For me, I seem to recall we (probably my church youth group) traveled to Wichita somewhere to see him. But apart from that … my church never made much of any big deal of him otherwise. And my parents, while they obviously must have let me indulge in such things and go to such events - nontheless I don’t remember them making much anything at all of him (either way). Maybe it’s just my poor memory blessedly leaving out much that could have been unflattering to recall, but it leaves the impression with me now that he just sort of faded away for us. One of many excitable speakers who comes and goes - and so long as they say a thing or two to glorify Christ - so much the better. But my community didn’t strike me as becoming his ‘groupies’ or ‘followers’ in any fanatical sort of way - like we see so many today seeming to do with today’s politicized icons - seeking to become influencers and disciplers with large followings. So it didn’t shake my world overmuch later to hear that he was a fraud. Any more than to hear that this or that jet-flying radio preacher is a fraud. Of course, I don’t remember how many years later for me it was before learning that. Like I said - he just came and went for us as just another fascinating ‘event’.
[All that said - I shouldn’t minimize the damage done by such charlatans. One alone can do much damage to any given individual, and collectively they certainly add up to make society-wide impressions that will have fall-out for generations to come.]
The charletans who are valued in the pew just add to the erosion of credibility of the Gospel and anything else that is spoken through “the church” (or churches. When churches have sanctioned the message of such people by providing a bus, or helping oragnize, or bringing them to the church to speak (even if it’s “only” on Wednesday), they must talk about the damage, and also learn before they make the same mistake. Otherwise, it’s all one more reason no one has a need to listen go anything that comes from churches, except for its entertainment value.
I perhaps am not that negative, but you have a point. Approved church teachings that were not really true have caused a lot of damage, mostly with what were thought to be good intentions. The purity culture damaged a lot of people and marriages, end times teachings detracted from living for Jesus today, and now we see the church used in nationalism, climate change denial, science denial, and gender related issues. No wonder church participation is declining.
“The way you feel depends entirely on the way you think.”
And what we tell ourselves in our self-talk. I was feeling down this morning, but I was not speaking the truth to myself.
[Blessed is the one who]…speaks truth IN his heart. Psalm 15:2
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
Oh, no – it also depends on what we eat and other external input. One of my doctors recognized how just putting me in bright sunshine changes my mood, and I’ve long known how sugar and caffeine and fats can alter my mood (as have scientists).
I have a problem with telling myself I’m doing better than I actually am, which can be a bit dangerous.
Next up for me: A Hobbit , a Wardrobe , and a Great War : How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith , Friendship , and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918, by Joe Loconte. The description provided by my library:
The untold story of how the First World War shaped the lives, faith, and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis
The First World War laid waste to a continent and permanently altered the political and religious landscape of the West. For a generation of men and women, it brought the end of innocence-and the end of faith. Yet for J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the Great War deepened their spiritual quest. Both men served as soldiers on the Western Front, survived the trenches, and used the experience of that conflict to ignite their Christian imagination. Had there been no Great War, there would have been noHobbit, no Lord of the Rings, no Narnia, and perhaps no conversion to Christianity by C. S. Lewis.
Unlike a generation of young writers who lost faith in the God of the Bible, Tolkien and Lewis produced epic stories infused with the themes of guilt and grace, sorrow and consolation. Giving an unabashedly Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment, the two writers created works that changed the course of literature and shaped the faith of millions. This is the first book to explore their work in light of the spiritual crisis sparked by the conflict.
Radical Sacrifice by Terry Eagleton is an interesting read. I don’t believe that Eagleton is a Christian, but he was raised in a Christian home and has thought deeply about Christianity. Sometimes I find his insights in this book surprisingly rich. This was one of them. Sometimes I think his not being bound by orthodoxy allows him to see things I’ve not noticed before. This is from Chapter 2 “Tragedy and Crucifixion.”
Jesus may be a tragic protagonist, but he is not portrayed as a heroic one. His desolate cry on the cross ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ posits the existence of the Other only to call it mournfully or accusingly into question. It would appear that in his obdurate refusal to intervene, this frigidly remote Creator has confessed his true nullity, and in doing so has deprived Jesus’s mission of a victorious outcome. Sacrifice, which traditionally pays homage to God’s sovereignty, would seem in this instance to testify to either his impotence or his indifference. As Jürgen Moltmann argues, Jesus’s lament (in fact, a quotation from a Psalm which like his own career ends on a rather more positive note) is among other things a plea that the Father should not bring discredit upon himself, testifying in his enigmatic silence to his own non-existence.15 There would appear to be no support for Jesus’s act in the Big Other, as the heavens remain ominously shut. His loving fidelity to his Father appears to meet with a chilling non-response. Like all authentic acts of faith, his self-surrender must thus be without an assured ground. Yet if it is groundless, it is also thus in the sense that the Father who sustains it is an unfathomable abyss of love rather than a copper-bottomed metaphysical guarantee. It is the Father himself who lies at the source of Jesus’s faith, as the object-cause of his desire, and it is in this sense that he has not been forsaken. On the contrary, God is present on this scene as the power that enables Jesus to forsake himself.
The Father does indeed respond to his child – not as a voice from the heavens, but by raising him from the dead in contemptuous defiance of the powers of this world. As such, God is revealed in this murder mystery as the Other of the nom du père – as a form of transcendence in solidarity with failure and infirmity, and thus in revolt against the death-dealing Law that has brought his son to this pass. As G.K. Chesterton comments, ‘That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could have His back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever.’
Radical Sacrifice by Terry Eagleton, in Calibre 17%.
Nah. This sounds like Christians who think depression can’t happen to a believer in Christ. An insightful essay on the topic:
I hid behind a facade that everything was fine and did not want anyone to know what I was dealing with. But I was dealing with scary thoughts. Thoughts like “I can’t be a believer in Jesus - a believer wouldn’t feel this way…” and “I hate going to church; I just feel numb.” I thought, “I’m going to divorce my husband and ruin his successful ministry because I can’t keep feeling fake….” I felt fake. All the while, my doctor was adjusting my medications slowly and carefully. I found myself almost incapacitated. I couldn’t do simple tasks like grocery shopping or fixing a meal, which were second nature to me. I definitely couldn’t read my Bible or pray. I’d drive my kids to school, come home, and sit in my car for 2 hours because I couldn’t figure out what to do when I walked into the house. My thoughts kept getting darker.
Reshuffling events to fit a narrative arc is standard fare in even the best biopics. Bought my first car in 78 from my brother – a 69 Charger for $200. (Not the good kind of Charger. Small engine, mismatched door, duct tape holding the driver’s seat together and ripping out your leg hair in summer.) Worked at Piggly Wiggly sacking groceries just long enough to buy an 8-track player to mount below the dash. Good times!
I found The Late, Great Planet Earth in my dad’s nightstand reading pile in 75. As you can imagine, my 13-yr-old brain was “caught up” in his end-times vision. Gog and Magog and blood running to the horse’s bridle. I wasn’t introduced to Schaeffer until I was 17 and a senior in high school. I had to read his books with a dictionary beside me, and the next year I watched his documentary “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” in a screening at church. I wasn’t down with calling abortion “murder,” and I stopped paying attention to him afterward. His son, Frank, is an atheist who would confirm your suspicions of his father being “somewhat off.”
That much makes sense to me. Most of the rest eludes my capacity for empathetic understanding. While God seems a necessary aspect of reality, I don’t really get Jesus as a deity. I don’t think following him makes sense in a military sense. What does make sense is following his example and for that no divine status is required or if it is it is for the sake of holding together an edifice of doctrine in which I’m not invested. Of the trinity, the Holy Spirit makes some sense to me as the voice of God entwined with our soul as that which has given way for us to exist. We aren’t God but we are of God and God is closer to us than anything else.
I think Jesus is a vehicle by which religion can communicate wisdom regarding how to live in a way that is pleasing to God and conducive to good relations with one another. Important but maybe this is why I can’t be a Christian.
Here is your first excerpt from the introduction of A Hobbit , a Wardrobe , and a Great War : How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith , Friendship , and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918 , by Joe Loconte.
During the postwar years, many veterans composed fiercely anti-war novels and poetry. Many more became moral cynics. Yet Tolkien and Lewis - deeply aware of the “beauty and mortality of the world” - insisted that war could inspire noble sacrifice for humane purposes. As a generation of young writers rejected faith in the God of the Bible, they produced stories imbued with the themes of guilt and grace, sorrow and consolation.
Journalist Walter Lipmann, reflecting on the spiritual consequences of the First World War, lamented that “trivial illusions” had displaced traditional religious belief. “What most distinguishes the generation who have approached maturity since the debacle of idealism at the end of the War is not their rebellion against religion and the moral code of their parents,” he wrote, “but their disillusionment with their own rebellion.” Part of the achievement of Tolkien and Lewis was to reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment.
