Reflections on God … Man … Life
Commentary, from a Biblical perspective, on current events that are primarily cultural. There may be some overlap with politics and government, but the emphasis is on broader societal developments apart from politics, which also includes analysis of specific individuals.
Today I want to take a break from a specific current event, from cartoons, from book reviews, from links to other articles. Instead, I want to share a few thoughts from what I read in the Bible the other day. Going through the book of Isaiah, I came across a passage I’ve noted before, but one that deserves greater attention. It’s found in chapter five: Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of falsehood, and sin as if… Read more »
Last Saturday I offered the first section of the paper I presented at the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s fall retreat. Here’s the next segment, dealing with Lewis’s concern that we may develop what he called the “omnicompetent state.” It’s in The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength that Lewis’s concerns come to the forefront. The former lays out the philosophical case against the loss of absolutes and the consequences that will follow in the wake of that loss. The… Read more »
C. S. Lewis often protested that he had no interest in or taste for politics. What he really meant by that was the type of politics he imbibed growing up in a Belfast suburb, listening to his father discuss with friends the nature of the local and national politics of his Irish/English homeland. Was it the pettiness that turned him against political discussion or the boredom he suffered from those overheard conversations? Whatever the cause, he normally abhorred purely political… Read more »
One of the essays I had my students read this semester in my C. S. Lewis course was “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought.” It’s probably one of Lewis’s most overlooked essays. The first time I read it, I wanted to be sure students were exposed to it. In it, Lewis takes aim at the presuppositions that modern men take for granted and then shows why they have accepted unsound reasoning. Modern men have assumed, without thinking it through… Read more »
I arrived in Texas yesterday for the C. S. Lewis Foundation Retreat. Most of the attendees won’t be here until later today. I’m early because I’m taking part in the Academic Roundtable that is held prior to the main events. Already I’ve met some very nice people (this is my first Lewis function, so I don’t really know anyone) and last evening I attended what is called the “Bag End Cafe,” a nod to Lewis’s friend, J.R.R. Tolkien. Everyone was… Read more »
The Agenda marches on. What agenda, you ask? The attempt to paint a portrait of evangelical Christians as the narrow-minded bigots of the world and the obstacles to “progress,” as defined by the new Progressive Movement. We see this in many facets, but let me point out two in particular today. One prong of The Agenda is to say that we are agents of propaganda against Muslims. It’s Christian bigotry, some say, when we warn of the Islamic threat to… Read more »
C. S. Lewis, in a number of his works, both books and essays, comments on the nature of Nature. Some people, he says, think that Nature is all there is, and that we simply spring out of this mechanistic, impersonal “thing.” Yet, as he reminds his readers continually, how can one even trust that conclusion if one’s own reasoning ability comes from this mechanistic, impersonal source? In an essay called “On Living in an Atomic Age,” he writes, If Nature… Read more »