Saturday, July 4, 2009

C.S. Lewis Being My Hero Again

In the last week I've read "C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church" by Joseph Pearce, "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis and read the majority of "Surprised by Joy" and "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis.

The closest theologian I could place Lewis next to is Richard Hooker the Anglican Divine (and philosophically, G.K. Chesterton). Anyway, I just read this quote which reminded me of why I love C.S. Lewis so much. He was such an ecumenical bad-ass a true via media Anglican, a man after my own heart. He writes in the Screwtape Letters (in Devil's Advocate):

"The real fun [when attacking Christians] is working up hatred between those who say "mass" and those who say "holy communion" when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker's doctrine and Thomas Aquinas', in any form which would hold water for five minutes. And all the purely indifferent things - candles and clothes and what not- are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite remove from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials" - C.S. Lewis "The Screwtape Letters" p 84

He then talks about "high" Anglicans genuflecting and crossing themselves and "low" church brothers being offended and how they should get over it. LOL, Luther called the Mass "a damnable impiety" and Lewis sees it as irrelevant. He was in the best sense of the word an Anglican. It's a shame they're led by a druid arian these days....

It's also funny that Lewis refers to the anonymous Christian's religious leader as "Fr." aka Father. And he makes reference to Maritain as being a true theologian they (demons) should be worried about. Jacques Maritain was a Catholic Neo-Thomistic Theologian. Oh Lewis, he's so flippant when it comes to the Reformation, he acts as if it were a glass of spilled milk or something.

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