All of the response from our attendees about the first session of Discussing Mere Christianity has been positive. There is no question that the video quality is excellent and the content is very good. Eric's survey of Lewis' life is interesting. McGrath's review of Lewis' approach to the common man to explain the Christian faith was - as expected - brilliant.
He does get Lewis farther along than Lewis actually wanted to go in those chapters. Lewis' goal in the Broadcast Talks is to help people to recognize the bad news of the gospel so they will appreciate the good news it contains. There's no use telling people they need to repent when they have no sense of guilt. Thus Lewis argues for the existence of a "Law of Human Nature" that we have broken. He does not want to bring in the Christian God or the gospel at all at this point. McGrath does, however. He wants to go beyond the material immediately in the first two chapters and help people see the whole picture ahead of Lewis' argument. Perhaps there's a tempation to want to get people to the end of the argument so people don't walk away from the first session without some solution to the problem. I can understand that, but I think it would have been better to just say we'll talk about the solution later in the course and keep people following Lewis.
On my initial reading of the accompanying book, I thought the questions for Session 1 a bit shallow. I did not use them. As I reflect on them more, I think better of them. They can lead to summarizing the material, putting things in your own words, and finding specific applications. Question 6 of the video section certainly has potential: "Can you point to an example in today's world of a culture or group of people with a radically different view of what is accepted as decent behavior? Does this difference mean there is no real right or wrong?" This could lead to some really good discussion regarding the Law of Human Nature in light of the "gay marriage" debate.
I have been told by someone who knows Devin that Devin wrote Eric's script. Eric makes a few errors regarding The Kilns. The house is not a short walk down a dirt path from Oxford. It's three miles away and through Headington. The house was not named The Kilns because of its proximity to Headington quarry. It's obviously named The Kilns because of the brick-making establishment that was on the property. And the gray curtains in Jack's room are not what the blackout curtains looked like during the war and until Joy persuaded them to do something about them ten years later. They were army blankets nailed over the windows.
Otherwise, so far so good and everyone is looking forward to Session Two.
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