Lewis: the unwritten confession

Wednesday, November 22, 2017
    Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230
    Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Writer, 1963
Meditation:
    As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
    —Romans 2:24,25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The sort of love I have been describing... can also be felt for bodies that claim more than a natural affection: for a Church or (alas) a party in a Church, or for a religious order. This terrible subject would require a book to itself. Here it will be enough to say that the Heavenly Society is also an earthly society. Our (merely natural) patriotism towards the latter can very easily borrow the transcendent claims of the former and use them to justify the most abominable actions. If ever the book which I am not going to write is written, it must be the full confession by Christendom of Christendom’s specific contribution to the sum of human cruelty and treachery. Large areas of “the World” will not hear us till we have publicly disowned much of our past. Why should they? We have shouted the name of Christ and enacted the service of Moloch.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves, London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1960, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 2:23-25; Jer. 8:8-9; Luke 10:26-29; 18:10-14; John 5:45-47; Rom. 3:23; Jas. 1:22-27; 4:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forgive us the wrongs we have done in Your name. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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