S. M. Hutchens has some provocative things to say about C. S. Lewis’ attitude toward egalitarianism and whether he considered it compatible with “mere Christianity”: “[Lewis’] gentleness toward egalitarians was evangelical: he wished to win them to Christ. He did not think they could be mere Christians because he did not consider them Christians at all. To come to Christ is to leave egalitarianism; a church with priestesses, he gently indicated, was ‘not like a church.’ The egalitarian may honor and admire Lewis, but cannot honestly retain him as a coreligionist, much less a patron, since he has rejected the cosmology that undergirt his writings.”
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C. S. Lewis and “The Weight of Glory”
Perhaps you’ve read Mere Christianityor The Screwtape Letters, two of C. S. Lewis’ better known books. But have you ever read any of his essays? I recently came across an online version of one essay that has had a significant impact on me over the years. I just reread this one over the holidays, and I thought I’d share it with you. In “The Weight of Glory” Lewis takes on Immanuel Kant and the Stoics and the idea that self-denial is the ultimate Christian virtue. Lewis argues that “glory” and human desire are not at odds. Here is one of the many quotable quotes:
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President Gerald Ford, the War Hero
Roberty Drury’s and Tom Clavin’s column in today’s New York Times tells of Gerald Ford’s heroism in World War II. It concludes, “Like his fellow World War II veterans, Mr. Ford returned home and resumed his life, rarely speaking publicly of his heroism. But in contrast to the public’s image of him as a clumsy nonentity, Mr. Ford was a man whose grace under pressure saved his ship and hundreds of men on it.” Go read the story: “How Lieutenant Ford Saved His Ship.”
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President Ford Disagreed with Iraq War
I guess Bob Woodward always gets the scoop. He certainly does in today’s Washington Post. The headline of Woodward’s story reads “Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq.” Woodward conducted the interview with President Ford in 2004 but only had permission to publish it after Ford’s death. It’s fascinating to see how different Ford is from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, both of whom served in the Ford administration. It’s an interesting piece and worth the read.
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President Gerald Ford, R.I.P.
Former President Gerald Ford has died. President George W. Bush has released a statement saying that “President Ford was a great American who gave many years of dedicated service to our country. On August 9, 1974, after a long career in the House of Representatives and service as Vice President, he assumed the Presidency in an hour of national turmoil and division.
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The New York Times versus a Nigerian Bishop
Examples of media bias are too numerous for me to comment on with any regularity. But sometimes I read things so egregious that I have to say something. An outrageously biased piece appears in a recent New York Times article by Lydia Polgreen and Laurie Goldstein.
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What is Christmas all about?
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Essential Books for Understanding Christianity
In today’s Wall Street Journal, George Weigel gives his Top 5 “Essential books for understanding Christianity.” I’m glad that he picked one old book, Dante’s Divine Comedy, but the other four are all from the 20th century. It seems rather odd to suggest that four of the five essential books for understanding a two-thousand year old religion would all have been written within the last twenty-five years. In any case, it seems to me that Weigel left off one fairly influential volume. As it turns out, this particular book has been pretty helpful for Christians throughout the history of the church. Needless to say, my “Top 5” would have looked…
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CNN’s “After Jesus”
If you missed CNN’s “After Jesus” special last night, you didn’t miss much. It was more fanciful musings on the history of earliest Christianity of the sort that we saw last Spring with the release of The Gospel of Judas, the media blitz of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and the release of the movie The DaVinci Code.
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Apostate Episcopalians: “Avoid such men as these”
Several Episcopal congregations in the U.S. have decided the time has come for them to secede from the authority of their American Bishop. The New York Times reports: