thread: 2006-09-08 : Salvation, damnation, justification, a la Sydney
On 2006-09-09, Joel P. Shempert wrote:
Ian, I am, by my nature, prone to apologetics, to the process of explanation and justification. I shy away from Christianity to protect the spiritual core that keeps me alive from the corruption I have seen it undergo in the hands of Christian apology.
And, god, it's not that I think Lewis isn't sincere. He is, but I really and truly believe that he found that sincerity outside of his apologetic work, and that he found the heart of his faith elsewhere.
Yeah, Lewis would agree with you, in fact: "Nothing is further from the eye of faith than the doctrine which one has just successfully defended." He talks a lot about how apologetics is deadly dangerous to oneSELF, for that very reason. And I can testify that it bears out in my own experience. For a while I thought that the apologetics of my youth were just shallow, not tempered against actual opposition. But now I think I realize that ANY apologetic is insufficient to communicate the heart of your faith to yourself OR others, and is in fact even harmful to that purpose.
I think there is good reason why Jesus asked that you pray in private, because it is easy to lose the true power of it before those who do not share it with you. The goodness that you are and the goodness that you live are the best expressions of your faith—not words said to defend and forward the faith. The Good Word is not found in words, but action.
Well said.
Interestingly, Sydney, that reading list is pretty much mine as well. It's well ordered, and I might try working through it in the sequence you describe, to see what slides into place.
Peace,
-Joel
