XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books   
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   [Removed alt.usage.english; this thread has left that subject and isn't   
   going back.]   
      
   On 2/18/2015 7:09 AM, Wayne Brown wrote:   
   > In alt.books.cs-lewis Catherine Jefferson  wrote:   
   >> They'd consider you wildly liberal, Wayne, to the point of not   
   >> Christian.  Me, they'd be quite certain about.   
   >   
   > One of the characteristics of churches that grew out of the Restoration   
   > Movement is that they can vary widely from one congregation to another,   
   > not so much on central New Testament doctrines as in what they consider   
   > essential and what is a matter of opinion.  I have a good friend who grew   
   > up in the Church of Christ.  When he decided to move to the Christian   
   > Church his family disowned him and consider him to have abandoned   
   > his faith.  I had another friend in my teens who was from a Charismatic   
   > background and who went to college at Lipscomb.  She had no problems with   
   > some students but many questioned whether she really was a Christian.   
   > Yet I know of a non-instrumental Church of Christ whose members reached   
   > out to their Christian Church brethren to the point of holding joint   
   > services with them on several occasions.  And when I was attending a   
   > small Christian Church-sponsored Bible college (Mid-South Christian   
   > College, located at the time just outside Senatobia, Mississippi but   
   > now in Memphis, Tennessee) one of my classmates regularly attended a   
   > non-instrumental church down the road where she was made to feel welcome.   
      
   True.  Two of my oldest friends are people I knew from my time in the   
   Churches of Christ; I've known them for more than three decades.  I   
   don't think that the Restoration movement is much different from many   
   other traditions, though, when it comes to their varied willingness to   
   tolerate or accept differences in theological views.  I've known   
   Calvinists who behaved like the roommate Steve mentioned, and Calvinists   
   who consider me a sister in Christ.  Ditto Catholics.   
      
   > My college roommate (who was from a Christian Church background) also   
   > was put off by the mythic connections in Lewis's writing (and even more   
   > so with Tolkien) and I was unable to get him to see past that and enjoy   
   > their fictional work, though he did have some appreciation for Lewis's   
   > non-fiction.  He didn't think it was necessarily wrong for me to enjoy it,   
   > but he did think I was wasting time that could be more profitably spent   
   > on reading more important things.  I especially remember him asking why I   
   > was wasting my time with "A Preface to Paradise Lost" since he had read   
   > "Paradise Lost" itself in high school and saw no value in it, let alone   
   > in a scholarly analysis of it.  In spite of our difference of opinion   
   > on things like this we were close friends.   
      
   I've known a LOT of engineers who thought this way.  If something was   
   not of obvious immediate utilitarian value, they discounted it.  That   
   attitude can be annoying. ;)  I've known of Christians who *really* have   
   a problem with fantasy and mythology, starting with some of the Church   
   Fathers who dismissed poetry and stories as "lies".  I think that some   
   people lack a category in their brain for fiction or myth at all -- if   
   something is not immediately, obviously true in every detail in this   
   world, it must be a lie.   
      
   >> Lewis was quite conservative in his theology and views, but not rigid.   
   >> He could see connections between pagan myths and Christian beliefs.  He   
   >> could write a brilliant and thoroughly Christian story based on a pagan   
   >> myth.  I won't go further because I don't want to spoil the book for   
   >> anybody who is blessed enough not to read it and who can therefore read   
   >> it now for the first time.   
   >   
   > I appreciate Lewis's view of pagan myths as what he called "good dreams,"   
   > containing flashes of eternal truth that were glimpsed through God's   
   > revelation of things about himself in his creation (which is itself a   
   > Biblical concept).   
      
   I pretty much agree with Lewis' view on this subject, and use his words.   
    Have you ever thought that a great many fine storytellers in the past   
   few decades got caught because they confused "factual" with "true"?  I'm   
   thinking of those who told fiction as factual truth and were caught and   
   branded liars, when they might have told fiction as fiction done quite   
   well.  (Brian Williams, anyone?)   
      
      
   --   
   Catherine Jefferson    
   Blog/Personal: http://www.ergosphere.net   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)