by rusmeister » February 21st, 2006, 11:03 am
First of all, I’d like to say that I am a person who has read most of Lewis’s works, and wholeheartedly agrees with them, on almost every point. I find his logic darn-near impeccable, and became (Orthodox) Christian because of his work.
Many people have a wide variety of views on this site. Sometimes these views do not agree with what Lewis wrote (which is, as far as I can tell, completely lined up with Scripture and much of the tradition recognized by [at least] the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Anglican churches). My feeling is that it’s good to try to acquaint oneself as much as possible with what Lewis wrote himself (This is why we are here, n’est ce pas?), and that some people haven’t yet done this.
Lewis did write articles like “Priestesses in the Church?”, much to the dismay of people who believe in modernism – the idea that our time in history is “wiser” and “more progressive” than previous ones. In Lewis’s time other issues, like homosexuality (and other sexual sins), had not acquired even a hint of respectability, so they didn’t come up for him as controversial. In any event, I don’t want to bandy opinions of what “I think” based only on my own experience so much as to discuss what Lewis said, how it matches up with Scripture and Tradition, and then look at “what I think” in those lights. Just notice how often we say “I think”, and how often we examine our own basis for so thinking.
And that’s the rub. Most of what we think is based on our pitiful 20, 30, 40 or 50 years of experience. We don’t stand a chance against the Father of Lies if that’s all we have to challenge his experience through the millenia. That’s where the Church comes in, with Tradition and Scripture. The thoughts expressed here (ignorance of the spiritual nature of homosexuality, that “progressive” philosophy is somehow better) were unheard of 50 years ago, and the basis of which is designed to reject first Tradition, then ultimately Scripture. This is modernism, which Lewis thoroughly rejected. Help me out, people, where was it that he said that “it is possible to be “progressing” in the wrong direction, and if so, the fastest way to correct it is to turn around”? (I believe it was in MC)
If your philosophy disagrees with that, then I have nothing to say to you. You’d better go read the Gospels, Epistles, and then Lewis and not waste time reading me.
I now turn my attention to those who have read those works.
As he said in “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, “This where we need the Christian (insert your profession here)”. I am the Christian teacher, and can speak with (some) authority in the field of education. Public schools have successfully brainwashed most people to accept modernism, the absence of absolute truth, etc. I say that as a Christian authority on that issue. If that is true, then many things that we think on an instinctive level must be consciously re-thought, if we really wish to align our life to God’s will, rather than align what we believe with what we want to believe. Issues like men’s/women’s roles and homosexuality are only symptoms of the mindset taught in schools where “diversity”, “tolerance” and “multi-culturalism” are worship words. What is behind all of that is the idea that not God, but I, my ego, should determine who I am and what I have “the right” to do. The sin of Lucifer. Pride. Unfortunately, it is difficult to acknowledge this if we see it in ourselves. I had to get my behind kicked in a men’s group to learn to honor (acknowledge) truths unpleasant for me to stomach, particularly about myself.
If I have said something downright wrong or offensive, please forgive me. I don’t think that I am so smart. But this (education) is an area where I have good reason to think that I know more than the average Joe. (or Jane – oops! There goes some modernism!)
