“No safe investment”- CS Lewis on Love

from C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves: “There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, give it to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully [...]

The Well-Adjusted Jesus- CS Lewis

from The Four Loves, referring to the problems he saw with classifying all human problems as psychological or pathological and how “normal” should not necessarily be our goal: “We have only seen one such Man. And He was not at all like the psychologist’s picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen.  [...]

One Vast Need…

from CS Lewis’s ever-quotable “The Four Loves”: “Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.  But man’s love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and must often be entirely, a Need-love.  This is obvious when we implore forgiveness [...]

Resurrection People- Day 5

“Resurrection and Re-Creation” “The picture is not what we expected–though whether it is less or more probable and philosophical on that account is another question.  It is not the picture of an escape from any and every kind of Nature into some unconditioned and utterly transcendent life.  It is the picture of a new human [...]

National Repentance…CS Lewis

I wish I had this essay in pamphlet form every time the first Thursday in May rolls around (National Day of Prayer).  It is titled “Dangers of National Repentance” and can be found in the God in the Dock collection of essays. “The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it [...]

on that Sermon on the Mount…CS Lewis

In another essay entitled “Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger” from the God in the Dock collection, Lewis gives a dead-on evaluation of the Sermon on the Mount in response to criticism that Lewis liked Paul’s theology of sin too much and didn’t “care for” Jesus’ more optimistic ethics, such as found in the Sermon on the [...]

On Trimming Theology…CS Lewis

In an essay entitled “Horrid Red Things” from the God in the Dock collection, which later appears as a chapter in the longer work Miracles, Lewis makes a bold challenge to those of his day attempting to strip the Christian faith from its theological baggage, especially that of an historical* or miraculous nature. “I think [...]

Speaking of education…CS Lewis

Every teacher (perhaps every parent?) should read CS Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man“- a critique of modern (and its step-child postmodern) education to its core. A few quotes: On the push for criticism of literature over understanding (and perhaps subsequent enjoyment) of literature– “For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak [...]

On the Second Coming- CS Lewis

From the title essay “The World’s Last Night”, a few thoughts by Lewis on the second coming and date-setting. Comparing our role in regards to Christ’s return as to actors in a play… “To play well the scenes in which we are “on” concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow [...]

On “Democratic Education”- CS Lewis

From his essay Screwtape Proposes a Toast, found both at the end of many editions of The Screwtape Letters, and in a collection of essays entitled The World’s Last Night. In several essays he wrote, CS Lewis lamented the “democratizing” of education, specifically the tendency in public education to treat all students as equals, forcing [...]