By Max on Jun 24, 2009 | In Featured | Comments Off
I’ve finally had some time to begin editing some of the recordings taken during the C. S. Lewis seminar in Lawrence, Kansas and Fresno. Some of them are posted as MP3 files for your listening. Click here to go to the recorded lectures.
By Max on Jun 5, 2009 | In Featured, Lewis Commentary | No Comments »
I often come away from having read a piece of Lewisian prose feeling refreshed. Usually, the epithets found in the one-liner recommendations on the back cover of almost every book these days lingers in my mind: simply brilliant; deliciously illuminating; clear, witty, and uncomprimisingly concise. The difference, of course, is that the descriptions applied to Lewis’s writing are actually true. As my wife said this morning after yet another one of my sighs of delight, it is just “standard Lewisian fare.” This morning’s portion also happened to be convicting.
It was a brief address Lewis gave to the student body at King’s College, University of London, in 1944. In it, he bypasses the Flesh and the Devil to focus on the third member of the deadly trio: the World. And within that sector he zeroes in on a phenomenon which he considers to be the “most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things” [1]. It is the phenomenon of the “Inner Ring.” If you have read Lewis, you probably already know what it is. If you have not read Lewis, you probably still know what it is. It is that invisible social dynamic which creates an “inside” and an “outside”. The insiders are “in the know”; they refer to themselves as “we”; they are the implicit elite. Sometimes people think they are insiders when they really are not–to the great amusement of those who really are. The outsiders are everyone else. Read the rest »
By Max on May 8, 2009 | In Events, Featured | No Comments »
You are invited to come and enjoy an evening of coffee, cookies, and good conversation about C. S. Lewis! The evening will include two presentations:
When: 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 3rd
Where: Fresno, CA; contact me for directions
Cost: A few hours of your time
Why: Some interest has been expressed in having a smaller version of the C. S. Lewis seminar in Lawrence, Kansas (of the same name). I hope to see you there!
By Max on May 8, 2009 | In Events, Featured | No Comments »
On May 1-2 I presented a small seminar on C. S. Lewis at Christ Covenant Church in Lawrence, Kansas. Many thanks to all the behind-the-scenes people who made it possible, to Pastor John McFarland (a man fully accomplished in the rare art of hosting), and to all those who attended.
Below is a list of the presentations.
Once I am able to edit the sound files, I will post MP3 files of the lectures. Check the page “My Work on Lewis” for updates.
By Max on May 8, 2009 | In Featured | No Comments »
Behold, yet another website devoted to C. S. Lewis, the dissemination of his thought, and that of other Lewis scholars. Why another website? Click here. I intend to update the website periodically, so please bookmark the URL, or add it into your RSS reader. You will notice that some pages do not yet have content. I have published them anyway to show you what I plan to offer.
The front page will announce any local Lewis activities of which I am aware, and give other updates on relevant material.
Curious about the name? Click here.
By Max on Jan 7, 2009 | In The Problem of Pain | Comments Off
A cruel man oppresses his neighbour, and so does simple evil. But in doing such evil, he is used by God, without his own knowledge or consent, to produce the complex good–so that the first man serves God as a son, and the second as a tool. For you will certainly carry out God’s purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you whether you serve like Judas or like John.
–
The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc., 1962), 111.
By Max on Jan 7, 2009 | In The Problem of Pain | Comments Off
…”If God is omnisicent He must have known what Abraham would do, without any experiment; why, then, this needless torture?” But as St. Augustine points out, whatever God knew, Abraham at any rate did not know that his obedience could endure such a command until the event taught him: and the obedience which he did not know that he would choose, he cannot be said to have chosen. The reality of Abraham’s obedience was the act itself; and what God knew in knowing that Abraham “would obey” was Abraham’s actual obedience on that mountain top at that moment. To say that God “need not have tried the experiment” is to say that because God knows, the thing known by God need not exist.
–
The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc., 1962), 101-2.
