tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post2797563807213190012..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: A Protestant image?Fr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-19603339555765960152010-10-27T11:23:37.552-04:002010-10-27T11:23:37.552-04:00I am quite sure that, ultimately, what makes Lewis...I am quite sure that, ultimately, what makes Lewis' picture of the church "Protestant" in David Mills' eyes is the fact that it treats all rooms, including the one presided over by the Bishop of Rome, equally -- it does not consider the Pope the "prefect" for ALL the rooms, with the hallway under his jurisdiction as well.wnpaulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18231515296470375310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-17380198767138653012010-10-26T12:36:42.461-04:002010-10-26T12:36:42.461-04:00OHEL (et al.) cont:
In another interview, 19 year...OHEL (et al.) cont:<br /><br />In another interview, 19 years later (1963), when asked if he felt "that modern culture is being de-Christianized", Lewis replied that he had "some definite views about the de-Christianizing of the church."<br /><br />I see nothing in the context to suggest he does not (or could not) here mean "the universal, visible Church" - or, for that matter, exclude any of the (many) various claimants to being "the One True Church" (to vary Fr. Hart's phrase).<br /><br />Some year and a half later, the day before the first anniverary of Lewis's death, 'Lumen Gentium' was promulgated (if that is the correct term). How "Protestant" is the fact, or are details, of the recognitions in its 15th section? (E.g., with "integram autem fidem non profitentur" is already said 'autem fidem profitentur'.)<br /><br />-Semi-Hookerian<br /><br />word verification: 'reacrebr'('rea crebro' abbreviated? - 'often a party to...')Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-78656774271358436552010-10-26T11:51:38.317-04:002010-10-26T11:51:38.317-04:00OHEL (et al.) resumed:
In another interesting 194...OHEL (et al.) resumed:<br /><br />In another interesting 1944 text, of the EMI Q&A session, when asked if he considers "the theological differences which have caused divisions in the Christian Church [...] fundamental, and is the time now ripe for re-union?", Lewis begins, "The time is always ripe for re-union." He goes on to refer, not to "mere Christianity", but the "world of dogmatic Christianity", "a place in which thousands people of quite different types keep on saying the same thing". He thinks these disparagingly so-called "'extremist' elements in every Church are nearest one another". <br /><br />His answer to the question, "Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?", includes (with, so far as I can see, reference to anyone of that "world of dogmatic Christianity"), "It gets you out of your solitary conceit." <br /><br />But this attention to practical spiritual value in a wide, deep sense, follows his saying, "If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can't do it without going to Church." <br /><br />-Semi-Hookerian<br /><br />word verification: 'torti' (m.s. gen. or pl. nom: consider the range of meaning!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-11959634872503086212010-10-24T08:45:55.449-04:002010-10-24T08:45:55.449-04:00Excellent reading! Very thoughtful. Thanks.
I agr...Excellent reading! Very thoughtful. Thanks.<br /><br />I agree that Mere Christianity and other Lewis' writings are best catagorized as "pre-evangelistic", considering his intended audience. As to whether he presents a Protestant view of the Church, that seems evident, to the degree that Anglicanism is theologically more Protestant than other churches that maintain the Priesthood, and Lewis was thoroughly Anglican.Alice C. Linsleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13069827354696169270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-68300891826620740302010-10-22T21:05:39.721-04:002010-10-22T21:05:39.721-04:00OHEL cont. further:
I will not, as I could not ea...OHEL cont. further:<br /><br />I will not, as I could not easily, here attempt a detailed comparison of Lewis's use of "mere Christianity" in his Introduction to Sister Penelope's translation of St. Athanasius's 'De Incarnatione'(1944) and in the "new introduction" to the collected broadcast talks (1953). But clearly it is not in either limited to "Ecclesiastical polity", and it would not seem too bold to say, it is not, a priori, absolutely limited by considerations thereof, either.<br /><br />In his OHEL vol., discussing the background to Hooker's 'Lawes', Lewis says, "To an Anglican the essential was the Gospel, and many things in Discipline were indifferent. Cartwright will allow no separation of that sort; the Discipline is 'a parte off the gospell' (ii), nay, is the Gospel itself (ibid. 5), necessary to salvation, and 'of faith' (i.14)" (p. 447). (The "puritan" Discipline in question is the "Genevan scheme": see pp. 443ff.)<br /><br />Later, Lewis says Hooker would be "repelled by those modern Papists who say, 'It is nothing to us how many of our doctrines you share, so long as you accept them on the wholly irrelevant ground that you think them true'" (pp. 456-57). The phrasing suggests not only that he does not think this universal, but that he may think it peculiarly "modern", among some who are distinctly obedient to the Pope.<br /><br />Both suggest a deep and not peculiarly "Protestant" question: how does one - do 'we' - justly weigh our shared doctrinal orthodoxy and "Gospel"?<br /><br />Semi-Hookerian<br /><br />word verification: "porate" (as in "Corporate"?!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-15615226270524427452010-10-22T20:22:22.489-04:002010-10-22T20:22:22.489-04:00I could not help but see a familiar metaphor in th...I could not help but see a familiar metaphor in the hallway full of doors, that I read about as the Wood between the worlds in The Magician's Nephew (The REAL first book about Narnia). <br /><br />Would that unity were so simply achieved, as by the wearing of green and yellow rings.AFS1970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-80707936955103309602010-10-22T18:20:31.640-04:002010-10-22T18:20:31.640-04:00OHEL continued:
Part of the "controversy&quo...OHEL continued:<br /><br />Part of the "controversy" of the previous reference, which Lewis seems content to leave open, might be formulated: whether or not the Latin Church peculiarly obedient to the 'Pope' has the unique or a preeminent claim to the description "Catholic". <br /><br />Summarizing crucial "elements in Hooker's thought", Lewis writes about what he means "by 'the Church'", "the visible Church", including, "We have not left her by reforming ourselves, nor have the Papists left her by their corrupt 'indisposition' to do likewise (III. i.10)" (pp. 453-54).<br />He concludes the paragraph by saying Hooker "is discussing the kind and degree of liberty proper to national churches within the universal, visible Church." How much is Hooker's position that of Lewis himself?<br /><br />Lewis is certainly not convinced that he is not a member of "the universal, visible Church", nor that those obedient to the Pope are not (not all scions of the continental 'Reformation(s)' would agree with the latter - or indeed the former - in Hooker's day or any day since!).<br /><br />This is a matter of "polity" but also of doctrine more broadly. Not all with a different "polity", such as "Geneva" and the admirers and imitators thereof, are clearly excluded, either. <br /><br />I hope to add something about "a standard of plain, central Christianity ('mere Christianty' as Baxter called it)", as Lewis writes in another work from 1944.<br /><br />Semi-HookerianAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-52493614774655915492010-10-22T14:16:24.043-04:002010-10-22T14:16:24.043-04:00Almost anyone will quickly grasp several weaknesse...Almost anyone will quickly grasp several weaknesses in Lewis's metaphor of hall-and-rooms for the Church. I am sure Lewis himself would have acknowledged as much. But it is puzzling why this metaphor looks "Protestant" to a RC convert. The RCC, after all, is a pretty big tent, making room for Jesuit, Dominican and Carthusian spiritualities.<br /><br />David Mills' writing has always impressed me favorably, but in this instance I fear he has fallen into a cliche, using the dreaded word "Protestant" for almost anything the writer or speaker dislikes.<br /><br />It is hard to imagine Luther, Calvin, or any any 16th or 17th century Protestant finding the hall-and-rooms metaphor acceptable.<br />LKWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-69802445964143020992010-10-22T13:36:51.016-04:002010-10-22T13:36:51.016-04:00Dear Father Robert Hart,
I have not yet read the ...Dear Father Robert Hart,<br /><br />I have not yet read the two articles you helpfully link, but thought it worth drawing attention to Lewis's OHEL contribution, "The Completion of The Clark Lectures" which had been delivered in the same year as the last cycle of broadcast talks ('Beyond Personality') - 1944, and which was published as 'English Literature in the Sixteenth Century' in 1954, the year after all the broadcast talks were collected in a "revised and amplified edition, with a new introduction", as 'Mere Christianity'.<br /><br />Among interesting details are his writing that "the very names we have to use in describing this controversy are themselves controversial. To call the one party Catholics implicitly grants their claim; to call them Roman Catholics implicitly denies it." His solution is to "call them Papists", believing "the word [...] is not now used dyslogistically except in Ulster, and it is certainly not so intended here." He sees "'Reformation'" as "a term equally ambiguous" but yields to the "entrenched [...] historical usage" - "as a mere label, intending no petitio" (p. 157).<br /><br />I hope to add a couple more examples, soon!<br /><br />Semi-HookerianAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-60490786275886065512010-10-22T13:04:31.705-04:002010-10-22T13:04:31.705-04:00I guess that from a Roman Catholic perspective the...I guess that from a Roman Catholic perspective there is simply a generic "Protestantism." Why would a convert, a former Anglican of a kind, make that mistake?<br />-BCP MannAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-34088850897247483342010-10-22T13:03:11.707-04:002010-10-22T13:03:11.707-04:00Fr. Hart,
Thank you for your critique of the crit...Fr. Hart,<br /><br />Thank you for your critique of the critique of the critique. I like that you strive to keep things clear when words like Protestant and Catholic are used. Your take on Lewis' metaphor is quite helpful.<br /><br />JackJack Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18281378425270530573noreply@blogger.com