Lewis looking at the inspiring scenery out his window at The Kilns in 1963.  (Photo by permission of Walter Hooper) If we have read the New Testament, we know that Christians are not to be selfish, i.e. self-seeking, putting one's self above others.  The example that Jesus gives his followers is one of self-sacrifice, of giving up of one's self for the sake of others. Yet he tells us in Mark 8 to follow him that we might save ourselves: 34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. C. S. Lewis, in his sermon The Weight of Glory , brings up the point that this does seem rather mercenary or self-seeking.  We are to follow Jesus to save ourselves; not other people or some general idea of "humani...

I will be leading a discussion of Lewis' book Letters to Malcolm at the Chattanooga House of Prayer, 11 & 12 March.  Here's the Facebook event page - hope you can join us! That's me leading a discussion of Letters to Malcolm at The Kilns, home of C. S. Lewis, in Oxford last year.

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Veil_nebula.jpg In The Weight of Glory , Lewis says we are meant to get into the Beauty we see in the universe around us; to be united with it. Our literature often depicts beings that reflect what is seen in Nature as the sphere of their existence, both ontologically (it comprises the nature of their being) and circumstantially.  We write stories like that because we want to be able to step into that world (overcoming exclusion) and we like the idea of beings so closely connected, united, to the beauty we see in Nature.  It's the kind of stuff Tolkien dreamed of when he created his elves.  Nature reflects the objective reality of the thing that our desires point to, but as mere distant echoes.  If we are in Christ, we will endure after Nature is gone and enter into that which Nature has reflected in this age.   He has redeemed us to become what we were meant to be as human beings, and bein...

A very important question.  Only those who are God’s people, united with Christ, will live with him in the new world to come.  I answer the simple question with another simple question:  What did Jesus say?  "All who come unto me, I will in no wise cast out.  Whoever believes in me has everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day."  If we have put all our trust for all we need to be a saint in Jesus Christ and all He has done for us and all he does for us and all he will do for us - if we have put all our trust in Him as the trustworthy God who cannot lie - then we have all the assurance we need.  If we have not so believed in Him, then we are in grave danger.  We are not saints.  God has done everything that needs to be done to make us saints through His Son.  The ball is now in our court.  Will we have Him as our King and Saviour?  If so, we have but to receive Him.  If we do, we may rejoice in our union ...

But what about praying to God for the saints departed, as we do in the communion service? This is different.  We certainly do not believe we should pray for those saints who have gone before us so that they will be delivered out of Purgatory, which is a lot of the kind of praying that has been done for the saints in the past.  But there is no reason why we cannot pray for God’s blessing on those for whom we have prayed all their lives beforehand.  They are still finite creatures, dependent on the mercy and grace of God, and we can pray for their enjoyment of the blessings of God as a way of identifying with them and continuing to express our love and care for them to God. We pray for all the saints and, in a way that is real, we all meet together before the same throne in prayer.  It’s a way of experiencing what the creed calls the Communion of the Saints.  Even though we are in two different places, we are still all one in Christ, sharing His life, and conc...

What about prayer to the saints, asking them to pray for us to God? Bishop Wright gives us part of the answer in his book For All the Saints.  He explains that the idea of praying to the saints as if they are representatives for us before the throne of God came out of the medieval idea of the royal court.  Someone living in a rural area, miles away from where the royal court may be held, could not petition the king for his needs.  However, if he had a friend at the court, he could ask that friend to plead his cause for him.  You can see how this could lead people to think about the divine court; a friend or a relative has now died and gone to the court of heaven and, perhaps if we ask them to, they will pray for us there. The problem is that this idea of needing others to address God for us in his court is wholly unnecessary.  The biblical doctrine is plain that all the saints, either those militant or triumphant, have the same access to God the Father, thro...

Spiritually speaking, all the saints are in Christ , thus they are called the Body of Christ. Geographically , in God’s universe, the saints are on earth, and called "the Church Militant."  You find them in "the local church."  Paul’s epistles recognise this.  And they are there with all their imperfections and sins and all that is so prosaic about our lives.  We don’t seem very glorious! C. S. Lewis does a great job describing the blandness, if you will, of the saints we meet in the local church in The Screwtape Letters , Letter 2. You may remember the part, speaking of the man the demons are trying to turn from Christ, Screwtape writes to Wormwood: When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided....  Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like "the body of Christ" and the actual faces in the next pew....  Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have...