Great to see you, please pardon us for interrupting.
Calling attention to this man offers an excellent excuse to use as few as feasible of my own words. His are the point. One doesn’t stand in front of a da Vinci while showing it. But here are two fine and timely points of reference for you.
1. Just discovered – for two weeks now, BibleGateway.com has been featuring…
A daily passage from the writings of C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian thinkers and authors of the 20th century! Drawing from Lewis’ diverse collection of works—from Narnia to Mere Christianity and beyond—this daily devotional will challenge you with insights from the beloved novelist and theologian.
They make it easy to receive those daily emails and to decide to receive nothing else, or to stop them altogether.
2. About two years ago, I found a feast of an article by David J. Theroux, Founder and President of The Independent Institute, “C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism.” You, dear reader, being familiar with some or all the references in that title, my job here is easy indeed, and Mr. Theroux does not disappoint. He serves excerpts of Lewis’ own writings in a context which satisfies people of many starting points, in a truly enriching way.
Theroux begins by explaining…
For decades, many Christians and non-Christians, both “conservative” and “liberal,” have unfortunately embraced an ill-conceived, “progressive” (i.e., authoritarian) vision to wield intrusive government powers as an unquestionable and even sanctified calling for both domestic and international matters, abandoning the Judeo-Christian, natural-law tradition in moral ethics and economics. In contrast, the Oxford/Cambridge scholar and best-selling author C. S. Lewis did not suffer such delusions….
Just one of the passages from Lewis’ own hand, on the effects of government determined, in Barack Obama’s hideously misapplied quote of the Bible’s murderous Cain, to be “our brother’s keeper”:
tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals
Thought you’d be interested. Think anyone else you know would, too?
[…] “C.S. Lewis shares ‘Why I’m Not an Atheist’” He is man of both common sense and transcendent wisdom, and surpassingly gifted in the means to convey them, whether his subject matter were the arts and letters, the humanities, or that which both lays beyond their edges and infuses them with life and light, within. Here are his reflections about virtuous and workable politics: “Get Acquainted with C.S. Lewis’ Thoughts of God & Government.” […]