A New Person on the Journey and an Update

Dear Gary--

I know you haven't had time to respond to my last post but I wanted to drop you a quick note.

I have invited Purl to join us on our little adventure. She has expressed interest in our project and I thought she would have interesting insights to offer.


I am almost finished with Book Two in MERE CHRISTIANITY and will be posting about it soon!!!

-Malady

1 Corinthians 13:11

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a [man], I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11
Dear Gary,

I have always liked this bible verse although it makes me sad in a lot of ways. Is it so wonderful "to put away childish things?" I'm not so sure. In Luke 18:15-17, Jesus meets with a group of children and the disciples try to shoo them away. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." So, here we have yet another biblical contradiction. Or do we?

Not along ago, we talked about people coming to faith for comfort and security. I think that is how faith begins for many of us. Especially for those of us who first experienced it as children. Jesus/God is revealed to us as a type of father figure. This can be one of our earliest demonstrations of right versus wrong. For some of us, this includes the threat of hell. As a child, I was taught that Jesus died for my sins and that I should always try to follow His example. And I don't think that is such a bad thing to teach a child. Religion can be our first exposure to ethics and morality. But as we get older, we can't relate to God on such a simplistic level. Our faith must grow as we do. We have to "put away childish things" and challenge ourselves. Faith is hard. We are confronted with questions every day and sometimes we may have to do things that we don't want to do. It is infinitely easier to do just what we want instead of doing as we ought to. Faith can be very inconvenient. Like going to the gym. I hate going to the gym. But I know I need to in order to get healthy and strong. Some Sundays, I just don't feel like going to church. But I have to remind myself that I need to EXERCISE my faith.

At the same time, we can also appreciate the simplicity of faith. We can boil it down to the basics. What does it mean to be a Christian? After we let go of all the worldly trappings and "stuff," what do we end up with? This is where we can become childlike. I think a Christian believes in Christ as his/her Savior and follows His example. And the rest of it can fall away. There are plenty of facets to faith that we can discuss and dissect. Congregations have broken up over disagreements about a single theological point. And I think this is where Jesus tells us to receive the Kingdom of God like a little child. Then, we can go on to explore it in detail. Adding our life experiences and exposure to other ideas.

In my anthropological studies, I have explored many different religions and I have always been struck by how similar many of them are. This has served to STRENGTHEN my faith rather than impede it. Human beings have always sought a relationship with the divine. And the common threads throughout many religions lead me to believe that there is a grain of truth in all of them. That ulimately, we are all striving towards the same conclusion. And I bring that with me into my faith life.

We can be childlike in our faith while putting away childish things. And we can turn to God for strength and wisdom as Lewis encourages us to do. Because ultimately, we are God's children.

-Malady

The Atonement

Dear Malady,
I just finished reading the chapter called "The Perfect Penitent" in Mere Christianity. Lewis talks about some people's complaint that Jesus's sufferings and death aren't meaningful "because it must have been so easy for Him" (p. 58). Evidently, this complaint stems from the perception that Jesus somehow had an unfair advantage over His fellow human beings.

However, Lewis goes on to ask, "To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?" (p. 59) Though I'm still not sure if Jesus's death carries any particular meaning for me (because I am exploring), I certainly look to Him to help me with my troubles and ease my pain. I do so for the reason Lewis illustrates: that Jesus is stronger than me, that He can somehow relate to me as a human being, and that I am somehow 'right' with God; that He is my friend.

As a Christian, you surely see how the divine and the corporeal intersect. Is it important to you to show others who cannot see that intersection that the two are not exclusive? What does that intersection look like in your own life?

-Gary

Some Reflections

Dear Malady,

I’m putting my book down for a moment because I want to reflect on your last post. I’m interested in knowing more about how you feel like you’ve grown spiritually? Are there been specific moments or events you can share with me? When we first started this blog, I was anxious about discussing spiritual issues in the ways you and I have now begun to explore. But now, I feel perfectly fine with these discussions.

Now I’m at a point at which I’m asking myself, “What’s next?” I am still not sure what I want from a spiritual life, except that I want to somehow experience life more fully; being aware of every moment of each day, having an open heart for everyone I encounter, being more sure of myself, making decisions with clarity and confidence, and being more joyful. What do you want out of your spiritual life?

I’m intrigued by what you said about people turning to religion simply for comfort. In my own experience, I have mostly found that to be true, too. It troubles me to think that people so often do things to do little more than support or solidify what they already believe. At a minimum, there’s something really dull about that. To resist changing and challenging yourself and what you believe does something to insulate you from the world that is crashing around you. It really limits your experience.

What astounds me the most is when I talk to people who have traveled widely and I discover how limited their experiences often are. They come back from a trip and talk about all the places, people, and things they saw, but their thinking and approach to life doesn’t seem to have changed much. As I remember reading in Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express, “Travel is pointless unless you intend to change.”

Whether they have traveled or not, I’ve found it hard to find people who integrate their experiences into the growth of their own souls, or whatever they identify as that core part of ourselves that makes us human beings. To me, not sharing (or worse, not even contemplating) that part of your life makes for a lonely and ignorant one—a life that’s little more than a lot of discordant clatter and motion.
You had presented Lewis’s point that religion should start from a place of ‘discomfort and fear.’ The above pretty much describes how I understand his point and what you had discussed in your last post. More thoughts? Vituperation?

-Gary

A Purpose-Driven Life

Dear Gary--

I think you are absolutely correct in thinking that meaning and purpose should be central points of exploration in a Christian life. Even Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." And by extension of that, I would say that the unexamined Christian life and faith are not worth pursuing.

I think when you are brought up as a Christian, you tend to get complacent in your faith life. People often quit putting a lot of effort in study and growth. And I think this causes tremendous problems when these Christians are confronted with different ideas and ways of thinking. It can be frightening because it feels as if the bedrock of your faith is being attacked and damaged. I think God wants us to ask questions. That is how we learn. We shouldn't take anything, least of all faith, simply at face value. Or because someone has told us we should. That is why I love discussing faith issues with people who think differently than I do. It challenges me to really think about what I believe.

Part of the appeal of Lewis for me is the fact that he takes a very intellectual approach to Christianity. Since he was originally an atheist, I find his thought processes fascinating. What did it take to get an atheist intellectual like Lewis to become a Christian?

I have finally finished Part One of MERE CHRISTIANITY and I love the whole discussion of the Moral Law and the "mind" behind it. His examples are wonderful. I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks for non-believers is the fact that God cannot be PROVEN. And I understand that frustration. It would be nice if science could find incontrovertible truth about the existence of God and then we could all stop arguing about it. But faith doesn't work that way. And if God is the Prime Mover and Creator, it doesn't seem likely we can prove His existence through our conventional means.

I also like how Lewis concludes this section with the fact that religion starts from a place of discomfort and fear. I think many people just turn to religion for comfort. But Lewis has a good point about the problems with the approach. We have to do the work. We have to explore and think and realize and all the other stages of mature spiritual growth. And it can be hard and frustrating and scary and uncomfortable. But, in my experience, that is true of most things worth having.

-Malady

P.S. There is a recent book called the PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE that might be worth exploring at a later date. We'll talk more about it later.

An 'Aha!' Moment

Malady, I read something in Chapter 5 (We Have Cause to be Uneasy) that made me discover why I have so often pushed God away. At this point (page 30 in my book), Lewis is entertaining the idea of God as an impersonal absolute goodness. He is talking about a God who is backed by the Moral Law:

"There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do. If God is like the Moral Law, then He is not soft. If He is a pure impersonal mind, there may be no sense in asking Him to make allowances for you or to let you off, just as there is no sense in asking the multiplication table to let you off when you do your sums wrong. You are bound to get the wrong answer.

You may want Him to make an exception in your own case, to let you off this one time...We know that if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate most of what we do. This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless."

I have never been an atheist, but I am so full of flaws and inconsistencies that I have never had the energy or desire to try to please some omnipresent, omniscient being whose presence I could rarely sense (let alone prove to myself). I didn't think I did this to the extent I do, but I guess my SOP has mostly been to please myself.

As a Christian, is it the sense of 'becoming' or something else that gives you the energy to continue being a Christian? It would help me a great deal if you could tell me how you reconcile in your own life what Lewis is saying in the section I've included above.

MERE CHRISTIANITY by C.S. Lewis

Dear Gary,

I'm really excited that we will be reading MERE CHRISTIANITY together. It has been a long time since I have read that book. In college, my pastor started a group called the C.S. Lewis Society. We would gather at his home to read books by C.S. Lewis. Even though I loved the Narnia books as a child, I think my real love of C.S. Lewis came from those times at the home of my pastor.

Parts of the book are available online. You can access it here.

I'll check back with you after we read Book One.

-Malady