8/11/2009

Screwtape Letters

C.S. Lewis wrote in Screwtape Letters, “The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know – Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and the Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith some Fashion with a Christian coloring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.”
Sorry this is a long quote, but it is really important to understand what Lewis is trying to write in the mouth of Screwtape.
I remember at church when my pastor would make fun of the Methodists or other denomination meaning that Baptists are the better of the denominations. I really really hated that because they are our brothers and sisters in Christ no matter what denomination they are. If we start to create differences within the Christian religion, then might as well give the devil the battle because we are not being one church. Yeah I understand that we all have our differences in theology, but who cares? If we fight about theology, we lose sight of the big freaking picture. Why can’t we just love people? Why can’t we be like Jesus. Jesus was not a Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or whatever you are, he just loved people. He looked deep into each and everyone of our souls and saw something worth dying for. Give me that. I want to stop judging, I want to stop putting a label on myself, I want to be like Jesus. I'm outs

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