Living the Legacy of C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis College Status Update – February 2012

cslewisfoundation — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:39:55 +0000

Hi Everyone!

We’ve been busy this New Year working on many projects over the last few weeks – fundraising for C.S. Lewis College, meeting with Hobby Lobby representatives, hosting our annual Twelfth Night event, and planning our fall C.S. Lewis Retreat.

Given all that is going on, we thought it was important to swim up to the surface, take a breath of fresh air, and fill you in on what is happening at C.S. Lewis College.

As a Founder, you should have received a letter in November letting you know about our December 31st deadline to raise an additional $5 million.

The good news is that we had a wonderful outpouring of support in the last few weeks of 2011. We were able to raise $600,000 by year’s end toward this goal, in addition to a previous $1.2 million gift from Hobby Lobby. This was an incredible blessing, but it was also short of our goal, particularly in regards to attracting gifts from donors who could give $1 million or more.

As announced by Dr. Mattson at our recent Twelfth Night event, this means a few things:

We have lost our “sole beneficiary” status in regards to receiving the gift of the Northfield Campus from Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. Hobby Lobby is now seeking other potential recipients, possibly to share the campus with us.
Nevertheless, we will, with God’s help, press on to raise the $10-15 million needed to be the sole recipient of the Northfield Campus.
We are specifically seeking lead donors with the ability and desire to give gifts of $1 million or more.
In any and all events, please be assured that we are totally committed to pressing on and founding C.S. Lewis College. If Hobby Lobby does gift the campus to another organization, and if, for one reason or another, collaboration with that organization should not prove mutually advantageous, the Foundation will, consistent with its long standing objective, continue to seek to establish C.S. Lewis College at another appropriate location, preferably in the Pioneer Valley.

After witnessing much evidence for it, we believe that He has led us to Northfield for the purpose of founding C.S. Lewis College. We know that while we must and will continue to do our part, the exact ways God’s purposes will be realized are completely in His control.

To this end, we ask that you pray for us as we strive to do our part in seeking His will and His provision. We cherish your continued support of C.S. Lewis College in whatever ways you have been called to do so.

How you can help

There are several ways that you can help!

Help us connect with a potential “Champion” who could make a “lead” gift. It should not come as a surprise to you that C.S. Lewis College needs a few people to step forward to make “lead” gifts – gifts from $100,000 to $1 million or more. If you are aware of someone for whom the making of such a gift might be a real blessing, for them as well as for the College, please let us know.
Become a C.S. Lewis College Founder, or if you are already a Founder, renew or increase your Founders commitment. We thank you so much for being part of the more than 600 people who have already become Founders!
Make a gift of any amount. Your gift will help provide vitally needed operating funds to continue our on-going work right now.
Get the word out about C.S. Lewis College! Host a “Founding the Future” event in your home, your church, or your organization. Use Facebook and Twitter, visit our blog, or start an e-mail chain among friends to point people to our College website: www.cslewiscollege.org. Or you can tell people about us in person.

The Foundation is striving earnestly to accomplish the fundraising that is necessary to open the College, but we will need you every step of the way.

Thank you for your support!

Walking Shotover Hill: A CS Lewis-Inspired Sonnet

Holly Ordway — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:32:34 +0000

“The very air here calls my heart to dance…” I wrote this sonnet while staying as a Scholar in Residence at the Kilns, C.S. Lewis’ home.

During my stay, I realized that Oxford, and the Kilns and surrounding woods and fields in particular, is a ‘thin place’ for me: a place where what one might call the further dimensions of reality, the spiritual dimensions, were perceptible more vividly and consistently than usual.

I’ve tried to bring that out a little bit here. I also tried to capture my own sense of the connection of landscape and language, with references to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Narnia, Till We Have Faces, and “Meditation in a Toolshed”.

You can click on the title of the poem to hear my reading of it.

The Kilns in morning sun and frost. Photo c. Holly Ordway

Walking Shotover Hill

The hedge is green and silver with the frost,
The garden’s bare brown stems are furred with ice.
A weed becomes a Faerie scepter, lost
In midnight revel; every blade of grass
Is ornamented with the heraldry
Of winter, standing stiff to meet my step
As I set out to walk Shotover Hill.
The hollies stand as sentinel, but let
This walker pass: I give my thanks. The sun
Now gilds the path: I look along the beam,
And see the trees and stones and fence at once
As deeply real and being what they mean.
The very air here calls my heart to dance,
And so it does: this beauty’s not by chance.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Holly Ordway

Dr. Holly Ordway has a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an MA in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an MA in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Dr. Ordway’s book Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith (Moody Publishers, 2010) chronicles her intellectual and emotional journey from atheism to faith in Christ as her Lord and Savior.

She speaks and writes regularly on literature, especially fantasy literature and poetry, and literary apologetics. Her blog, from which this post was used with her permission, is Hieropraxis. In it, she explores the intersection of literature and faith, and of reason and imagination.

A Word of Grace – February 13, 2012

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:56:02 +0000

Dear Friends:

This is the sixth and last of a series of messages on the Book of Haggai.

The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month: Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of the kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts (Hag 2:20-23).

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matt 10:34).

Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah, but he found out that he wasn’t in charge.

Six months before he was trying to lead his people through a period of drought and economic stress. They had been called by the Lord and commissioned by King Cyrus of Persia to return from exile to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God (Ezra 1:1-4). He had been appointed to be their ruler.

The people were distracted from their mission by their efforts to build homes, establish businesses and plant crops. The temple remained in ruins, and for all their efforts the people were only surviving, not thriving.

It must have been humbling to Zerubbabel and Jehozadak, the high priest, for Haggai to announce on a feast day that the hard times were the result of a failure to pursue a mission that they were responsible for leading. The people and their leaders were suffering because of their disobedience.

The truth tested them, the way it always does leaders and followers. What rules when we are confronted with the truth? Pride? Position? Emotion? Convenience? The people’s will? The Scriptures? God’s will? God?

There are always choices to be made as to whose voice we hear and obey. We agonize and pray for discernment to make the decision, but is that the right way to go?

The Lord’s will was plain in the matter. He had told them to rebuild the temple and opened the way for them to do so. So God’s will wasn’t the issue.

The people hadn’t rejected God’s will. They had simply asked for more time to get their affairs in order before following through. Given the economic stresses they were experiencing, this request was plausible. It’s always tempting for a leader to give the people what they want, rather than do the hard work of bringing them to what the Lord wants.

It might have seemed understanding and compassionate of Zerubbabel to give the people some time to address the issues that were “relevant” to their everyday lives. Not only would this show a “grace orientation” in Zerubbabel, but it would be a convenient compromise between God’s demands and the people’s needs.

The source and means of God’s grace is his sovereign authority as a king and his kingdom is not a democracy. The majority’s will does not rule there.

Neither does the Lord treat us like an addled parent counting to three before enforcing his discipline. He expects whole-hearted and prompt obedience. Zerubbabel and his people were suffering because they hadn’t obeyed.

You see, grace is so much more than mercy and patience. Grace is not a motivational device for our efforts in self-improvement as in, “I’ll do my part, and God will do his part.” Grace is the power of God to live the lives that he gives to us and wants us to live (2 Cor 12:9-10; Titus 2:11-14).

“The throne of grace” is where the Word of God tells us to go in complete confidence in our time of need (Heb 4:16). Grace is God’s gift to those who make no claim except for God’s righteousness and mercy for themselves and their righteousness (1 Peter 5:5-7). “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is Scripture’s literal last word on what will get God’s people through to Christ’s return (Rev 22:21).

Pride and position makes humble dependence upon God’s grace a murky struggle for a leader. “Isn’t my leadership a gift from God? What’s going to happen if I don’t lead? The people need me. The project needs me. God needs me.” The concern gnaws away in every leaders heart, but if it were true the Cross would have never been necessary. The leader must be emptied of self as must we all. Only crucifixion with Christ will accomplish that (Gal 2:20-21).

Christ, “God with us,” is the indispensable element and the only one with the right to rule our souls. He was on the scene in Jerusalem. “‘I am with you,’says the Lord” to Zerubbabel and his people when they yielded their hearts in obedience.

Even as the work on the temple progressed, the Lord transformed their thinking about providence, prosperity, holiness, and commitment. He offered them only one answer — “return to me” (Hag 2:17).

But the Lord has a final word for Zerubbabel, descendant of kings, governor of Judah and obedient servant of the Lord. The temple is only a symbol and a place-holder. It is all coming down — the authority and power of the kingdoms of the world will destroy themselves in the end — “The horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade” (Hag 2:22c).

Zerubbabel’s desire as a governor and a religious man would have been for stability in his world. Obeying God should result in peace. That’s God’s plan and promise isn’t it? How many of us have committed our lives to that ideal?

The Lord was telling Zerubbabel that everything he thought about heaven and earth was wrong. Peace in this world is an illusion. The Lord is going to shake it up and overthrow it all. And in the most humbling message any human can receive, the Lord told Zerubbabel that he would save him and impress God’s character on Zerubbabel’s redeemed soul like a signet ring imprints a clay seal as a guarantee of authenticity (Hag 2:23). It’s the same gospel message that each one of us receives.

That message is humbling because it destroys pride. To need saving, to need a Savior, means that in the ultimate issue of life and death, the best and wisest solutions that we can devise are inadequate. It says that following anyone but the Lord is futile. It says that all human leaders have a fatal flaw — their mortality.

The word of salvation to Zerubbabel is devastating to the well-intentioned and the self-reliant because it says that talent, possessions, effort and virtue don’t buy us a thing with the Lord. He saves us because he chooses to save us in love (Hag 2:23). When it is all said and done, the Lord is more than our Savior. He is our salvation in the words of the prophet Isaiah–

Surely God is my salvation;

I will trust and not be afraid,

for the Lord God is my strength

and my might;

he has become my salvation.

(Isa 12:2)

The temple was rebuilt, but Zerubbabel faded from the historical record. We know nothing about him after he received the word of salvation, except for one thing. His name appears in the genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:13). That makes the point of the Book of Haggai. We want to be with Jesus Christ. Nothing else matters.

From the emails I have been receiving, the Holy Spirit has been using these messages to stir the souls of many of you to reconsecration to the Lord. I am glad.

Almost a year ago, when I was lying in bed recovering from knee replacement surgery, I read and reflected on the Book of Haggai. I was convicted of the truth of its timeless messages about priorities and shallow pursuits of virtue and holiness. It is a succinct manual about repentance and revival. Reading this account of the last six months of 520 BCE Jerusalem, has deepened my faith and changed my life. I pray that it does the same for you.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.

A Word of Grace – February 6, 2012

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:03:23 +0000

Dear Friends:

This is the fifth message in a series on the Book of Haggai.

On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling: If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered, ‘No.’Then Haggai said, ‘If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?’ The priests answered, ‘Yes, it becomes unclean.’ Haggai then said, So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, says the Lord; and so with every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean. But now, consider what will come to pass from this day on. Before a stone was placed upon a stone in the Lord’s temple, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord. Consider from this day on, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: Is there any seed left in the barn? Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? From this day on I will bless you (Hag 2:10-19).

The Lord peels the hearts of his people like an onion.

He penetrated their work-hardened, smooth, materialistic exteriors in the heat of August with questions. “Why are you working so hard with so little to show for it? Is it not because you are putting your interests ahead of the Lord’s?” (Hag 1:3-11, my paraphrase).

They responded by returning to their mission of rebuilding the temple at harvest time in September and the Lord encouraged them and told them, “I am with you.” (Hag 1:13).

He wasn’t done peeling them, and in October, as their reconstruction of the temple faltered in critical comparison to the glories of Solomon’s temple, the Lord asked the people, Why do you cling to the past instead of trusting the Lord for your present and future? (Hag 2:1-9, my paraphrase).

Now in the cold of December, the Lord strips away layers deep in the soul with this question, “Is it your work and sacrifices that bring you blessing, or is it your repentance and obedience to my word?” (Hag 2:10-19, my paraphrase).

There is nothing more uncomfortable than this peeling and stripping away of all the defenses, aspirations, conceits, vanities, illusions, resentments and fears with which we layer ourselves against pain and death. The problem is that our self-protection cannot distinguish between friend and foe. Its weight slows us and turns us inward, even as our fears drive us to keep moving and adding more layers as we exhaust ourselves.

Tet, there is nothing more necessary than this peeling and stripping away of self. However much it exposes us and makes us vulnerable, the Lord must have his way with us or we will die, crushed beneath a load of guilt and shame that we haven’t done enough, won’t ever do enough, but can’t stop the doing even though it is sucking the life out of us.

It matters not whether the doing is the evil pursuit of our own appetites or our heroic struggles to achieve the good. If the focus is self-fulfillment, self-destruction, self-protection, self-improvement, self-righteousness, self-reliance, self-actualization, self-motivation, self-revelation, self-denial, self-discovery, self-promotion, self-acceptance, self-enlightenment or self-you-fill-in-the-blank, it is all selfish. Good, bad or indifferent the self must die.

The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate stripping down to the core truth of our existence which is that our sole legitimate claim is that we have a God who made us, saves us and lives for us. The Apostle Paul succinctly sets out this truth:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me . . . You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory (Gal 2:19-20; Col 3:3-4).

Every other claim we assert to the possession of anyone or anything is false. When we come through the cross all that we are left with is Christ who says: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25).

It was five hundred years before Christ would appear on earth with this new life, but the Lord was preparing the way through Haggai. The Lord was reviving and restoring his people even as they restored his temple. He had to get them to see that the blessing of life is found in God alone, not in their performance.

So the Lord speaks a hard truth through Haggai. “You can wear holiness on your sleeve and try to touch everything with it, but it is not going to rub off” (Hag 2:11-12). Only the Lord is holy and holiness is solely derived from his presence. Things and places aren’t inherently holy. We can be made holy by the Lord’s presence in our hearts, but we are incapable in and through ourselves of making anything holy.

On the other hand, our sins do rub off on others. It doesn’t matter that our activities are well-intentioned and sacrificial. If they do not originate with God or follow his instructions to us, they are sin. As Jesus said, “No one is good but God alone.” (Luke 18:20).

Everything we touch in the pride of legalistic achievement, or in the fulfillment of our lusts and appetites will contaminate those around us with selfishness. If we insist on our own way rather than the Lord’s, we will defile and be defiled (Hag 2:13-14).

As I have noted before in this series, the people that Haggai was addressing were upstanding citizens, hardworking, devoted to their homes, faithful in attendance at the temple, but their activities were motivated by a sense of dutiful compliance, not the heart-felt, mind-convicted response of gratitude that is the mark of true obedience.

Our sovereign Lord won’t settle for dutiful compliance. Even when we think that there are no more layers to be peeled off of us, he keeps going because he wants our hearts.

Only the obedience of a repentant heart will satisfy God. A repentant heart is possessed by a man or woman who chooses to face God and what God wants instead of turning away and moving on his or her own impulses or vacillating between the way of the Spirit and the way of the flesh. David prayed for such a heart as we must because it won’t come naturally to our sinful natures–

Teach me your way, O Lord,

that I may walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart to

revere your name.

(Ps 86:11).

Dutiful religious compliance will take life, it won’t give it. Ever since they had returned from exile, the remnant people of Judah had only received half of the expected yield from their plantings. Their crops had suffered disease, mildew and hail and they were barely getting by despite their hard work. “‘Yet you did not return to me,’says the Lord” (Hag 2:17). Their human solution was to work harder, but they had received even less for their efforts.

Then the Lord called them back to their calling for him and they obeyed. From that moment the blessing of prosperity began. The simple truth is that the Lord blesses us for doing what he calls us to do, but if we pursue our own ends we are on our own and in a world scourged with sin, the odds against our success are prohibitive.

The blessing begins with the obedience. The Lord doesn’t wait until the conclusion of the work. The seed was still in the barn at the time of the promise, but the harvest was assured (Hag 2:18-19).

I have lived my life among religious people, Christian people. Many times have I heard, “I have served the Lord faithfully, said my prayers, paid my tithes and offerings, kept the commandments, attended church, sent my children to church school, worked hard, practiced clean living, so how come my business is failing, I have cancer, my spouse has left me and my children are in trouble? Why does God let this happen” or words to that effect uttered with pitiful sorrow and often bitterness.

These are tough questions, but they reflect the spiritual error of confusing the means with the end. “You did not return to me,” is the Lord’s crisp judgment. The things we do–good things, religious things, virtuous things–are only things. At best, they are expressions of a life, but are not the life itself. Prosperity, health, and family are gifts of the Lord, but when they come to represent the Lord to us, we are just indulging in a burnished version of the ultimate selfish question, “What’s in it for me?”

The Lord responds, “This isn’t about you. Unless you are with me, body, mind, soul and spirit, you are lost. If I, alone, am not enough for you, nothing and no one else ever will be.” This is the breakpoint where worshipers separate from idolaters and the obedient leave behind the merely compliant to enter full citizenship in the kingdom of God with all its benefits.

Mere belief will not bring us into that kingdom-life, any more than dutiful compliance will. What is required of us is a total concentration and reliance upon God as our hope and salvation. The respected Welsh preacher D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote–

This total concentration on God, is essential. You may say, “I’ve always believed in God. Isn’t that enough?” People have often told me, “I’ve always believed in God. I’ve always said my prayers.” And yet they are full of troubles and problems and defeat because mere belief in God is of no value. “The devils also believe, and tremble,” says James 2:19. God must become the supreme focus of your life. He must be the one object of your desire and of your ambition (Seeking the face of God: Nine Reflections on the Psalms [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005]

I was fortunate as a teenager to find this truth by contemplating the words of an old hymn, Is Your All on the Altar. I arranged it as an accompanist for a friend who sang it beautifully on many occasions. The chorus carries the message–

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

Your heart does the Spirit control?

You can only be blest,

and have peace and sweet rest,

as you yield Him your body and soul.

– Elisha A. Hoffman

Sitting at the piano, tracing the words with the notes, I was convicted that the Lord demanded everything from me and provided everything for me. That’s when I began to fall into a deeper love with the God of grace and that’s why the Book of Haggai reads like a love letter to me.

I have been false to that love at times and have certainly pursued my own ends to exhaustion and diminishing returns, but over time I’ve learned that it is a mistake to think of the words to Is Your All on the Altar as a mere altar call. They are a rule for living.

We cannot have rest or the Lord’s complete blessing unless and until we lay everything that we have and all that we are on the altar before him, and (this is the part too often missed) leave it there and never pick it back up. This is the message of Haggai pointing to the truth of the cross and the power of the resurrection.

Next time in the final message of the series, I will discuss the assurance of our salvation revealed through Haggai.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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A Word of Grace – January 30, 2012

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:54:11 +0000

Dear Friends:

This is the fourth message in a series on the Book of Haggai. Visit our blog for the first three messages in the series.

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (Hag 2:1-9).

There was likely no one still living in Jerusalem who had witnessed Nebuchadnezzar destroy Solomon’s temple and haul away its treasures 66 years before.

But their parents and grandparents had told them the stories of the beauty and splendor of the symbol of the Jewish people and its unique link to God. With each telling the glories of the temple must have grown in imagination.

Now, the people rebuilding the temple labored under the burden of that former greatness and began to regard their efforts to rebuild as pitiful and shabby by comparison.

Anyone who is going to move forward with the Lord is going to have to get their head out of the past. This may be difficult given the power of history to shape our allegiances and faith and the toxic contagion of bitter resentment over loss.

The past is one of the pieces of luxury baggage that a person rich in pride, guilt or hoarded memories must off-load if he or she is going to enter the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven.

The people restoring the temple found their vision and materials did not match the stories and in increasing shame and doubt they began to carp, complain and criticize. Discouragement was setting in like an early frost blighting the unharvested crops.

Here is always a challenge– Are we serving God or are we serving the past?

It’s a challenge that must be faced by a spouse who daydreams of a carefree but lost youthful love to escape the realities of bills, diapers, runny noses and the demanding routines of marriage.

It is a spirit-draining temptation to believers longing for the soul-padded comfort of their former pastor and church family rather than thinking and praying through new perspectives and relationships.

Do we humble ourselves to God’s leading in the realities of the present or do we elevate our memories of what was or might have been to first place in our hearts and minds?

Nostalgia for the past is an idol that must fall. Jesus warned us to “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32), because she put her affinity for what lay behind her before following God and thereby forfeited the new life and faith that he was leading her family towards (Gen 19:26).

The children of Israel received a fresh supply of manna every day they were in the wilderness (Ex 16:13-35). They were not to hoard it because that would be a denial of the evergreen grace of God’s presence in the driest desert where their cravings for the savory stews of Egypt were a symptom of the addictive enslavement from which the Lord in his great mercy had delivered them.

Is it wrong to want what those who came before us possessed– a nice home and family, a profitable occupation, a beautiful place of worship, perhaps? Yes, if those desires are the only way we see and measure God.

We think we are restoring God when we seek to mend and revarnish the old furniture that decorated his dwellings with those who came before us, but we cannot relegate God to museums that we visit on the occasional field trip to marvel how it must have been then.

The people working on the temple wanted to restore the glory of the past. When they couldn’t match the material and craftsmanship, they deemed themselves failures and unworthy.

That’s the point when the Lord stepped in through Haggai with the jolt of reality in the form of a question. “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?” (Hag 2:1-3)

Then the Lord followed up with a cascade of grace–

Take courage . . . work, for I am with you according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt . . . My spirit abides among you; do not fear. I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor . . . the silver is mine, and the gold is mine . . . the latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former . . . and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (Hag 2:4-8).

The Lord wants the real thing, not replicas of the past, and he told them so. The very definition of the “real thing” is God’s presence with his people. He is doing something new and everything necessary to his purpose is at his disposal. The splendor of the temple is that he is there, not what we bring to it.

We study the past for evidence of God’s leading, but that evidence is just the dry bone’s of Ezekiel’s vision, unless God breathes new life into us and through us (Ez 37).

The problem with our nostalgic reverence for the past is that it keeps us from seeing what God is doing in us and for us and through us in the present. There is nothing that anyone had from God in the past that he is not willing to give to us now and more (John 14:12;1 Cor 2:8-10).

We are not step-children or poor relations depending on the spiritual “hand-me-downs” of our ancestors. No, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see everything has become new” (2 Cor 5:17).

How great is your God and what can he do for you? Well, you don’t know do you because he hasn’t finished yet. You can know as his child and his handiwork that “The one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). You can know that “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory”( Col 3:4).

His power to do these things is complete. “I tell you, ‘something greater than the temple is here,’” said Jesus referring to himself (Mt 12:6). It is Jesus Christ who is indestructible. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again” (John 2:20). The good news is that we are the living stones of that rebuilt temple (1 Pet 2:4-5).

Don’t resist his work of renewal by clinging to your past or by trying to repeat it in your relationships with the Lord and with others. Regardless of whether you consider your past, good, bad or indifferent, he has one thing to offer you for it–forgiveness, which indicates his judgment about what is required to deal with it.

In place of your past, he gives you a future with hope (Jer 29:11). Until then he gives you steadfast, unceasing love and new mercies every morning. Great is his faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23).

Next week’s message will discuss consecration.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

————————–

C.S. Lewis News Roundup

cslewisfoundation — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:51:51 +0000

Since there are several bits of Lewis related news this week, I’ve put them together into one blog post for your convenience.

Lewis on list of those who turned down honors from the Queen

Though I am pretty sure this was already commonly known in Lewis studies (I remember reading it somewhere), C.S. Lewis turned down the honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in 1952. Interestingly enough, it also forms another slight connection of Lewis to writer Aldous Huxley, who died on the same day as Lewis on November 22, 1963 (the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated). Huxley turned down a Knighthood in 1959.

Fantasy Author Neil Gaiman posts reprint of his speech on Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton

British author Neil Gaiman, known for his fantasy novels (several of which have been adapted for film), gave a speech in 2004 to the Mythopoeic Society on the influence of Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton on his ambition to be a writer and on their influence on his writing style. He reposted it on his blog today.

“The C.S. Lewis Minute” and “All About Jack: A C.S. Lewis Podcast”

If you haven’t caught them yet, William O’Flaherty, an alumnus of our Summer Institutes and several of our C.S. Lewis Retreats in Texas, has been busy podcasting on C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, including interviews with various C.S. Lewis scholars. He has two podcasts:

“The C.S. Lewis Minute,” in which he gives a quick 60 second audio piece on Lewis (about two a week)
The new “All About Jack: A C.S. Lewis Podcast,” in which he hosts longer interviews with authors of books related to C.S. Lewis.

He has also recently published an article at The Herald Standard titled “The Lasting Legacy of C.S. Lewis.”

A Word of Grace – January 23, 2012

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:42:21 +0000

Dear Friends:

This is the third message in a series on the Book of Haggai. See our blog for the last two messages in the series.

Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of the prophet Haggai, as the Lord their God had sent him; and the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord’s message, saying, I am with you, says the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month (Hag 1:12-15).

Several years ago, I was invited to speak for chapel service at a Christian university. The topic was left up to me and I chose to speak on the Apostle Paul’s declaration to the Galatians: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 5:14). I delivered a 25 minute exposition of the Gospel as viewed through the lens of this verse.

From the response, my talk was well received, but one student’s comments have haunted me ever since. He was a senior. “Thank you for talking to us about Jesus,” he said. “I thought I would hear about him a lot when I chose to enroll here. We long to hear the Gospel, but they keep sending us sociologists.”

A young Christian attorney recently told me about her displeasure with the sermons of a popular pastor at a large congregation in our community. “There’s no substance,” she said. He tells us what he thinks we want to hear, but there’s nothing to challenge us to go deeper with God and meet the secular mind-set head on. It’s like being in the audience of an “Oprah” show.

No one could make these criticisms of Haggai. He didn’t mince words or deliver a carefully nuanced sermon on the stresses of meeting the demands of home and business. He apparently gave them an “elevator conversation,” not a sermon.

An “elevator conversation” is a 15-30 second pitch to a prospective customer, employer, or donor that seeks to impress them with the critical elements of your story and engage them with it. Haggai told Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest that it was time for the people to return to mission and build the Lord’s house instead of tending to their own interests. Having the wrong priorities was causing them to work harder but receive less for their efforts and it would only get worse with drought and famine.

It was a terse, tough message that caught the attention of the leaders and the people. For twenty years, the remnant of Judah living in Jerusalem had lived complacent lives of religious compliance. They showed up at the temple on Sabbaths and festival days, but seemed indifferent that the place was in ruins. They had long delayed fulfilling their calling to restore it and proposed to delay some more.

Their philosophy apparently was “the Lord helps them who help themselves. Let us get our house in order, and then we will be able to support the Lord’s work.” This idea seems logical and practical, but it puts us ahead of the Lord in planning and execution, and that is always wrong. The Lord does not require us to save up to serve him. He is Adoni-Jireh, “The Lord will provide” (Gen 22:13-14). He is our shepherd, “and we shall not want.”

“Take care of your business and the Lord will take care of you” is not an idea found in Scripture. “Wait on the Lord,” is a common instruction of God. God leads and we follow. Until we hear from God, we stay put. That’s the deal.

What do we do while we wait? First, let’s talk about what we don’t do. We don’t get busier. That’s distraction, not waiting.

We don’t try to earn his favor by better religious performance and bigger offerings. That’s attempted bribery and an insult to grace. The Lord explicitly hates our religious performance and big offerings without a heart committed to God and the justice and righteousness that honors him (Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:8).

The Jews in Jerusalem had tried those things but were left empty of purse and soul with a drought and famine coming on. Even if performed with the best of intentions, good done in human strength and resources is not God-honoring as we know from the stories of men and women like Cain and Abel, Abraham and Hagar, King Saul and Samuel, King Uzziah, Mary and Martha, and Peter with his blustering declarations and slashing sword.

What we do while we wait is to listen for God’s voice and when we hear it, we respond with our “Yes.”

What God wants from his people is not mere religious compliance, but obedience–the whole-hearted action that comes from carefully listening to God and yielding to his will. This is what Samuel observed to a disobedient King Saul –

Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obedience to the voice of the Lord?

Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice

and to heed better than the fat of rams (1 Sam 15:22).

The people heard Haggai. The Lord’s voice echoed in the tired hollows of their souls with the ring of truth. They paid reverent attention to the Lord, not an easy thing to do at the end of summer with what harvest there was to be coming on.

Then Haggai spoke again. Just as the key to hearing from the Lord is listening, we will not continue to hear from him without obedience. “As it is written, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion’” (Heb 3:15). We cannot expect to maintain a relationship with the Lord when we ignore his voice and spurn his direction. Life from the Lord is a sustained flow, not an intermittent stream.

The message that Haggai carried was simple and affirming to convicted and repentant hearts. “‘I am with you,’says the Lord.” (Hag 1:13). It doesn’t seem like much, but the assurance of God’s presence is everything for a people who have exhausted themselves and reached their limits, who realize that they got it wrong and are sorry. It is the evergreen truth of an eternal God whose saving presence is always with us in the forgiveness and mercy of Emmanuel–God with us (Isa 7:14).

New life followed for the people. The Lord stirred up the spirit of the leaders and the people. Within 23 days of the time that Haggai called them to revival, “they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts” (Hag 1:14).

This is a timeless story of grace. I have lived a chapter of it myself. I know that I never tire of it. Proud men and women do their best, but find out it isn’t enough. Worn and broken, the Lord knows they are ready to listen. He calls them back. If they say, “Yes,” he gives them new life and spirit and the assurance of his continuing presence.

It is a testament to the strength of pride and the deception of sin, that so few of us say that “Yes.” The Lord is stronger than anything that would take us from him. If we trust him and say “Yes,” we will receive the light and the strength to make it all the way home.

Next time in this series we will explore the spiritual problem with nostalgia.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

————————–

Article by Oxbridge Alumnus David Theroux – “Secular Theocracy”

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:54:13 +0000

David Theroux, President of the Independent Institute and an alumnus of our 2011 C.S. Lewis Summer Institute (“Oxbridge 2011″), recently posted the second part of his article “Secular Theocracy:
The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny.” In it, he discusses issues of statism, religion and the public square, and secularism. Special mention is made of the views of authors C.S. Lewis, Rodney Stark, and William Cavanaugh. You can view the article at the Independent Institute’s website.

And if you didn’t catch it, here is David’s article from August 2011 on “C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism.”

A Word of Grace – January 16, 2012

cslewisfoundation — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:00:17 +0000

Dear Friends:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house. Then the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your panelled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals and on all their labors (Hag 1:2-11)

Nebuchadnezzar took everything of value from Jerusalem and burned the city. The exiles returned to devastation. They had to rebuild their homes, shops, government buildings, temple, walls, gates, cisterns, and streets from the ground up.

The work ethic of “these people” was excellent. They planted crops and established businesses. They labored to put roofs over the heads of their families and food on the table. At the end of the day, they hurried home to do the kinds of things that one can only do at home.

What’s not to like about this picture of hard work, entrepreneurship, and family values?

They were prudent too. “Let’s build our homes and our businesses first and then turn to rebuilding the Lord’s house,” was their thoughtful plan. Most observers, then and now, would say that they had the right priorities.

So why were these people struggling so much, getting little return on their efforts; working harder, but getting less? Why was it a dry time for them physically and spiritually?

The people had returned to Jerusalem eighteen years before with a mission –

Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of those among you who are of his people — may their God be with them! — are permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel — he is the God who is in Jerusalem; and let all the survivors, in what ever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with animals, besides freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2-4)

Now on a hot August day of worship and reflection, the prophet Haggai stepped forward to state the obvious — the people were off mission. Their good was getting in the way of God’s best. The flaw in their “no margin, no mission” strategy was that there was never enough margin for mission.

The single most overlooked fact about our life with God is that it begins with God not us. This is the secret of grace expressed in Jesus Christ– “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things come into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:1-4). Grammarians, please note John’s prepositional phrases “with God,” “in God,” “through God”, and “without God,” to gain perspective on the Divine order of life.

When we forget this Divine order and reverse the role of the creature and its Creator, we live graceless, laboring lives full of chaff, but precious little wheat. Haggai was speaking to this grim spiritual and material reality. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared . . . You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? . . . Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses” (Hag 1:7-9).

What is God supposed to fill if we are so full of ourselves? How do we get to God’s new business if our agenda is so crowded with our never-ending old business? We use up our lives with our exertions for our purposes and obtain,at best, nothing more than mere survival when the Lord wants to give us life.

The inevitable result is drought and famine, God said through Haggai. “Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land, on the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the old, on what the soil produces, on human beings and animals, and on all their labors” (Hag 1:10-11).

The popular concept of “idolatry” conjures up thoughts of sybaritic pagans dancing around wood and stone effigies in the woods. In truth, an idol is anything that takes our affections and worship from God. Most hard-working, virtuous people can’t conceive of themselves as idolators, but even work and virtue can become idols if our focus is on our performance rather than on God’s grace.

This can get really tough when our idol is something good like home and family. The most criticism that I ever received for these messages is for one I wrote many years ago on the idolatry of family. My point was summarized, perhaps too tersely by the statement, “We aren’t called to focus on the family. We are called to worship God and trust our families and their values to him in obedience.”

You would have thought that I had blasphemed Jesus on the Cross which really proved my point that the family can be an idolatrous substitute for God. Many of those writing critical comments turned out to be the children of pastors who had ignored and neglected their spouses and children on the pretext that they were doing the Lord’s business. Their emails revealed a lot of pain and anger toward God and their fathers who they kind of had all mixed together, again proving my point.

My response to them was, “If your dad found the temptations of pulpit, the flattery of church members, and addressing other people’s problems more alluring than being home, changing diapers, washing dishes, doing yard work, playing games, and talking with your mom and you, that’s not God’s fault. That’s your dad’s idolatry. I am writing about those who worship a rigid, formulaic image of family rather than the God who blesses us with family and the grace to live within and outside of family. Until you forgive your dad and move on with God, you are perversely making an idol of your dad, expecting him to give what only God can give you.”

These are hard truths, but righteous ones. If God doesn’t come first in our lives, what does?

The people that Haggai was addressing had been exiled to a place where they had no roots and few possessions. Their interest in building and establishing solid homes is understandable, but doing so at the expense of God is not acceptable.

Putting our security and comfort ahead of our service to the Lord does not just dishonor him. When these people said, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house,” they were not trusting him to take care of them. Their hurry and busy activity were a hedge against the possibility that their faith was misplaced, which means, of course, that it wasn’t faith. Here’s the rub–”Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb 11:6).

Without faith, the attendance by the hard-working, home-loving citizens of Jerusalem at the religious services that hot August day was only “lip service.” God called them out on it through Haggai.

God calls us out on it as well. Do you ever wonder what God is telling you if you are working harder, but getting less for it, sowing a lot of seeds, but reaping little, eating and drinking, but finding no satisfaction in it, clothing yourself, but finding yourself as cold of soul as you are empty in heart, and your take-home rewards keep being blown away? What is God saying to you if your life is dry and unproductive?

God is calling you to honor him by giving priority to his plans and purposes in your life. That’s probably not a surprise, but are you listening? Do you get it? What are you going to do about it?

The next message in this series on Haggai will discuss what it means to say “Yes” to God.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

————————–

A Sonnet for The Kilns

cslewisfoundation — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:38:36 +0000

As I write this, I am staying at The Kilns as a Scholar in Residence through the C.S. Lewis Foundation. It’s my first visit to The Kilns, and it’s marvelous.

The house has been lovingly restored by volunteer labor to be much as possible how it was when C.S. Lewis and his brother Warnie lived here. None of the original furniture is here (it was sold off at auction at Lewis’s death), but I think that’s perhaps how Jack would have liked it, for as it is now, The Kilns is not a museum, but rather a working house for scholars. Some are long-term (perhaps writing a dissertation), some short-term (like me) working on an article or book; but in any case, the house is lived-in and filled with conversation and Christian fellowship as it was in Lewis’s day.

Here is a little sonnet that I wrote a few days after my arrival at The Kilns. You can click on the title to hear my reading of the poem.

The Kilns

The wind is howling round the eaves, and through
The bare-branched trees that raise their slim brown arms
Aloft beside the still-green hedge. The view
Is not the same as Jack’s once was: less farm
And more suburban bustle; yet I’d say
He’d laugh and let it go (who hated hymns
But kept to his own parish church to pray
And sing beside his neighbors). Now within
These well-loved walls, I brew a pot of tea
And settle in a shabby chair to read.
The wear of years means that it cannot be
Exactly as it was : nor is there need.
So heed the call of “Further up, and in–”
This is a place where good work can begin.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Dr Holly Ordway. Photo copyright: Lancia Smith, www.lanciaesmith.com

Dr. Holly Ordway

Dr. Ordway’s book Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith (Moody Publishers, 2010) chronicles her intellectual and emotional journey from atheism to faith in Christ as her Lord and Savior.

She speaks and writes regularly on literature, especially fantasy literature and poetry, and literary apologetics.

Her blog, from which this post was used with her permission, is Hieropraxis. In it, she explores the intersection of literature and faith, and of reason and imagination.