"Spoiled with praise and...spoiled with abuse"

Today the Wall Street Journal has a review of a new edition of The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. I've ordered it. From Barton Swaim's review:

.... Coolidge takes two of the book’s seven chapters to recall his 5¹⁄₂ years as president. “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country,” he writes, “for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.” ....

“I was convinced in my own mind that I was not qualified to fill the exalted office of President,” he recalls. Harding died in 1923, making Coolidge president. He won the presidency in his own right in 1924, taking a majority of the popular vote against two opponents—Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert LaFollette—while hardly mentioning either by name.

Republicans expected him to run again in 1928, but he declined. Vacationing in South Dakota the year before, he issued a terse statement: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.” Why? Because, as he puts it in the Autobiography, “the people would not have confidence in a man that appeared to be grasping for office”—if only!—and in any case “the chances of having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the Presidential office after a moderate length of time.” ....

The myth of Silent Cal is loosely connected to truth. The most famous story of his taciturnity—at a dinner, a woman told him she’d bet a friend that she could get more than two words out of the president, to which he replied, “You lose”—is likely an invention. But he was parsimonious with words. In the Autobiography he writes of “the value of a silence which avoids creating a situation where one would otherwise not exist.”

Coolidge’s reticence was not a sign of dullness. He had a gift for perceiving the heart of a political question and expressing what he saw in clear, direct prose. ....

The book’s finest passage appears in its penultimate chapter, mundanely titled “Some of the Duties of the President.” The president must remember at all times, he writes, that he is “dealing with two different minds.” The first is the “mind of the country,” desiring the nation’s welfare but remaining “unorganized, formless, and inarticulate.” The other is the “political mind”: “a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeur at another time, of the most selfish preferment combined with the most sacrificing patriotism. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse. With them nothing is natural, everything is artificial.” .... (more, probably behind a subscription wall)

"‘The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge’ Review: Quiet, Modest, Memorable"

"There is light even in the darkest hour"

Worth re-posting:

We have already seen that in Jesus we have seen the mind of God, and that mind is love. If then we say that the Word was active in creation it means that creation is the product of the mind of God which we see in Jesus Christ. This means that the same love which redeemed us created the world, that love is the principle of creation as love is the principle of redemption. There is a time in life when this may seem simply a theological or philosophical truth; but there is also a time in life when it is the only thing in life left to hold on to. There is a time when life and the world seem quite clearly to be an enemy, when life seems out to break our hearts, to ruin our dreams, and to smash our lives. There comes a time when we seem to be living in a hostile universe. At such a time it is the greatest thing in life, sometimes it is the only thing left, to be able to cling on to the conviction that 'life means intensely and it means good.' For if we believe that it was this mind of God in Jesus Christ which conceived and created the universe then it does mean that, whatever it feels like, God is working all things together for good, and the world is out not to break us but to make us. If the Christ of creation and the Christ of redemption are one and the same, then there is light even in the darkest hour.

Jesus is the Word. He is God's ultimate and final communication to men; he is the demonstration to men of the mind of God towards them; he is the guarantee that at the heart of creation there is love.

 

William Barclay, Jesus as They Saw Him, 1962.

"Life means intensely and it means good" is a quotation from Robert Browning

Dune

I haven't read Frank Herbert’s Dune. I was never much of a consumer of science fiction, or fantasy either, apart from LOTR. A new film adaptation of Dune will come out next month and in anticipation the current National Review has an essay in appreciation of the book hoping that the film will be as good. From the essay:

In a 1980 essay describing the origin of Dune, Herbert wrote that the story emerged out of his belief that “superheroes are disastrous for humankind” and that “even if we find a real hero (whatever — or whoever — that may be), eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that always comes into being around such a leader.” And in a 1981 interview, he claimed that “there is definitely an implicit warning” in much of his work “against big government and especially against charismatic leaders,” because “such people — well-intentioned or not — are human beings who will make human mistakes.” Paul Atreides is not a model but a warning about the dangers of false messiahs, of trusting overly in charismatic leaders, and of mixing politics and religion. As it is put in Dune:

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong — faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.

Jack Butler, "Will Denis Villeneuve Capture the Greatness of Dune?," National Review, Oct. 4, 2021.

Esperanto for measurement

I love this:

The British government has announced that U.K. businesses will once again be allowed to sell their products in traditional, British units of measurement, like pounds and ounces, instead of the metric system.

This move is a win for freedom-loving people everywhere, and the restoration of customary units should be a cause for jubilation in the streets.

The metric system has its origins in the French Revolution....

The French Revolution was a time when men were, in the words of Edmund Burke, “pull[ing] down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years.” The top-down imposition of the metric system did just that by erasing customary units.

By “customary units,” I don’t just mean the U.S. customary system, but any unit of measure derived through custom. If you read about the origins of customary units, you’ll find that many of them are based on specific occupations, like brewing, farming, and surveying. They were invented by people doing their jobs who needed a way to measure things. They developed units of measure that were useful to them and persuaded others to adopt them for ease of commerce. Customary units eventually became standardized through a bottom-up process. They represent the wisdom of our ancestors, the accumulated experiences over the centuries. ....

As Burke said, “it calls for little ability” to point out “the errors and defects of old establishments.” Indeed, it calls for little ability to say, “Base-ten would be easier.” Never mind that we tell time on a non-base-ten system and it works just fine. It’s not for lack of trying other systems, either: The French tried a ten-day week and ten-hour days for a while, but it didn’t stick.

Or consider that the computer or smartphone on which you’re reading this post measures information in bits, a base-two customary unit derived from the days of punch cards and vacuum tubes. And there’s eight bits in a byte, oh no! ....

The metric system is Esperanto for measurement, except many more people have been seduced by its scientistic allure. The metric system is based on the utopian idea that everything old is bad, and that humans have the power to create a better world by severing all ties with custom and tradition and imposing contrived, rationalistic systems on people, whether they like it or not.

By allowing customary units again, the British are striking a blow against that nonsensical and destructive worldview. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with a cold drink — from a twelve-ounce can. (more)

"Britain Delivers a Welcome Blow to the Metric System"

A guilty pleasure

I enjoy Robert Mitchum in just about every thing he did. His villainous roles in Cape Fear (1962) and The Night of the Hunter (1955) may have been his best, but I particularly enjoy some of the films noir he did earlier, films like Macao (1952) and The Big Steal (1949) in both of which his antagonist was William Bendix. Tonight I watched one of my favorites, His Kind of Woman (1951). It was produced while Howard Hughes controlled RKO. Raymond Burr was a villain. Jane Russell was the woman. And Vincent Price in a great role.

The Rotten Tomatoes description:

In a desperate attempt to get out of debt, career gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) agrees to rendezvous with a mysterious contact at a distant Mexican resort in exchange for $50,000. Upon arriving, Milner meets his fellow guests, including a plastic surgeon, a philandering movie star (Vincent Price) and his beautiful girlfriend (Jane Russell). Soon Milner discovers that the man who hired him may be the ruthless Nick Ferraro — a deported Italian gangster who looks just like him.

The film is about two hours and is available on Amazon Prime.

September 11

After 9/11 in 2001, at the Queen's request, breaking centuries of tradition, the American national anthem was performed at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. This morning at Windsor Castle where the Queen is in residence:

Questions that really matter

I enjoyed reading Daniel Idfresne's "I'm 17. And I'm Immunized from Woke Politics." His closing paragraphs:

Here is the main thing I have learned:

When acceptance is the highest value, when avoiding condemnation online is worth more than the truth, the truth will be swiftly discarded. Online likes, followers and reputation — weak, empty values — dominate the teenage world because teenagers are not being taught alternative ones by the culture or, often, by the adults in their lives. They — we — are not being given the tools to answer the questions that really matter: What is truth? What is justice? And what is the purpose of life?

My generation’s been told that truth or justice are merely assertions of power. Except here’s the thing: The square root of 64 is 8, the Moon is nearly 239,000 miles from the Earth, and you do not need to believe in God to see that goodwill is a force for positive change. Believing in that is the ultimate immunization against nihilism.

Common Sense with Bari Weiss, "I'm 17. And I'm Immunized from Woke Politics"

Uncle Abner

In a post about early American detective fiction, "The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes," comes one I've posted about before:

Arguably the most original of all the American detectives of this period, Uncle Abner was the creation of the lawyer and author Melville Davisson Post. Post’s God-fearing hero appeared in 22 stories, written between 1911 and 1928. Riding through the backwoods of West Virginia in the years before the American Civil War, he dispenses justice and wisdom under the admiring gaze of the narrator, his young nephew Martin. Although largely forgotten today, the Uncle Abner stories have had many admirers over the years since their first publication. In 1941, Howard Haycraft, one of the first literary critics to take crime fiction seriously, called Post’s character ‘the greatest American contribution’ to the cast list of detective fiction since Poe’s C Auguste Dupin.

Post's dedication in Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries:

 

"The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes"

On Labor Day

Re-posted.

On this Labor Day, I re-post part of a 1942 address by Dorothy L. Sayers: "Why Work?" (pdf):

I HAVE already, on a previous occasion, spoken at some length on the subject of Work and Vocation. What I urged then was a thorough-going revolution in our whole attitude to work. I asked that it should be looked upon—not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; and that man, made in God's image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing. ....

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred. Christian people, and particularly perhaps the Christian clergy, must get it firmly into their heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, that is as true a vocation as though he or she were called to specifically religious work. .... It is not right for her to acquiesce in the notion that a man's life is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends in serving God. He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation. ....

Where we have become confused is in mixing up the ends to which our work is put with the way in which the work is done. The end of the work will be decided by our religious outlook: as we are so we make. It is the business of religion to make us Christian people, and then our work will naturally be turned to Christian ends, because our work is the expression of ourselves. But the way in which the work is done is governed by no sanction except the good of the work itself; and religion has no direct connexion with that, except to insist that the workman should be free to do his work well according to its own integrity. ....

Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos?" Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949, pp. 46-62.

"Though we walk through the valley of the shadow..."

I first posted this prayer in the Spring of last year.

From Jeremy Taylor: a prayer "for all that lie under the rod of war, famine, pestilence." 

O Lord God Almighty, Thou art our Father, we are Thy children. Let health and peace be within our dwellings; let righteousness and holiness dwell for ever in our hearts, and be expressed in all our actions. O merciful God, say unto the destroying angel, 'It is enough'; let Thy hand cover Thy servants and hide us from the present anger; that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we may fear no evil, and suffer none. Those smitten, support with Thy staff, and visit them with Thy mercies and salvation, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jeremy Taylor, The Role and Exercises of Holy Living, 1650-51.

Never unprepared

Thou, who with thine own mouth hast told us that at midnight the bridegroom shall come: Grant that the cry, "The bridegroom cometh!" may sound evermore in our ears, that so we be never unprepared to meet Him, or forgetful of the souls for whom he died, for whom we watch and pray. And save us, O Lord. Amen.
Lancelot Andrewes (1555 – 1626)

"Putting away all earthly anxieties..."

A COLLECT FOR SABBATH REST Saturday

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, 2019, ACNA.

Posting

I haven't posted here for over a week. I try every day to find something interesting to post — at least interesting to me. I apologize to everyone who follows the blog. I simply haven't discovered material I particularly wanted to share. Back soon with good findings I hope.

"When I use a word..."

After watching Jen Psaki's news conference yesterday several commentators were reminded of this from Through the Looking Glass. Having proved to his own satisfaction that un-birthday presents are superior to birthday presents because they can be given far more times in a year, Humpty Dumpty says:

“There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.

“Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Doubts

Today Alan Jacobs posts a quotation from George MacDonald's “The Voice of Job”:

....To deny the existence of God may, paradoxical as the statement will at first seem to some, involve less unbelief than the smallest yielding to doubt of his goodness. I say yielding; for a man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to rouse the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood; and theirs in general is the inhospitable reception of angels that do not come in their own likeness. Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed. In all Job’s begging and longing to see God, then, may well be supposed to mingle the mighty desire to be assured of God’s being. To acknowledge is not to be sure of God. (more)

George MacDonald's “The Voice of Job”

J. Edgar

I have been interested in the history of the FBI for as long as I've known about the institution. When I was growing up Hoover was legendary. This looks fascinating. Ordered.

.... The fearsome director, he writes, was “kind, courteous, thoughtful, fearless, sometimes funny, a perfect gentleman, and a devout patriot” but also “vindictive, close-minded, hypercritical, a man of intense hatreds and eternal grudges, a man who in his sincere belief that he was protecting his country had repeatedly violated the principles of the Constitution on which that country was founded.” In short, a “strange and remarkable,” “fascinating and perplexing” creature. ....

Put in charge of the tiny, corrupt Bureau of Investigation in 1924, when he was not yet 30, Hoover invented the new Federal Bureau of Investigation and ruled it from its birth to his own death. He created the FBI crime lab with its forensic wizardry, the FBI academy to train agents and local and state police, the fingerprint records that ultimately held more than 200 million cards, and those “secret files” supposedly full of dirt on presidents, lesser pols, business titans and celebrities.  ....

The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover

Be a teacher

Reviewing some other things of mine that appeared in The Sabbath Recorder:

 

In the film of Robert Bolt’s play, "A Man for All Seasons," a young friend asks Thomas More for a place at Court. More tells Richard Rich that he won’t give him what he wants but that he may have another position for him:

Rich: What post?
More: At the new school.
Rich: A teacher! [….]
More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher. Perhaps a great one.
Rich: lf I was, who would know it?
More: You! Your pupils. Your friends. God. Not a bad public, that.

One of the great affirmations of the Protestant Reformation was the “priesthood of all believers” and along with that the realization that the idea of vocation applied to all believers, not just those ordained to holy orders. Our lives can’t be compartmentalized. Our work — how we earn our living — is in service to God, just as every other aspect of life. Whether we gain wide acclaim is irrelevant. What matters is whether we are faithful. Who will know? “God. Not a bad public, that.”

I didn’t come to that realization right away. For as long as I can remember I had planned to be a teacher, but because it was something I thought I could do well that would provide me with a living, not as a calling. In fact I became a public school teacher rather by default because I feared the kind of debt I would incur by continuing in graduate school. In 1970 I put out my credentials (teachers were in short supply then) and was contacted by a principal in Madison. I taught in that school district — secondary history and political science — for thirty-five years.

I was a mediocre teacher when I started, making serious mistakes — especially in disciplining students — but I learned from my mistakes and eventually achieved a certain competence. I learned very little of value in the education courses I was required to take. Teaching is as much an art as a skill and perfecting the art is largely a matter of trial and error. Each teacher needs to discover the style that works for him or her. I always told my student teachers to commit to at least four or five years before deciding they couldn’t do it.

What makes a good public school teacher? You need to like kids and love your subject matter. Most students will do just about anything a teacher asks if they believe the teacher cares about them, knows what he is talking about and teaches it well. That means knowing your subject thoroughly, and that means reading a lot. The easiest way to earn the contempt of adolescents is to pretend to know more than you do. The best teachers are those who can convey what is most important clearly and interestingly — and that is almost impossible if you are always operating at or close to the limit of your knowledge. Otherwise what makes a good teacher is what makes any good person: integrity, the willingness to admit error, intolerance of cruelty, a sense of proportion and good humor, meeting your commitments and obligations punctually, “doing unto others…,” etc.

These days, in the public schools, there is much less opportunity for Christian teachers to talk freely about our faith than was true even a few decades ago. Nevertheless, I found, at least in high school, that if the subject came up naturally as part of the curriculum or in student initiated discussion, it was possible if the subject was approached descriptively, if disagreement could be freely expressed, and nobody felt pressured. The most important witness a Christian teacher can make in a classroom, though, is behavior consistent with belief. For high school students there is no greater sin an adult can commit than seeming to be hypocritical.

“Be a teacher.” It is an honorable profession. And your Sabbaths will almost always be free.

There is a happy ending

Re-posted. I've updated the introduction slightly.

A sermon I delivered on "Layman's Sabbath," October 17, 1970, during morning worship at the Milton, Wisconsin, Seventh Day Baptist Church. It was later printed in the December 14, 1970, Sabbath Recorder. The Recorder editor titled it "History's Most Important Event." It was submitted to the Recorder by the proud mother of the soldier whose letter I quoted at length, Pvt. Norman R. Burdick, who is now a retired English professor. I don't believe there is anything that he or I wrote more than half a century ago about which I have changed my mind since.

When the astronauts returned from the first moon landing, President Nixon, in the excitement of the moment of their return to the rescue ship, hailed that which they had accomplished as the most important event in the history of the world. Later, in a less exuberant mood, he might have reconsidered that statement, perhaps recalling other historical moments which were of great importance. Nevertheless, it seems to me significant that the President could have made such an unqualified statement and that it could have been heard and apparently accepted by so many without a second thought.

I doubt that any such evaluation concerning the preeminence of any such historical event could have been made with so little protest in any other century of the Christian era. For, of course, that act of reaching the moon as well as any other of the great accomplishments of man pales beside the actual preeminent event of history—what Tolkien has called the eucatastrophe of human history—the event which gives promise of joy, of happy ending (or at least the denial of inevitable, universal defeat in the universe for man); the event which we call the Incarnation—the moment when eternity invaded time, when God became a man and lived among men, a life, a death, and a rising after death—occurrences so great in their import that no conceivable event in history either before or since is even comparable, much less greater.

I'd like to read a letter that I received about two weeks ago from a friend of mine which impressed me a great deal. This friend is in the Army right now and for the last several weeks his reading has been largely restricted to the Bible as other books are not readily available. This is the letter:

I've been reading the gospels—and perhaps more forcibly than ever before, I've been struck with the pure drama, the unique tragedy with the happy ending, the sheer literary achievement in this play directed by the hand of God.

It is drama and tragedy in a higher form than any play ever written, life outdoing art, or perhaps the art of God outdoing that of man.

In ways, in its high drama and boisterous brutality, the story resembles Shakespeare, and nowhere more so than in the crucifixion.

The complexity of Shakespeare's characters is dwarfed by the sheer awe Christ's words and deeds create. And the others do symbolic actions with an exact rightness even Shakespeare might envy.

The Last Supper, with the presence of the traitor, his existence announced, but identity strangely not revealed, as if he were an Iago or Edmund; the strange scene of Christ praying in the garden, God asking God to let this pass from Him, while not far from Him His disciples cannot even "wake with him one hour" for His sufferings, then the line and transition, the most dramatic I know, "the hour is at hand for the betrayal of the Son of Man." The symbol of the Judas kiss, the washing of Pilate's hands, and the fleeing of all away from Him, brought to its height in Peter's threefold denial. All of this the complete rejection of Christ by man. Then there is the cruel treatment of Christ, the brutal and boisterous humor of the common man, from casting lots for the cloak to the crown of thorns and the vinegar.

Then, after the formal "Tragedy" ends, the only perfect happy ending to a real tragedy that I know—the hero triumphs in death and is resurrected. And it's a tragedy with an ending that means life not only for one, but for all.

And for me, one of the proofs of it all is that it is this perfect a tragedy. I do not believe in some unknown Jewish writer or writers that much greater than Shakespeare: I do not even believe in a mortal man able to write some of the lines of Christ. And most of all, I do not believe in anyone either convinced of Christ or trying to create a new religion, who could write those lines I still don't wholly understand, that render His isolation complete, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

That line in dramatic effect is greater than anything Shakespeare ever wrote. Its mystery is stupefying. And no spreader of any gospel would have invented it; only a man who was there and who heard it, and who felt compelled to tell all other truths would have put it in his account of the one he believed was his savior.

It is this real life drama, this perfect tragedy with a perfect happy ending, which really happened, which when accepted as fact, as Christian do, leads to a view of life and death altogether different than if those events had never occurred.

C.S. Lewis once wrote about an experience of his while patrolling as a member of the Home Guard in England during the Second World War. With him on patrol were two men, one of them like himself a man of educated background and the other a man of a rather more humble educational background. The third man was shocked upon learning that Lewis and his friend did not believe that the war was likely to end wars or even greatly contribute to the abolition of human misery. His reaction was that if this were true, if what they were doing was not going to effect great change in the world, then what was the use of the world's going on? And Lewis himself was astonished that any man could have assumed that there was good in the world going on. Lewis felt that the world is a place of futility. The world is falling apart all the time. Things are disintegrating, not unifying—the tendency is toward disorder, not order—and he was surprised anyone could have assumed that things were always getting better. Later he wrote a great deal about this fact. He said that the only way you can conclude that life is worthwhile is if you accept an importance in the actions of men which goes beyond the world; that they may not find their fulfillment in this life, but find their meaning on some greater stage than simply this world.

In the modern age it seems to me that we are confronted with two major attitudes on the part of a great many people. Either there is the assumption that things are always getting better, that the world is perfectible, that either through self-discipline, the discipline of societies, the elimination or reordering of social structures, we can accomplish an earthly paradise—and this is, I think, very unlikely given the sort of fallible people we all know we are. Or, secondly, there is the position that there is no direction in creation, that life is meaningless and therefore that we must act without rational goal, drop out, or find meaning simply in doing things, in acting without hope of achievement.

Christianity, I think, contains the answer to both of these positions. Christianity says, it seems to me, that, yes, it may very well be that meaning is not to be found in this life and in that which is accomplished on this earth, but that there is meaning, and that the actions which we take do have ultimate meaning, ultimate importance. It answers the utopians, the believers in progress, by pointing out the futility, the frustration which will necessarily come with the pursuit of their dreams and by directing them toward an achievable reality. All will be fulfilled. That is the message of the Incarnation and the Resurrection. There is a happy ending. All will be made right, but at the end of history, that is to say, not in history. Even so it is necessary that we act.

Christian action is necessary, because, although it may not save the world it will make the world a more tolerable place with less suffering. It will do this in two ways—by telling men that they can have a relationship with that God who died for them, a relationship which is real and which will give unity and fullness to their lives. That is one way and the way I think most important. But that way leads to another—to action which Christians may take in society to make life more tolerable. The early Church acted to eliminate such practices as infanticide, abortion, the practice of total war and to organize charity to improve the quality of life. The church today must also act, must continue to increase respect for life, both for life as such and for its quality by introducing people to Christ.

"But God so loved the world...", so familiar that we may never stop to consider how peculiar this statement really is. How could God love us? We are not really lovable, even when we do the right thing it is usually for the wrong reason—not because it is right but because by so doing we gain approval, or because someone will like us, or even in order that we may congratulate ourselves on our righteousness. Yet we are assured that He loves us, and, I fear, many of us accept His assurance with the assumption that this love is somehow merited. It is not. But we are still loved and we must respond to that love by showing it to others.

Sabbath Recorder, December 14, 1970, pp.5-6, 13. [pdf]

"The power of Man to make himself what he pleases..."

"The Best C.S. Lewis Book You’ve Never Read" is the title of a post reviewing a new guide to C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man (1943). I have read that book, although not recently. It is short—my copy has only 62 pages. It is definitely worth the time. The review inspired me to go looking for quotations from the book and found this one, perhaps even more relevant today than when written:

.... The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will then be won. We shall have ‘taken the thread of life out of the hand of Clotho’ and be henceforth free to make our species whatever we wish it to be. The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it? For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.

…the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”

In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao [Logos, Absolute, etc.] – a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly. This will be changed. Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgments of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of education.

Review: After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man

"Mere" Christianity

From George Marsden's "Mere Christianity: A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic":

One of the strongest habits of thought both in Lewis’s day and in our own is to think that newer understandings of the most basic aspects of life and reality are better than older understandings. Lewis, as a student of history, recognized that many of the “latest ideas” of one’s own day will look quaint to future generations. When Lewis himself was on his journey to becoming a Christian, he came to realize that there was good reason to put one’s trust in ideas that had lasted a long time, rather than in the latest fads that would come and go.

He accordingly defined “mere Christianity” as “the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times”. Rather than presenting the latest modern ideas about Christianity, he was presenting an essential Christianity that had been around “long before I was born and whether I like it or not”.

Grounding his presentation in history also meant that he carefully avoided presenting Christianity as a support for some currently fashionable social or political cause — as he put it, like “Christianity and Vegetarianism” or “Christianity and the New Order.” In The Screwtape Letters, the senior devil Screwtape advises the junior devil Wormwood to suggest to his “patient” (the young man who is in “danger” of becoming a true Christian) that Christianity is valuable chiefly for the excellent arguments it provides for the positions of his political party. Such partisanship, Screwtape suggests, would lead the young man away from considering the more essential issues.

Likewise, Lewis was careful to avoid efforts to improve Christianity with modern theological fads. .... (more)

George Marsden's "Mere Christianity: A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic"