Abraham, Isaac, and the Heresy of Reason

In Scripture, Abraham is tested by God. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a burnt offering to the Lord. Most of us know this story and most of us can recognize that Abraham is also a type of God the Father sacrificing God the Son. (If you'd like to read it yourself, it can be found in Genesis 22:1-19.)

I believe that this story actually happened. I believe that it is not only true as a type or a parable but as a factual occurrence in history. I believe the story is true.

If we understand the story, we can recognize that the "testing" of Abraham isn't a testing of his integrity. God is not trying to see if Abraham is willing to violate universal morality (such as "do not kill"). Instead, God is testing Abraham to see if he's willing to sacrifice his legacy. Isaac is the only chance for Abraham's life to go on through his offspring and as confirmation, the reward for Abraham's passing of the test is that he will be blessed through descendants "as numerous as the stars."

But if we hold up this story to morality, God's morality, we must instantly be quite horrified. I don't know how to reconcile the factual nature of the story with a morality that states murder is wrong, something almost every culture at every time has known. But whatever Abraham must have thought or felt, we know how we would think or feel in this situation. The difference is that reason must play a vital role in our faith.

Many Christians view reason as the enemy of faith. But reason and even common sense have been an aid to Christians throughout the ages from St. Augustine to St. Aquinas to even contemporaries like C. S. Lewis (apologetics is merely reasonable argumentation). Pope Benedict XVI stated famously that faith and reason are not at odds and that if it appears they are, then you're misunderstanding at least one of them.

In the tradition of Augustine and Aquinas we can affirm that "all truth is God's truth." We need not fear what Christians at times have thought stood in opposition to their faith and interpretation of Scripture - a heliocentric solar system, women learning and in leadership roles, the belief that slavery was wrong despite its presence in the Bible, and, in our modern day, things like evolution.

You don't have to believe in evolution, of course, but don't be afraid of science. We continue to push back against reason because we feel threatened. Rather than giving reason license to inform and enrich our faith, we wish to banish its authority altogether. This is because doing so is easier than having to negotiate reason's influence on us. We might not like where reason leads us.

Imagine for a moment that you are in Abraham's place. You hear an audible, physical, divine voice asking you to kill your child, or your spouse, or your parents. You believe that it's God. Would you go through with it? I do not wish to and cannot say that Abraham was wrong because I am neither an exegete nor do I fully understanding the cultural and religious attitudes of the time. But I can say, without a doubt, that in our own hypothetical scenario, you would be absolutely wrong to go through with it. Here is where reason must inform faith and we would all have to say, "No."

Reason easily leads us to the realization that killing is wrong - grossly wrong - and that our faith confirms this time and again. The point I'm trying to make isn't really about an impossible hypothetical situation or that killing is wrong, which we all know. The point of all this is that we must not shut out reason when it comes to faith. We must let it have a voice and the power to move us from positions we previously thought immovable. In the above scenario, we need not claim that God is wrong or immoral. We need only take reason, "killing is wrong," and apply it to our situation. We would have to conclude that the voice we heard wasn't really God or that it was imagined or something else that can reconcile the situation.

Many Christians continue to feel threatened by reason and arguments, by facts, and by science, and Evangelicals are leading the way. Evangelicals are almost twice as likely to disbelieve evolution as Catholics or Mainline Protestants. Broadly speaking, Christians seem to be generally averse to reason (and science) affecting their faith. In another poll, Christians were asked to imagine a scenario where clear evidence was presented that actually proved, clearly beyond any doubt, that some of their beliefs were false. A clear majority responded that in such a scenario, they would continue to believe those things anyway.

Almost the exact same question was once put to the Dalai Lama, who, in his usual style, gave a simple yet profoundly brilliant answer. A reporter essentially asked His Holiness what he would do if tomorrow his religion were proven wrong. He responded that if that were the case, he supposed he would have to give up his religion. But then he returned a question to the reporter by asking how someone could possibly show such a proof. The reporter, of course, had no answer.

Do you see? The Dalai Lama was open to reason and yet it posed no real threat to him or his beliefs. Again, all truth is God's truth. Some of us fear reason because we believe it challenges God or that it's human pride to think human things like "science" know best. But ours is a faith that accepts all of reality. The problem comes when we see a conflict and decide, "No matter what evidence comes, I'll believe the way I believe until I die." We mistake immovability for faith-filled courage.

I am not arguing that religious belief needs to be supported by the scientific method or formal logic. I am not saying that reason will guide every facet of your faith (how could it ever explain the Trinity and a thousand other mysteries?). But reason needs to be given a voice for informing your faith. If something is not true, reason doesn't have the power to prove that it is true. And if a religious belief is indeed true, reason cannot damage it. Like the Dalai Lama, we should adopt an attitude of openness to reason, knowing we have nothing to fear. 

It's important to remember that many spiritual realities transcend reason. Note: they don't contradict reason, they just overcome it. And we must remember that reason is ultimately an aid to our faith. Be wary of anyone who says reason, facts, and the natural world are dangerous to your faith. While an exultation of reason as the only way of knowing is certainly dangerous (as with the New Atheists), a banishment of reason makes for a shallow faith, easily shaken by the slightest disturbance. Those who can't hold a faith informed by reason aren't in a position to hear anything but what they want to hear. And that's a decidedly bad hermeneutic for anyone.

Related Posts:
When Christian Doctrine Fails Us
God in Evolution

Sin Doesn't Hurt God, It Hurts You

I suppose I've been troubled by what I've heard my whole life about sin. For the longest time, I pictured God as a divine judge with a literal book in which was written every little thing you did wrong, no matter how small. And there was another book, a giant reference manual. In this book, God took your sins and used them to look up the corresponding appropriate punishment.

The "upside" of the story, I was told, was that if you were a Christian Jesus would come along and overwrite the consequences for all your sins, a sort of divine posting of bail. You did something wrong, you deserved to be punished, but Christ got you out of it.

And for years, I've thought this is how sin works. You sin, you deserve a punishment that God's role as judge demands, but grace gets you off the hook. But I think there's something not only unhelpful in this story but actually something wrong with it.

If we view sin as merely actions that deserve punishments, we've missed the point entirely. Instead we should borrow something from our Eastern brothers and sisters and think of sin as similar to karma.

"Karma" is the Sanskrit word for "action" and is used as "volition" in Buddhism. Karma is not what most of us think. We tend to think of karma as rewards or punishments that we've accumulated for ourselves. That view is not unlike our story of the divine judgment of God. Instead, as Buddhist monk Walpola Rahula notes, karma simply means action and it is in the nature of an action, the karma, that the effect is produced.

In this way, good action - good karma - produces good effects. Bad action - bad karma - produces bad effects. It doesn't produce these because a divine judge is dealing out rewards or punishments. It produces these because an action by it's very nature can't help but have one result. Like pushing a hockey puck in a certain direction on an ice rink, good karma has good results and vice versa. If you push the puck to the right, it can't help but glide in that direction. If you push it to the left, it can't help but keep moving left. It will never switch directions, it just keeps going where you've sent it.

It's helpful to think of sin as similar to karma in this way. While it's theologically true that sin has eternal consequences for your soul, sin's consequences are first and foremost in the here and now. People who exercise avarice, lust, or anger do not feel fulfilled. They do not exist in a happy place. You've heard "virtue is its own reward." Well, sin is its own punishment. Like karma, sin can't help but produce negative consequences. Drop a ball from a great height and it can't help but fall. Sin is like that. It can't help but have negative effects for you in the present.

C. S. Lewis said that each sin committed served to orient you slightly away from the direction of God. Each time you sin, you turn a little more and a little more until you no longer have a clear perspective of God. And that's the real danger.

The English mystic Julian of Norwich said that the reason God doesn't want us to sin is that it keeps us from seeing God as God truly is and from seeing ourselves as we truly are. That's it! God doesn't get upset with our sin because we broke rules or because we made God cry. God simply desires we not sin because doing so pulls a cloak over our eyes. It fogs our mirror. Sin's consequences punish us in the present by clouding our view of Reality.

And isn't that what heaven is - perfect seeing? Isn't the concept of perfect union with God a face-to-face vision? This is why prophets in Scripture must physically turn away from God and never look directly upon him. This is why they're only ever permitted a glimpse at God's back. And this is why in Catholicism we say that to be in heaven is to experience the beatific vision - to be able to stand the "brightness" of looking upon God's face.

Sin isn't bad because it violates a divine and arbitrary rule book, and God isn't waiting to deal out punishments that correspond to what you've done. No, sin is the punishment! Sin carries within itself the life-draining effects we often think are reserved only for the end of time. God isn't waiting to hurt us for our sin. We're the ones hurting ourselves. This seems to be a much healthier view offering us both more freedom and a more loving image of God.

Related Posts:
Advent & Emmanuel: Seeing God was Here All Along
I'm in Love with Judas

The Black & White Photos of Faith

I'm a sucker for Buzzfeed articles. I don't get sucked into cat videos or Reddit, and I don't spend hours continuously checking Facebook or Twitter (outside of my marketing job). But I fall for the Buzzfeed link almost every time, mostly because they have the best headlines in the business.

A couple weeks ago I found myself clicking through to a seductive article with a title close to "These Photos Will Completely Change the Way You See the Past!" I mean, how could I resist?

But believe it or not, the post made good on that promise. They had taken black and white historical photos and artificially added in color. All of a sudden these images no longer seemed so distant. The man with the thick mustache and bowler looked like someone you might pass on the street. The scenes from 1940s life looked like a snapshot of your neighborhood. The retouching with color and thus lifelike aspects closed the distance between the past and present. I felt much more connected to the scenes in the photographs after that. They weren't so foreign or distant. They were right here next to my own experience.

In reflecting on the end of 2013, I think we all take black and white photographs, especially in the area of our faith. There is something very appealing and artistic about deleting color from an image. (Why else would it be so popular even to this day?) Having black and white photos allows contrast and thus a more certain level of understanding. It's easier to deal with images cast in only two colors. The complexity of full-color snapshots is much more difficult for us to process and the duo of black & white seems to help gloss over a lot of imperfections and blemishes. Everything looks better when cast into those two opposite extremes standing side by side in glaring distinction.

In Christianity we are especially susceptible to this. We like to think of our faith history in only two colors, black & white, right & wrong, those like us & those not. It's very convenient for the past to seem simpler, cleaner, or somehow purer - all effects of our black & white-washing. We love to think of golden eras like the early Church period, the high middle ages, the Reformation, or even 1950s America. "That was when men were men, Americans were great, Christians were real Christians and they knew it" and so on.

It's easy to think that the past was simpler with more contrast and stark outlines of morality, ("sure in my day we had problems, but we would never do X like you find now"). And it's easy to think that our current times, with so many complicated colors and hues, must indicate a terrible new height of debauchery, confusion, unfaithfulness, or trouble. You often hear people descrying that the world is now going to 'hell in a hand basket.' Just look at how many Christians reach for 'end times' prophecies and confidently point out their fulfillment today despite our very God decidedly telling us that not one of us would know the hour.

I'm a fan and student of history. And I used to feel some sense of loss about our contemporary culture of faith, as if we must have been screwing it up and the problems of our times were much too severe for reconciliation. But those thoughts are really just illusions (which first-hand accounts of peasants on the coast of France having literally everything they've known destroyed by Viking raiders will make abundantly clear). Think the Middle Ages were a wonderful era where everyone was united by Christianity? Try reading the histories, rife with conflict. Think 1950s America was a time when everyone acted knew right from wrong and acted with propriety? Now we have volumes of stories of what went on in secret, including divorce, forced abortions, and even child sexual abuse.

The good news? We don't have it worse than everyone else did; our problems are just different. Our faith isn't more watered down now then in previous ages. On the contrary, we have a much richer history to learn from than our forbears centuries before. The bad news? We are the ones often finding the complexity of our modern faith culture(s) too mentally difficult to deal with.

But rather than considering the past as a purified beacon or a simplified ideal we can realize, like I did with the color photographs, that there's more relatedness than perhaps we once thought. Our experiences of doubt and complexity are universal and that there's beauty in that shared experience as well. Others have weathered the same storm to their credit and now it's our turn.

The issues of our times may be different than before but that seems to be our task. We get to struggle with the life of faith and the really pressing issues of this age - war, poverty, corporate greed, the emphasis on sexual morality, homosexuality's place in society and the church, combating sexism, Christian disunity, and much more. We get to experience life in a million different colors. Christ didn't divide his reality into black & white, accepted or not, and in fact he condemned those of his time who did just that (See John 8:1-11). Such a task is clearly God's and not ours. We're called to simply be fully present in the here and now.

Our task of living in this full-color time may not be simple or neat but perhaps it holds the potential to be rich beyond anything we could have designed for ourselves, beyond anything we would have preferred. And I think it can give us beauty beyond anything we could have even known we'd always wanted.

Advent & Emmanuel: Salvation Happens In The Now

One of the things I used to really struggle with about my childhood church was an understanding that placed God's redemption mainly in the future and then only for the best.

We view time as linear. But does God? What does it mean for a being who exists outside of time (indeed, even "before" it) to experience it? I can only conclude that a God who has no beginning and no end must see time as something circular.

We certainly don't. For us time is a line or perhaps even more accurately, an hourglass. I'm 26 years old. I have 26 years in my past. If I'm lucky, I'll have another 60 plus years to come. Those are big bubbles in my hourglass: a large bubble holding the past and a (hopefully) larger bubble holding the future. And what is my present in that hourglass? It's a space with the smallest of dimensions, the slimmest of openings, a small trickle of lived moments.

The Nativity & Crucifixion - birth and death

This moment right now as I type this is the only moment I have. Right now reading this is the only moment you actually possess and move and live. So why does God's presence come only in the future and then for only a few?

It doesn't. My advent reflection last week illustrates that the miracle of the Incarnation means seeing God in all things and at all times. It's the revelation that God is present with creation and therefore always has been and always will be.

Is God's saving work here and now or in the future with the Second Coming and Christ's return? It's not an either/or; it's a both/and!

As Richard Rohr says, God's saving work and redemption is in the future but you first have to see it here, in the present. He notes that if you can see it here, now, then you can see it there and later. This seems to be part of the mystery of the Eucharist - acknowledge God here before you and then you can see God everywhere. Know it now and you'll understand it then. Recognize the alpha and you will know the omega. See the Incarnation in this lowly child in a manger and you'll see the work of the cross. You'll know that God encompasses all time ("who was and is and is to come").

The Incarnation and the coming of Christ into the world means that the saving work is accomplished now and in our present. When we read the gospels, we see that Christ is redeeming, healing, and saving long before his death and resurrection. The sick, the disenfranchised, the sinful, all are saved by Christ in the present moment in which they encounter him (and the criterion doesn't seem to be membership in the right group but merely an openness to God's saving work).

Christ's very being is Emmanuel - God with us - which is "good news" and salvation. Even when we feel we can only hope for salvation in some distant future ("Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom"), Christ assures us that his saving work is happening now: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 24: 42-3) 

Remember the hourglass? It's wrong. Our lives are not gigantic bubbles containing large pasts and futures but  rather infinitesimally small presents. The present is actually the largest part. By far! If we believe God views time as circular because s/he exists outside of it, then God's experience of time, of us, would be pure presence. Our experience of God is purely in the present too.

This is why Christ says that the Kingdom of God is at hand, i.e. "It's here!" This is why we pray, "thy kingdom come." Imagine if we prayed, "thy kingdom come in the future but not right now." We'd be no better than St. Augustine when he prayed, "Lord grant me chastity and continence but not yet!"

Why does all of this matter? Because it makes the Incarnation more beautiful than we imagined. Because The Kingdom of God isn't an idyllic future that only comes later while we have to trudge through the mud in this world. There is mud. There is sickness and addiction and poverty and war and all our selfish egos. But thank God salvation is for the here and now in addition to the later. Redemption and healing and grace all fit in that supposedly-small hourglass space constituting the present.

The coming of Christ shows us the coming of the Kingdom. Jesus' birth gives us hope for a just world now in addition to a just world later. Redemption happens in the present moment through the Son. Advent is the time that this first becomes obvious.

Related Posts:
Advent & Emmanuel: Seeing God Was Here All Along
When Christian Doctrine Fails Us

Advent & Emmanuel - Seeing God Was Here All Along

It's the start of Advent and we are expectant. Advent is a time for preparation, for getting ready for the coming of the Savior of the World in the person of Jesus the Christ, Emmanuel - "God with us."

God with us. There is perhaps no more profound name than that. For millennia religions promised a connection with the divine, that humanity could somehow touch the heavens and experience unity with the gods and that we could do this through ritual purity. Human perfection seemed to be the key. Jump through the right hoops and appease heaven and you'll get your reward.

Much of Christian history seems to have fallen into this mental trap even though our messianic narrative doesn't support it. Most Christians could write a thesis on their lived experience of guilt but only a small few could write as much about their experience of grace. How many of us think religion is about following rules and pleasing God? How many of us have immense guilt because we think religion is about private perfection?

The Annunciation

It's not. The goal of religion is union with the Divine, not to keep you from making any mistakes. The promise of Advent and Christmas and the Incarnation is Emmanuel - God is with us. We are united with God!

There's something funny, something off about our world and ourselves, and we know it. We seem to do it wrong, we stumble, we fail. When so much of creation seems to be harmonious and balanced, we appear disastrously out of step.

But - still - God is with us, constantly reconciling us to himself, redeeming the dissonance.

In my favorite book, Tolkien's The Silmarillion, there is a creation story for that fictitious world. The supreme, God-like being - Eru - begins to sing things into existence. He sings a theme that all the Ainur (angelic beings) add onto, like individual instruments in an orchestra. Soon it's a beautiful and full sound that is singing and weaving everything into being.

But then Melkor (a satanic and human stand in) desires to sing his own theme. He sings a theme of his own design that doesn't complement the original theme of Eru but rather is dissonant with it. Then Eru does something amazing: he inexplicably weaves Melkor's dissonant theme into his own. This happens several times, each time the 'fallen' theme seems much too dissonant and each time Eru reconciles it to himself. Defying all logic, all prediction, Eru reconciles the two themes so that they do indeed fit, and the result is the music is more beautiful than before.

Emmanuel, God with us, is the same reconciliation. It's the same process. Christ enters the world and weaves our hopelessly blundered musical tunes into God's own song, the song. What's even more amazing and beautiful is that with the Incarnation we can see God everywhere and at all times, as Richard Neuhaus says. With the coming of Advent we can finally realize that Emmanuel was here all along, that the Word was here since the beginning and that nothing has happened outside of it. Advent isn't the realization that a hero has arisen. Like Clark Kent changing into Superman before our very eyes, Advent is the realization that the hero has been here all along, we just didn't see it.

The start of the liturgical year means beginning anew our remembrance of the never-ending story, the constant musical theme. We reorient ourselves to having a heart and mind and spirit that doesn't just hope for but sees union with God. Contrition for sin and our brokenness is necessary. But we don't remember so that we'll be perfect from now on. God doesn't want us to focus on our own musical theme, God wants us to see the ways in which our music is part of hers. Preparing for Christmas is about wholeness and union despite ourselves. We can leave the desire for personal perfection at the door. After all, God already has.

Christians Can Be Grateful For Gay Marriage

Last week Illinois became the 16th state to allow same-sex marriage. And promptly joined the previous 15 in their devolved, anarchic state of a post-apocalyptic society and broken families. ...Just kidding.

But you might think all of that if you were following Christian responses. The simplest way I can say it is that these responses were largely disappointing.

Most of them talk of gay marriage "destroying the family." One Illinois Catholic bishop even performed an exorcism on the State of Illinois for its sins just 30 minutes after Governor Pat Quinn signed gay marriage into law. Afterward, His Excellency told reporters he wasn't trying to single out any one issue. This is doubly tragic - first that His Excellency would think such an exorcism was appropriate and second that he would not say with courage, "Yes, this is about gay marriage. Yes, I'm opposed to it. Yes, I stand by the actions I performed just minutes ago." However you feel about gay marriage, honesty is admirable.

I have remained indifferent to the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage. I have opinions but I don't feel I have a horse in that race. But many Christians think they do.

So why should we Christians be grateful that gay marriage can be legalized? Because the government still has no interest in defining the spiritual realities of sacramental marriage. And it doesn't claim to.

There's a reason that when you are married in church you still have to register your marriage with the state. The church will recognize your marriage from the moment you say, "I do." The state only cares about the legal framework being followed and that you've signed a piece of paper.

What's happening with gay marriage is a legal action. I normally champion holistic seeing - that we can't separate spiritual from emotional from physical. But when it comes to governments, they have a very specific purpose and function, and it is not a spiritual one. They are interested in structuring a productive, healthy, society and, in our very fortunate case, allowing citizens to pursue their own happiness.

American Christians love the separation of Church and state, and I mean absolutely love it. We go bananas for it, especially when something like universal healthcare comes to the fore. We want the government to stay out of our religion! But then we turn around and expect that our religious beliefs should be the basis for governing on the issues that we actually do care about. Like gay marriage.

But here's the truth: Christians don't realize how lucky they are that the issue of gay marriage has developed the way it has. We aren't facing the issue of people wanting marriages between three people or with minors or to loosen divorce entitlements to make "marriage" a somewhat fluid definition. We aren't looking at an assault on the structure or seriousness of marriage. We're looking at a group who wants to keep the structure but just be a part of it. Our biggest issue is that gay couples want to affirm marriage's importance as-is.

The issue of our time is that gay couples want to buy into our system: they want monogamous, lifelong relationships, a house in the suburbs, two kids, holidays gathered with their families, and on and on and on. It looks exactly like the image of marriage Christians hold up except for the couple being gay. Some Christians understandably think that that part does matter though others don't. What I'm trying to say is that this image is not so scary. It's not foreign. And since our Constitution is a legal (and not spiritual) document, it's hard to argue they don't have that right.

"But society will break down! Children need a mother and father." Granted, it's hard to argue that by natural design children don't need a mother and a father because, after all, every human has required them for his/her existence. But since gay couples understandably won't be naturally producing their own children, this means there will be more stable couples in society willing to adopt. This is huge! The world has so many children in desperate need of loving homes.

And before you condemn gay couples who want to adopt children you need to answer the question, "Am I willing to adopt a child in need? When I'm married and/or financially stable, do I plan on doing it then?" If the honest answer is no, then you have lost any right to deny adoption to them. People who condemn gay couples adopting but refuse to do so themselves are like the Levite passing the robbed man on the road and then saying the (good) Samaritan shouldn't be allowed to help. Do you think a child in search of a forever home is going to care that their parents are gay? No, no they won't. This particular principle of help and love coming from outcasts is such an offensive theme in the gospels that even today Christians deny its application in our lives.

I see a difference between asking "do you approve of gay marriage" and "should gay marriage be legalized," not because of the answers necessarily but because the questions get at two fundamentally different things.

Our government is designed to not govern based on religious conviction. And the legalization of gay marriage affirms that. For that reason I can say, "Thank God."


Related Posts:
When the Church Fails Homosexuals
Where is God, the Right or the Left?

A Catholic in Wheaton: Who Owns C.S. Lewis?

It's been 50 years since C.S. Lewis' passing. I have a profound respect and admiration for the man. The fact that I'm one of thousands writing about him this week is a testament to his influence and legacy.

There's nothing wrong with Lewis, humanly imperfect as I'm sure he was. I love him. But here comes the honest part: part of me is sick of how we see and talk about him. Part of me is sick of how Evangelicals see and talk about him.

Living in Wheaton, there's a joke that Lewis is called, "St. Jack." The joke is somewhat obvious - that Lewis is held in such high regard he's practically a saint. But the joke, though everyone in Wheaton seems to be in on it, has a surprising non-effect. Wheaties appear to like to joke about how much they overly esteem Lewis with one breath and then continue praising him with the next.

The articles and posts I've seen written about Lewis in the past few weeks are smart. They know their stuff. They know that Lewis is an apologist who didn't have degrees in theology or religion nor did he claim such credentials. They know that Jack's strengths lie in his imagination and storytelling.

But like Relevant Magazine's recent post on Lewis, while admitting Lewis never claimed to be a theologian, Evangelicals continue specifically calling him "theologian." Religious fields - ethics, apologetics, theology, biblical studies - can all overlap and be connected to one another but they're not interchangeable. Lewis was an utterly fantastic apologist. He understood love perhaps as well as anyone. And the writings we know and cherish from him cover the realm of spirituality. But spirituality is not theology any more than general mathematics is advanced calculus. And Evangelicals regularly don't seem to know the difference.

"Big deal. Aren't you being pretty nitpicky?" you might ask. No, I'm not, and I'll tell you why.

Because Evangelicals claim Lewis as one of their own. Rather than say, "we greatly admire Lewis for his unique contributions," Evangelicals seem to want to say, "Here's our man! He's just like us. He stands for us. And what he did reflects and represents us." And if you identify with him and believe he speaks for your group, then inflating his resume is a matter of self-interest.

Now, I completely admit this is just one man's opinion. There's a danger of projecting too much onto any one group when you start generalizing. But as someone who lives in arguably the most Evangelically dominated community in America, when you're close to but not necessarily a card-carrying member of that community, you notice exclusion. You notice being left out. And this view of Lewis is a prime example.

In Dale Fincher's blog post from Soulation he does call Lewis a theologian but more importantly he claims that it's fairly obvious Lewis' influence on Christianity is greater than anyone else in the 20th century. Think about that claim for a second and at first glance, do you disagree? If you're Evangelical, chances are higher that you don't.

I know someone who personally knows the aforementioned blogger, and certainly nothing ill was meant by that statement. He has a great voice and this claim wasn't even the main point of the post. But that's also kind of the point: a certain view of (Evangelical) Lewis-as-most-important is simply and subtly assumed. The truth is such a claim is not obvious to "Christians," it only seems obvious to Evangelical Christians.

I, for one, could point out that whereas Lewis understands love like no one else, J.R.R. Tolkien perhaps understands the subtle nature of evil better than anyone I've ever read. I could point out that Thomas Merton's writings contain as much spiritual depth as Lewis'. I could call to mind that Mother Teresa's legacy has more widespread recognition, reach, and teaching than Lewis' works (wildly popular as they are within Evangelicalism). Or I could give the example of Pope John Paul II - the leader of 1 billion Christians - who not only could claim supreme spiritual sway over 1/6 of the world's population but was also one of the main forces causing the fall of communism, a legacy whose practical, moral, and spiritual effects will be felt for centuries.

In my more generous moments this Evangelical view that Lewis is something like the most influential Christian of the 20th century seems simply due to the fact that his writings prove so accessible and universal. In my more cynical moments, I conclude that Evangelicals assume their sphere is the only Christian one and that all of the above figures aren't considered equally influential Christians because, well, they're Catholic.

I'm struggling with myself. I don't know exactly why I have such a strong knee-jerk reaction to all of the "C.S.-Lewis-is-the-best" craze. I think it's partly the inaccuracy of the "theologian" and "ethicist" labels for him. Part of it is wanting to turn a critical eye to the bandwagon that most people seem to be jumping on this week. But part of it is a feeling of exclusion.

I don't get the sense that Evangelicals feel they share Lewis or need to. I get the sense that they claim ownership of him. It's frustrating to feel that some of Lewis' other beliefs are flat-out ignored for the sake of convenience, like, say, the ones in affirmation of purgatory, the communion of the saints, and the Real Presence in the Eucharist. (Of course, any claims that Lewis was 'practically Catholic' are also inaccurate.)

It's this sense of exclusion I feel from the way Lewis is talked about that eventually starts to get under my skin. It's the same frustration I experience when I hear people talk about "Christians" (meaning Protestants or Evangelicals) vs. "Catholics" (who somehow aren't Christian?). It's the same frustration I feel when I hear that Evangelical missionaries are "taking the gospel to Latin America," all predominantly Catholic countries where missionaries are needed but not because the gospel failed to arrive almost 500 years ago with Catholicism. And it's the same frustration I experience with the simple title of Christianity Today magazine*. As well-intentioned as I believe Billy Graham's magazine title to be, it's a little insulting to every Christian outside of Evangelicalism. Imagine being a woman and picking up a copy of Americans Today only to find its content was exclusively catered to men and male-specific issues. It would be difficult not to feel excluded. If one is to use an inclusive label like "Christian" one shouldn't do so exclusive-ly.

I suppose my plea to Wheaties, to Evangelicals is to honor his legacy but to not be possessive of Lewis. He's not one of you and your group. He's one of us and our larger, Christian group. And maybe that's healthier. Maybe that's more than enough. Maybe you don't have to claim, "Wheaton is the Harvard of Christian schools," but broaden your mind to be more inclusive. Say, "Wheaton is the Harvard of Evangelical Christian schools," if that sort of claim is necessary or important to you. If you don't already, maybe give some thought to how you, like any Christian group, don't represent the whole but are only part of it. An important part! A wonderful part! A truly beautiful part! But just a part and not the "everything." It's quite necessary to recognize important voices and vital contributions but equally important is viewing them in their proper context. Just as we should with Lewis.

*Christianity Today is a publication I read regularly and greatly appreciate. They do absolutely wonderful work and apart from the small matter of what I think is a very poor title, I am a great fan of the magazine as well as its message and mission. I hope it goes without saying that I am also a great fan of Evangelicalism and of Wheaton, my home.