Reflections on God … Man … Life
Last year’s major teaching project was the Ransom Trilogy. I’m now embarking on another one for the coming fall semester for my church’s Parish Academy program. I have no title for it yet, but the substance is set: an examination of key authors in C. S. Lewis’s life and circle. They are George MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Lewis knew two of these writers by their works only; the other two he knew… Read more »
Dorothy L. Sayers was a “find” for me in just the last few years. Once I realized she and C. S. Lewis were friends and that he loved her BBC radio plays titled The Man Born to Be King, I knew I had to be better acquainted with her writings. I read all of her Lord Peter Wimsey novels, luxuriated in The Mind of the Maker, devoted myself to the book version of the radio plays (with her marvelous introduction),… Read more »
The Lord always has a continuing-education program for me. There are so many books I’ve never read (well, who can say otherwise?) that I need to delve into not only for head knowledge but for spiritual growth also. I seek to read resources that will do both. Here’s an update on what He is doing with me currently. I’ve now completed two-thirds of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. I’ve chosen the Dorothy Sayers translation because of my intense interest in her… Read more »
I’m a Protestant. I don’t believe in Purgatory. Yet I want to read Dante, so what can I do? Well, first, one can read Dante’s second volume of The Divine Comedy as a treatise that applies to this life also—God purges sin from our lives and we must respond properly. The second thing that helps me in this quest is that Dorothy Sayers, a writer I love, undertook to make a fresh translation of Dante back in the 1940s-1950s. It… Read more »
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I do, however, conduct a daily assessment of God’s direction in my life. That, I think, should be the real resolution for all of us. Writing this blog has been a part of God’s direction for me for nearly twelve years now. The goal is the same as when I started it in 2008: dedication to Biblical principles in life, whether that be with respect to our personal relationship with Christ, commentary on the… Read more »
Of all the apostolic letters in the New Testament, I think the book of Hebrews has some of the most challenging comments on the importance of spiritual growth. One comment that stands out to me is the following, as the writer of the letter exhorts his fellow Christians in this way: Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to reteach you the basic principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food! For everyone… Read more »
Evangelical Christians in America today say they are concerned about morality, yet how well do they understand the basis for morality? We have “progressive” Christians who decry poverty but don’t have strong convictions about the evil of abortion, and many are now advocating homosexual relationships because “all love is love,” or some other banal statement. I sometimes wonder what Christians in earlier eras would think of us now. How amazed would they be at this devolution/watering down of basic Biblical… Read more »