People I respect, Part 1
People I respect
This post is the first in a series I plan to put up of people who have influenced my Christian walk. It seems like a good way to pay tribute to the people who have helped make me the person I am today.
I'd like to think that even without Lewis I would be a Christian today, but I'm not sure. As a child I'd read the Narnia series, and the space trilogy when I got a little older (not old enough, I suspect - it can be a bit spooky) and had tried some of his other books but found them to be a bit of dry going. My senior year of high school, I started to get serious about knowing God, but I wondered if it was possible to be a Christian and use your brain. All of the people around me seemed to be saying, "If you'll just believe and never question, then you'll be happy. Remember, act good, because blind obedience and acting good are what make a good Christian." I ran across Mere Christianity in the school library and read it. I think I read it at least four or five times that year, and it changed my life. Lewis, the unbeliever who had come to believe, taught me that it's all right to question God, that it was all right to seek and look and search to see if He was true. Lewis seemed to say, "God created you with a brain - use it for His glory!" Lewis treated Scripture not as something to be worshipped, but as something to be examined, to see if it did indeed point the way to the only One who deserves our worship. He concluded that it did, and I agree entirely.
Lewis’ intellectual acceptance of God made it possible for me to do the same thing. All along I’d wondered if it was okay to doubt at times, to be unsure, to put God to the test. What I learned from Lewis is that it is okay, and that in fact, if we truly believe God is the answer, then we can’t be afraid to ask the questions. If Christianity is valid then it will stand up to the test; if it isn’t, then we should find out quickly and go do something else, so that we won’t be “pitied more than all men” (tm Paul of Tarsus). But in either case, if we’re being honest, testing our beliefs is a good thing.
If you're interested in Lewis, the links above have some info, and I'm certainly willing to lend out books. Let me know.
This post is the first in a series I plan to put up of people who have influenced my Christian walk. It seems like a good way to pay tribute to the people who have helped make me the person I am today.
C.S. Lewis
I'd like to think that even without Lewis I would be a Christian today, but I'm not sure. As a child I'd read the Narnia series, and the space trilogy when I got a little older (not old enough, I suspect - it can be a bit spooky) and had tried some of his other books but found them to be a bit of dry going. My senior year of high school, I started to get serious about knowing God, but I wondered if it was possible to be a Christian and use your brain. All of the people around me seemed to be saying, "If you'll just believe and never question, then you'll be happy. Remember, act good, because blind obedience and acting good are what make a good Christian." I ran across Mere Christianity in the school library and read it. I think I read it at least four or five times that year, and it changed my life. Lewis, the unbeliever who had come to believe, taught me that it's all right to question God, that it was all right to seek and look and search to see if He was true. Lewis seemed to say, "God created you with a brain - use it for His glory!" Lewis treated Scripture not as something to be worshipped, but as something to be examined, to see if it did indeed point the way to the only One who deserves our worship. He concluded that it did, and I agree entirely.
Lewis’ intellectual acceptance of God made it possible for me to do the same thing. All along I’d wondered if it was okay to doubt at times, to be unsure, to put God to the test. What I learned from Lewis is that it is okay, and that in fact, if we truly believe God is the answer, then we can’t be afraid to ask the questions. If Christianity is valid then it will stand up to the test; if it isn’t, then we should find out quickly and go do something else, so that we won’t be “pitied more than all men” (tm Paul of Tarsus). But in either case, if we’re being honest, testing our beliefs is a good thing.
If you're interested in Lewis, the links above have some info, and I'm certainly willing to lend out books. Let me know.
posted by Scott at 9:42 AM
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