I have recently finished reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, and I am currently working my way through CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity. While I do not agree with all of the theology and biblical interpretation in Paradise Lost, I have nonetheless found it edifying, and so I am finding Mere Christianity.
The latter has also proved to be a comfort. It is very easy to feel bitter, depressed, and alone as a conservative in the internet age. The more we talk to distant friends online, the more we realise that they are just that: distant. Not in spirit, of course, for they are friends, but in physical propinquity. Scattered as conservatives are over the earth, their online gatherings remind them of the physical loneliness they feel in day-to-day interactions at work, in public places, and at church. Our natural tendency to focus on the negative deepens this feeling of isolation and the broader feeling of loss, frustration, and despair at the trajectory we perceive in western civilisation.
Hope is the virtue opposed to the vice of despair. Like all virtues, it is not principally a feeling but a choice with concomitant action, practised regularly so that the person becomes more consistent and skilful in its application. We must feed the virtues in the way that we feed our bodies. Loneliness, though real, is, in an absolute sense, a lie to the Christian. Though we may feel alone, we are not alone: God is with us.
To practice truthfulness and hope in the midst of the despair of loneliness we must expose the lie and remind ourselves of the truth. Reading can be a way of achieving this end. In Shadowlands, a play and then a film about CS Lewis, CS Lewis encounters a student who tells him that we read to know we are not alone. Reading Mere Christianity has had that effect on me.
We are individuals; it would be foolish to deny so plain a fact. Nevertheless, we must not make the mistake of thinking that we are so utterly unlike each other as to have nothing in common. If that were so, no one could appeal to objective reality and expect the other to understand and be persuaded by such an appeal. Seeing in CS Lewis thinking that is like my own, whether because I have been influenced by him or because we are both drawing on the same sources and mental processes, has given me a glimpse of that commonality.
This is particularly important for the Christian in his dealings with other men. Our prayer lives and meditation remind us that God understands us and that we should seek to understand God as far as, by His grace, such is possible. When it comes to humans, actually understanding each other, and believing that we do, are in some respects common and in others rare.
We could not carry out basic social functions without understanding: communication between human beings is necessary for a successful life. But a deeper fellowship, companionship, requires a kind of empathy, a kind of flexibility, charity, and commitment that goes beyond the reserve common across different cultures.
It is natural, and wise, that we should not expose our inmost thoughts with gay abandon to others. Danger lies in exposing vulnerabilities, whether to strangers or friends and family. However, if we are to grow as Christians in the unity of the Spirit we must strive to understand each other, including the value we place concepts and experiences that shape our doctrines and practices.
Christianity holds that there is one absolute Truth. That Truth is not relative. In reaching for it, Christians are engaged in a joint endeavour as companions, fellow workers, and family – God’s family. To help each other on this road requires honesty, wisdom, vigour, perseverance, and charity. It is my hope that this place, AATW, characterised by these at times in the past and in general will see such virtues, and the knowledge and experience they aim to provide, continue and grow in the future.
I love both the warning and the call for hope expressed in the last chapter (XVI) of the Didache which most scholars now agree probably dates from circa A.D. 50; within the living memory of those who walked with, heard or knew our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. “Watch” over your life “let your lamps” be not quenched “and your loins” be not ungirded, but be “ready,” for ye know not “the hour in which our Lord cometh.”
2. But be frequently gathered together seeking the things which are profitable for your souls, for the whole time of your faith shall not profit you except ye be found perfect at the last time;
3. For in the last days the false prophets and the corruptors shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall change to hate;
4. For as lawlessness increaseth they shall hate one another and persecute and betray, and then shall appear the deceiver of the world as a Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders and the earth shall be given over into his hands and he shall commit iniquities which have never been since the world began.
5. Then shall the creation of mankind come to the fiery trial and “many shall be offended” and be lost, but “they who endure” in their faith “shall be saved” by the curse itself.
6. And “then shall appear the signs” of the truth. First the sign spread out in Heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet, and thirdly the resurrection of the dead:
7. But not of all the dead, but as it was said, “The Lord shall come and all his saints with him.”
8. Then shall the world “see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven.”
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I remember reading this text for the first time a few years back when I started researching the pre-wrath position. Maintaining our gathering together, as Hebrews bids us, remains good advice.
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Yes it does.
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The Messianic Age I, desp’rate, sing
To ward the mind of man from dark, riddling
Doctrines false, and in the midst of plaintive
Calls to brothers in the Faith baptizèd
Seek to raise both hope and boldness sublime.
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Not familiar with that verse . . . but apt.
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Paradise Lost and Mere Christianity both text I have enjoyed. It was many years ago that I read Lewis’ Mere Christianity but, on a few months, ago read Paradise Lost. I had made an online friend in India doing a master’s degree in English literature. One book of Paradise Lost was part of the course, so did an analysis with Biblical references in explanation to assist.
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I’m glad you enjoyed them. I think they are both helpful as springboards. I doubt anyone entirely agrees with either book, but there are real insights in each. I like how Milton presents God’s dealings with man as “mild”, affirming God’s love and compassion at the same time as His righteousness and holiness.
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Although not Christian, I also find that Cassandra has a lesson for us. When she opened that box, all the troubles of the world flew out, but one thing remained with her, The most important thing really – Hope. If we add Faith to that, who can really stand against us.
Often it seems like many of the troubles we see are caused by pride in what we are or have accomplished, for that I give you Apollo 8, who recognized that in the full flush of their and NASA’s accomplishment, that it was really a small thing. We knew this when the first words broadcast to the world from the moon were:
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
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