Posted by
Mediaeval Squire on Friday, May 15, 2009 1:17:07 AM
The title of my first entry into the blogosphere is taken directly from C.S. Lewis' inaugural lecture from the Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. It was delivered on
November 29, 1954, his 56th birthday. For those like me who do not know Latin it means, "On a Description of the Times."
This work of Lewis' is filled with a treasure trove of insight and wisdom. With each reading or re-reading of his works I find myself challenged by the breadth and depth of his capacity to bring together theology, philosophy, history, literature, and what might be considered just plain common sense. This paper is no exception. I was made aware of it while reading Peter Kreeft's fine book C.S. Lewis for the Third Millenium. It is also something out of Kreeft's book that among other things was the inspiration for the title of this blog:
"The reason Lewis, Chesterton, Williams, Tolkien, and Thomas Howard fascinate us so much is that they still live in the medieval world, a world chock-full of built-in God-designed significance."
I do not pretend for a moment to be as Lewis says in his lecture "the spokesmen of the Old Western Culture." For Lewis could read original texts in Latin, Greek, and French. Lewis unlearned the habits acquired from reading modern literature and spoke as a "native" of Old Europe. I read texts in English and am struggling to free myself of the bindings of growing up reading modern literature. I am a student of Lewis, Chesterton, and others. I humbly study their works eager to learn and conform my thoughts and feelings to what Lewis refers to as the Tao:
"This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as 'the Tao'...It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and other really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are."
The thought of being called a "man without a chest" is as horrifying to me as being called a coward. Enough said about all of that. I will start with a quote from Lewis' lecture:
"But roughly speaking we may say that whereas all history was for our ancestors divided into two periods, the pre-Christian and the Christian, and two only, for us it falls into three-the pre-Christian, the Christian, and what may reasonably be called the post-Christian. This surely must make a momentous difference. I am not here considering either the christening or the un-christening from a theological point of view. I am considering them simply as cultural changes. When I do that, it appears to me that the second change is even more radical than the first. Christians and Pagans had much more in common with each other than either has with a post-Christian. The gap between those who worship different gods is not so wide as that between those who worship and those who do not.(emphasis added)"
It is not my intent here to debate Lewis' description of these epochs of history. I wanted to quote his idea that Christians and Pagans have much more in common with each other than either has in common with a post-Christian, which is my starting point, in context of his description of the times.
I contend that our current President in spite of what he says about his beliefs or does in front of an adoring media is not just a product of the post-Christian age, but is a post-Christian. This has grave consequences for our national security. That will be the topic of my next post as I continue along this theme of a description of our times.