You're either with me or against me.....

My daily devotions are from a book of the writings of C.S. Lewis, whose logic is formidable and yet so simple.  One of the struggles I face is my abhorrence with those who call themselves Christian but want to make sure that ALL Christians act the same, that we all are against same-sex marriage, that we all are united against abortion, that the Affordable Care Act is a grievous miscue of government powers.  And if you do not follow or adhere to these beliefs, you are needing to be "converted" to those beliefs.  Corrected would be the more appropriate term.  Today's reading from Lewis spoke to me about this, and how it is really the work of Satan to have such extremes in beliefs.

"Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or terms on a list, but as organs in a body - different from one another and each contributing what no other could.  When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbors, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that.  You and they are different organs, intended to do different things.  ON the other hand, when you are tempted not to bother about someone else;'s troubles because they are "no business of yours', remember that though he is different from you he is part of the same organism as you.  If you forget that he belongs to the same organism as yourself you will become an individualist.  If you forget that he is a different organ from you, if you want to suppress differences and make people all alike, you will become a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

"I feel a strong desire to tell you - and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me - which of these two errors is the worse.  That is the Devil getting at us.  He always sends errors into the world in pairs - pairs of opposites.  And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse.  You see why,of course?  He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.  But do not let us be fooled.  We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors.  We have no other concern than that with either of them."

Wonderfully written and so true.

Comments

jprothero said…
Love it. You should also read what he has to say about "Christianity and . . . "
jprothero said…
Absolutely well said. You should also read what he has to say about "Christianity and. . . " In this case it's "Christianity and conservatism". The idea is that when we couple our movements with the faith, the faith gets pushed back and becomes a rubber stamp that we use to justify our mistakes.

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