriously and sees it as useful for Christians.
I would not have seen that. Thank you.
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(229) Reckoned unto Us for Righteousness
He needs creative God, and time for will and effort. Not yet quite righteous, he cannot yet act quite righteously, for only the man in whom the image of God is perfected can live perfectly. Born into the world without righteousness, he cannot see, he cannot know, he is not in touch with perfect righteousness, and it would be the deepest injustice to demand of him, with a penalty, at any given moment, more than he knows how to yield; but it is the highest lore constantly to demand of him perfect righteousness as what he must attain to. With what life and possibility is in him, he must keep turning to righteousness and abjuring iniquity, ever aiming at the perfection of God. Such an obedient faith is most justly and fairly, being all that God himself can require of the man, called by God righteousness in the man. It would not be enough for the righteousness of God, or Jesus, or any perfected saint, because they are capable of perfect righteousness, …
As found in the unspoken sermon: “Righteousness”
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The other GUYS!:
The Marion E. Wade Center promotes cultural engagement and spiritual formation by offering a collection of resources available nowhere else in the world. We emphasize the ongoing relevance of seven British Christian authors who provide a distinctive blend of intellect, imagination, and faith: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams.
I kept thinking 7, reducing it to 5, but….well, memory fails.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
In what little I’ve read of Lewis, I see this, too.
When I read Mere Christianity the last time a few years ago in our Sunday school class, and I was seeing holes in his arguments and wanting to discuss them, I felt like my comments were received as a heretics, and I was deliberately misunderstood. I felt like, “If I could only talk about this with Lewis. He’d understand and have a reasonable, reasoned response. He would take my questions seriously, and maybe get back to me in a letter in a few weeks.”
This is an outstanding question. Christians need to take this to heart and start allowing the question to challenge us as much as it does the ones going through those crises in the 2020s. Lewis would not expect us to stick with his arguments or examples out of loyalty to him but to start thinking in ways that deal with questions people ask now.
He dared to consider the question of multiple incarnations of Christ, because he was seriously considering the implications of other forms of sentient life on other worlds. The idea of it might have been seen as heresy to some Christians. But if we treat the questions as heretical, then we are left committed to no answers.
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Yes! There is an incident in which a bright Catholic student (at Oxford, I think) challenged his reasoning (I can’t recall the exact argument). She was right, and he admitted it graciously and they were friends. @St.Roymond do you know of this incident?
I think that you are right–Lewis was bright, but overstepped his training bounds sometimes. Yet, it’s not his arguments, but his Christlikeness, humility, and kindness that come through–as Keller said.
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Please call me on it if I ever use words that treat you as a heretic for asking questions!
I had an extended conversation with a friend last night, telling him about much of Moore’s “Losing Our Religion” book. And my friend (very acquainted with Southern Baptists himself) quoted somebody as having observed: “You know … if Southern Baptists were an army … We’d be the only army in the world that shoots its wounded.” I begged to differ that they would actually be all that unique with such practice, but I also think that such criticism needs to be taken to heart when it comes from within.
That same friend of mine also speculated that the British have a much more laid back approach to discourse than Americans do. He said Americans are much free-er with prescription while the British typically limit themselves more to description. I.e. American’s are quicker to advise: “here’s what you need to do … Do this!” Whereas the British (think Lewis) will just paint a picture for you of what they think truth or beauty is, and then leave it entirely up to you as to how you wish to respond. My friend supposed that this might explain why his parents could be so “up-in-arms” about some point made by an American preacher, but then when some British man made exactly the same point, they would suddenly take it as the best thing since sliced bread. The British accent always helping, of course; who couldn’t listen to N.T. Wright all day just to hear the man talk?
One other thing my friend observed that I thought was significant … and this followed our lengthy conversation of all of Moore’s many commiserations over what had become of his beloved religious tradition in this country (almost all of which my friend heartily agreed with). He ended, in a world-weary tone with “You know, Merv; … I do hear all of this criticism of the right - and even agree with a whole lot of it! But I do wish to hear at least something of the same kind of challenge from the other side of the aisle taking on their own crazies in like manner from their side.” I.e. in his perspective, the right is getting torn apart by civil war even as their own dissenters from within write books with much needed but scathing criticism. But it doesn’t appear that the left has any equivalent “take down” mentality for its own extreme factions and crazies.
It brings to my mind, Haidt’s criticism (which my friend disagrees with) that the left has something the right does not: It has voices and counter-voices that challenge each other without being exiled from the party for their dissent. Whereas the right excommunicates anyone that doesn’t conform to whatever the right-most party line is at the moment, so that only one voice is allowed to be heard on the right.
I rather think my friend has a point. Moore’s book seems to be a case-in-point for him. What do you all think?
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I think your friend is right… I appreciate his insight. We can all be too judgemental. Thanks.
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Same here. Interesting how he speaks of Lewis’ words touching him in the darkness of his youth.
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@Mervin_Bitikofer interesting discussion with your friend.
I think you may already know the answer to your own question about the - at least percieved - difference between how the left/right deal with disagreement in their own “camps”. Prescribing what is the “right” “righteous” “moral” “god-ordained” view or course or behavior is important to “conservativeness.” It’s what is being conserved. Progressives tend to be more inclusive in my experience, just as long as one is not prescriptive in their morality (I recognize the way I worded this is problematic, but I don’t currently have time for scientific or legal precision). The push for Book bans is a good example. Conservatives justify these demands on grounds of the conservation of an assumed universal morality that claims a right to exclude groups not only from public participation and equal protection under the law but also from public awareness.
What are seen as Liberal groups want to insure public access to information.
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That is reminiscent of Joseph and ‘his trip to Egypt’. God ‘recycles pain into gain’ in his providence.
Yes.
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(230) St. Paul’s Faith
…because they are capable of perfect righteousness, and, knowing what is perfect righteousness, choose to be perfectly righteous; but, in virtue of the life and growth in it, it is enough at a given moment for the disciple of the Perfect. The righteousness of Abraham was not to compare with the righteousness of Paul. He did not fight with himself for righteousness, as did Paul–not because he was better than Paul and therefore did not need to fight, but because his idea of what was required of him was not within sight of that of Paul; yet was he righteous in the same way as Paul was righteous: he had begun to be righteous, and God called his righteousness righteousness, for faith is righteousness. His faith was an act recognizing God as his law, and that is not a partial act, but an all-embracing and all-determining action. A single righteous deed toward one’s fellow could hardly be imputed to a man as righteousness. A man who is not trying after righteousness may yet do many a righteous act: they will not be forgotten to him, neither will they be imputed to him as righteousness. Abraham’s action of obedient faith was righteousness none the less that his righteousness was far behind Paul’s. Abraham started at the beginning of the long, slow, disappointing preparation of the Jewish people; Paul started at its close, with the story of Jesus behind him.
As found in the unspoken sermon: “Righteousness”
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This is my favorite part of the whole sermon. I think GM makes clear here how he understands righteousness as both a state and a process. Once one is in that state of being righteous through faith, one is also caught up in the process of becoming righteous. And it doesn’t matter how that righteousness is quantified; righteous is righteous. Comparing Abraham’s righteousness to Paul’s demonstrates that the comparison is pointless. Abraham was quantifiably less righteous than Paul, yet both were righteous.
Elsewhere he talks about the possibility of doing unrighteous things, but demonstrates that the one who fails in righteousness is not automatically tossed out of the state or process.
It’s a different view of security than what I am familiar with, but at least to me, it looks good so far.
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I just finished listening to this sermon again, while I brushed my teeth. Myron B. Penner was out of the pulpit for a few months after having back surgery, and this is his first sermon after returning. He talks about Abraham’s radical faith in spite of God’s test (sacrifice Isaac). It goes perfectly with GM’s sermon, “Righteousness” and the reading of Fear and Trembling and probably much of what is going on in all of our lives.
Penner emphasizes that while life just isn’t easy, God is trustworthy and our faith takes place in relationship with him. (Just as the article about Kierkegaard’s concept of faith emphasizes that @Jay313 shared with me.)
The sermon starts here: July 2, 2023 - Service Live Stream - YouTube and ends at 55:00. It was a well-spent 25 minutes. There’s not a formal transcript, but the YouTube generated one.
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This idea is all over Fear and Trembling. Particularly here, where the narrator is describing how things work in the realm of faith:
In the world of the spirit, things are different. Here there reigns an eternal divine order; here it does not rain upon both the just and the unjust; ii here the sun does not shine upon both the good and the wicked; here it is the case that only the one who works gets the bread, only the one who was in anxiety finds rest, only the one who descends to the underworld rescues the beloved, 3 only the one who draws the knife receives Isaac. The one who does not work does not get the bread, but is deceived as the gods deceived Orpheus with an airy vision instead of the beloved, deceived him because he was fainthearted, not courageous, deceived him because he was a lyre player, not a man. 4 Here it does not help to have Abraham as one’s father iii or to have seventeen ancestors—what is written about the virgins of Israel holds for the person who will not work: He gives birth to wind. iv But the person who will work gives birth to his own father.
Søren Kierkegaard. “Preliminary: Getting Something Off My Chest” Paragraph 1, Fear and Trembling.
Then there is this gem from The Essential Kierkegaard:
At that time there appeared a man from God and with faith, Martin Luther; with faith (for truly this required faith) or by faith he established faith in its rights. His life expressed works–let us never forget that–but he said: A person is saved by faith alone. The danger was great. I know of no stronger expression of how great it was in Luther’s eyes than that he decided that in order to get things straight: the Apostle James must be shoved aside. Imagine Luther’s respect for an apostle–and then to have to dare to do this in order to get faith restored to its rights!
Søren Kierkegaard. “For Self Examination” in The Essential Kierkegaard. Bookshare Edition 76%.
Again we see Kierkegaard dealing with the theological tension between faith and works. Here he was discussing his disgust for those who abused Luther’s explanation of grace, ignoring all purpose for work, that is work as the obedient outworking of faith, rather than “works of righteous” as the saving object of faith themselves.
In both Kierkegaard’s and MacDonald’s we see a strong understanding of works of obedience as associated with faith, but not a substitute for it. It is the thing that faith does, the sign of life. When faith works, it is alive and it is righteousness. I think that’s what they’re both saying. I think it’s hard to argue against it.
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This is good; thank you.
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“The epistle of straw” … wasn’t that Luther’s dismissive phrase regarding James?
Regarding Kierkegaard and GM - was there any evidence that they knew of or read each other? I notice they were contemporaries, with K being the older one - but with significant overlap in life. It would be fascinating to know what authors they may have together been reading in common - or what might have been common to the spiritual air of the day they might both have been influenced by.
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(231) The Full-Grown Christian
The man who has this righteousness, thinks about things as God thinks about them, loves the things that God loves, cares for nothing that God does not care about. Even while this righteousness is being born in him, the man will say to himself, 'Why should I be troubled about this thing or that? Does God care about it? No. Then why should I care? I must not care. I will not care! 'If he does not know whether God cares about it or not, he will say, ‘If God cares I should have my desire, he will give it me; if he does not care I should have it, neither will I care. In the meantime I will do my work.’ The man with God’s righteousness does not love a thing merely because it is right, but loves the very rightness in it. He not only loves a thought, but he loves the man in his thinking that thought; he loves the thought alive in the man. He does not take his joy from himself. He feels joy in himself, but it comes to him from others, not from himself–from God first, and from somebody, anybody, everybody next. He would rather, in the fulness of his content, pass out of being, rather himself cease to exist, than that another should. He could do without knowing himself, but he could not know himself and spare one of the brothers or sisters God had given him. The man who really knows God, is, and always will be, content with what God, who is the very self of his self, shall choose for him; he is entirely God’s, and not at all his own. His consciousness of himself is the reflex from those about him, not the result of his own turning in of his regard upon himself. It is not the contemplation of what God has made him, it is the being what God has made him, and the contemplation of what God himself is, and what he has made his fellows, that gives him his joy. He wants nothing, and feels that he has all things, for he is in the bosom of his father, and the thoughts of his father come to him. He knows that if he needs anything, it is his before he asks it; for his father has willed him, in the might and truth of his fatherhood, to be one with himself.
As found in the unspoken sermon: “Righteousness”
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I have been wondering since I started noticing similarities. I don’t know. I suspect Kierkegaard was unaware of MacDonald, but I’m not sure. MacDonald outlived SK by 50 years. I’m sure SK’s work - or at least significant pieces - had been translated into English well before MacDonald’s death.
I think it is unlikely that SK was aware of MacDonald, whose work is still not that well known among English speakers and not academic enough for him to have counted as an academically influential theologian. I really doubt that it was translated before Kierkegaard’s death into German or even less likely into Danish, and I don’t know that SK read English. I also don’t know the dates of publication of MacDonald’s works. Many (most?) could have been written to late in SK’s life or after.
I’ll dig around.
I did find this blog post. I’ve looked at Piety’s blog before, and have found helpful thoughts on SK. This post came up when I started looking today for connections:
And I see she has an alternate blog with an almost identical post. I will pay more attention to Piety, and maybe also piety.
[Edit 05:49 - The publication dates of GM’s nonfiction on his Wikipedia page are all unvarified, but after SK’s death. They should not be hard to research. ]
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