Tag: Culture

Beyond the Reach of Darkness

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

There are some things ‘Mordor’ can’t touch—all darkness is fleeting. From everlasting to everlasting the star will shine in all its beauty. And us with Him.

His love endures forever.

Now that’s hope.

—j

An Incredible Brightness

The world is in trouble, but fret not—the church isn’t. The pressure is on, but it’s been on before. The world even tried to kill Jesus, and look what happened…

“Nothing can extinguish it. To the end of time it shall be there and shall always manifest itself, and men must never lose heart because of that. All [mankind’s ideas and struggles to create his own utopia] are absolutely worthless—the society in which utopianism is the great pursuit is the one who is about to commit suicide. The great guarantee that human life is always worth creating, always worth bringing into this world, always worth living is that there is built into it an indestructible awareness that life belongs to eternity and not to time. [This] shines with an incredible brightness in the one place in the world where you would not, under any circumstances, expect to find it surviving. The Catacombs.” —Malcolm Muggeridge, Firing Line #433, with W.F. Buckley, Jr., Sept. 6, 1980, PBS

Jesus’ followers can be driven underground, but what are catacombs if not bomb-shelters, illuminated not by oil or electricity, but by the songs of the saints.

Shine wherever you are.

—j

Things Are Not As They Seem

Since you’re reading this, it means you’re on the internet, which means you’re up-to-date on the latest headlines. Our senses are assaulted as fear and uncertainty rage from post to tweet. We roar but we’re quite helpless to control the bedlam. But wait…

“Things are not as they seem. Evil, though widespread, is not winning. Faithfulness, though costly, is not futile. Affliction, though continuing, will end. The Lion’s roar will soon be heard. Until then, reign with the Lamb. Live to love, not control.” —Larry Crabb

When you see Jesus worry, then worry. Meanwhile, love like Him.

Go make someone’s day.

—j

Re-Reading Screwtape

It had been a few years since I last read C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”, so I decided to listen to the audio book to take the edge off a long drive to southern California. I had read the book over twenty times, and my dull journey seemed a good time for a refresher of this great Christian classic.

If you’re not familiar with “The Screwtape Letters”, it was Lewis’ clever expose of the devil’s tactics to destroy devoted Christians. His approach was unique: Lewis devised thirty-one “letters” allegedly composed by a senior level demon, Uncle Screwtape, who was tasked with advising a novice, Wormwood, on how to neutralize a “patient”. The book is like reading the devil’s training manual. The letters are eerie, often hilarious and a devious revelation of hell’s tactics in a spiritual war.

But this time I found it a very different book. As Screwtape scrawled his usual poisonous counsel to Wormwood, I was stunned by something in the content I never noticed. It seemed prophetic. I always viewed Lewis’ book as a whimsical, practical warning about the machinations of The Enemy. This time it was more of a lens—a tingling revelation of the power and malice behind today’s mindless cultural upheaval that mocks truth and cultural mutilates logic, nature and science.

I was even more startled to discover a postscript that I somehow missed, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”. It was longer than the other “letters” and a bit tedious—until Screwtape enlightened his graduates to a subtle counterattack whereby they could lead the whole of human society by the nose. Stunned. It’s us. We’ve become that society, nose and all, without ever knowing we were being led, much less how we got that way. What was this “counterattack”? I guarantee it’s not what you think. Now you’ll have to read the book…

The world was a different place when Lewis died in 1963—today it looks like the Letters. Are they prophetic? Perhaps. They are certainly enlightened, and the devil hates the light. But he doesn’t sleep in the dark, he just sings lullabies. Then he goes to work. Perhaps “The Screwtape Letters” is a hearing aid—a device that amplifies the dark whispers of a patient, deadly enemy. But it is also a sudden flash—a bolt from Heaven and a thunderclap that knocks us out of our beds. The world has changed—God warned us and Lewis reminds us.

Time to take the battle to the Enemy.

Read this book…

 

“…do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” —Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)