It all started with C. S. Lewis. But doesn't everything in evangelicalism these days?
I was about 19 and my girlfriend's mother gave me Chuck Colson's autobiography Born Again for a birthday present. Mr. Colson gave a lion's share of credit for his conversion to Lewis' Mere Christianity. So I bought a cheap book entitled Three by C. S. Lewis, if I remember correctly, published with The Screwtape Letters and "Screwtape Proposes a Toast". As always, the stories hit me more deeply than the exposition, the parable more than the explanation. In other words, for all that I loved Mere Christianity, to this day I still prefer Screwtape.
In Letter XIV to his nephew, a young apprentice tempter named Wormwood, Satan's Undersecretary Screwtape expresses his love for the doctrine of humility, not true humility, but what most Christians have been mistakenly taught humility to be. Screwtape exults that "thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools."
Isn't that the way you were taught humility? And haven't you paid for it? How many times have you paid someone a compliment, only to be insulted? "Are you crazy? My hair's a mess, this dress is just about to go in the rag pile, and I just couldn't get my makeup right this morning?" Not only can she not accept the possibility that she looks nice, she must not only insult her looks, she must also insult you.
We have trouble dealing with our own gifts and talents, because the way we're taught to think of ourselves is sometimes a lie. And how can a lie glorify God? Earlier in the same letter, Screwtape writes, "The great thing is to make [humans] value an opinion for some quality other than the truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue."
Now true humility, what God wants for his loved ones is:
to bring the man into a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him in the end to be so free of any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents--or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.
My wife has the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen. But why should she be proud of them? She didn't make them, she didn't special order them, she didn't choose them. Her beautiful eyes serve her no better than do my more ordinary-looking ones. And, worst of all, she can't even see them! She can see pictures of them, reflections of them, but her eyes' beauty does her no good. Why did God bother to make her eyes beautiful? Perhaps for those of us who can see them? Maybe he didn't bless her with beautiful eyes; he blessed US with her beautiful eyes!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
If this be heresy...
I was scared to death. Teaching a Sunday School class in a small southern town, I was scared. I hadn't slept well the night before. I knew what I had to say, and I was scared. And one member made me most nervous: Dave, a wonderful Christian man, conservative without being a fire-eater, gentle, humbly hard-working, the church lay leader, and the very man you want for your church lay leader.
Little churches start little and they stay little; and they stay little for a reason. How do you offer the love of Jesus to your community and never bring in at least one new member? How can you share Jesus' love without anyone, ANYONE responding?
They all think they are friendly, loving churches. And they are, friendly, and loving, to each other. Now, strangers on the other hand....
But this was a large church, a church with more than 1,000 members. Lately its community has undergone the transition from almost totally white to several ethnic groups. The "white flight" of the 60's continues. The big white churches shrink. It's getting harder to make budget, harder to pay for staff. The children's choirs are tiny, the youth choir is nearly extinct. The youth group, for that matter, is nearly extinct. The parents of the youth are becoming hostile and vicious, as if it were the church staff's fault. But still, a large church, large enough for diverse opinions, liberals and conservatives. And this is a great class, unafraid of controversy, unafraid of new ideas.
We started this class. We named it "Cheers", after the bar in the sitcom. We call it "the class where everybody knows your name". And we provide refreshments. We've loved this class.
Today I have to tell this class something that has been growing in my heart for months. It's something that is changing my life. I wish I had heard it when I was in my 20's. Now, in my 50's, it's hard to fight off the protests from other parts of my mind that I'm too old, that it's too late, that the habits of a half a century are too deeply rooted. But if my insight is right, if the idea hits you at 50, 50 is soon enough.
But this idea also flies in the face of so much that so many have considered so fundamentally Christian for so many centuries! Can so many have been that wrong?
Mark Twain pointed out that the story of Noah demonstrates conslusively that the majority can be wrong.
I launched into my lesson, working my way slowly to the point. I didn't have to talk too much. This class is great at discussion. If there's any problem teaching them it's that it takes some effort to keep them on the subject. And, truly, often we find more value off the subject than we could ever had gotten from what I had planned. I kept them going where I wanted. And finally I took the plunge:
"You've read John 14:12: 'Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.' [NRSV] Do you realize that this means that, if Jesus did it, we can do it too?"
Breathlessly I waited for their response. I looked right at Dave.
And, slowly, soberly, as if he had already come to this conclusion himself, he nodded, looking into my eyes.
Little churches start little and they stay little; and they stay little for a reason. How do you offer the love of Jesus to your community and never bring in at least one new member? How can you share Jesus' love without anyone, ANYONE responding?
They all think they are friendly, loving churches. And they are, friendly, and loving, to each other. Now, strangers on the other hand....
But this was a large church, a church with more than 1,000 members. Lately its community has undergone the transition from almost totally white to several ethnic groups. The "white flight" of the 60's continues. The big white churches shrink. It's getting harder to make budget, harder to pay for staff. The children's choirs are tiny, the youth choir is nearly extinct. The youth group, for that matter, is nearly extinct. The parents of the youth are becoming hostile and vicious, as if it were the church staff's fault. But still, a large church, large enough for diverse opinions, liberals and conservatives. And this is a great class, unafraid of controversy, unafraid of new ideas.
We started this class. We named it "Cheers", after the bar in the sitcom. We call it "the class where everybody knows your name". And we provide refreshments. We've loved this class.
Today I have to tell this class something that has been growing in my heart for months. It's something that is changing my life. I wish I had heard it when I was in my 20's. Now, in my 50's, it's hard to fight off the protests from other parts of my mind that I'm too old, that it's too late, that the habits of a half a century are too deeply rooted. But if my insight is right, if the idea hits you at 50, 50 is soon enough.
But this idea also flies in the face of so much that so many have considered so fundamentally Christian for so many centuries! Can so many have been that wrong?
Mark Twain pointed out that the story of Noah demonstrates conslusively that the majority can be wrong.
I launched into my lesson, working my way slowly to the point. I didn't have to talk too much. This class is great at discussion. If there's any problem teaching them it's that it takes some effort to keep them on the subject. And, truly, often we find more value off the subject than we could ever had gotten from what I had planned. I kept them going where I wanted. And finally I took the plunge:
"You've read John 14:12: 'Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.' [NRSV] Do you realize that this means that, if Jesus did it, we can do it too?"
Breathlessly I waited for their response. I looked right at Dave.
And, slowly, soberly, as if he had already come to this conclusion himself, he nodded, looking into my eyes.
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