The Pendulum of Error
Well I finally finished “Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis while I was at the beach. It’s a small book but it took a while for me to read because I would have to go back an re-read a lot to make sure I am grasping the entire concept. He deals with some deeper issues than most people care to think about — not your average fastfood spiritual writing — but he conveys them using practical, everyday analogies. For example, in the argument of faith v/s works in Christianity he says why argue about which side of the scissors is more important to cut something?
One of the sidenotes that he makes seems to resonate with my quest for a balanced view of Christianity. It is regarding how we are to live as believers. We are individuals but still part of the larger body of the Church so we can’t embrace Totalitarianism or Individualism but parts of both. He goes on to say…
“He [the Devil] always sends errors into the world in pairs — pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors.”
I keep this as a warning that whenever I feel strongly about something I think is wrong in the world I need to keep my eyes open to error in the other direction — bi-polar living. If you haven’t read this book I highly recommend it to help solidify your beliefs about what Christianity is all about. This is the stuff that needs to be taught on Sunday mornings, not psychological fluff about “God’s 12 step program to happiness and how to be a better person”.
July 26th, 2005 at 6:26 am
You’ve put your finger on an often-invisible struggle we all have as we walk that razor’s edge through life. Jesus said, “the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
I like the illustration you cited; it makes me think of a tightrope walker. Let’s say our tightrope artist senses that he’s starting to fall to the right. What does he do? He throws his weight to the left. That’s not to say he wants to fall off the left side! So if he’s starting to fall to the left, he has to throw his weight back to the right, and on it goes…
One example: In politics, American Christians have tended to throw their weight to the political right because there’s a general sense that we’re falling to the left as a society. One can only expect that will change someday, and Christians who were diehard Republicans in the 1990’s might be staunch Democrats in the 2020’s (or sooner, or later). The pendulum at work.
Personally, I find myself walking the tightrope as a parent: do I discipline the child, or let it slide? Do I come down hard, or let them off easy? Am I reacting to a problem, or ignoring it? These are tough questions that are so dependent on context that you just can’t say beforehand…
So what to conclude? Abide in Christ. Make nothing sacred but Him. Be ready to relinquish and repent if you become aware that you are in error. Not that it’s merely about “avoiding error” or “being right” - it’s about doing what pleases the Lord.
July 26th, 2005 at 11:09 am
I am always amazed at C.S. Lewis’s insight into so many spiritual matters. For those of you that get more ‘windshield time’ than reading time. Audible.com now has most of Lewis major works available in unabridged formats. Tell ‘em ‘efarr’ referred you, and I might win one of those cool iPods!