I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
–C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
Here, Lewis is hitting on one of the very significant mistakes that people make when it comes to religion in general and Christianity in particular. (He had a knack for that sort of thing.) Since the rise of theological liberalism in the 19th century, there has been an over-emphasis on the comforting aspects of the faith to the detriment of Christianity as a whole. This results in the idea of religion as a “crutch” to help us limp through a hard world we fear to face. That has been reinforced in recent years by the wave of affluence we’ve experienced in the western world since the end of World War II. Today, no one wants to accept a religion that has hard things to say about them or the way they live their lives.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your position), the Truth of Christianity is far harder than the world around us. It shows us things about ourselves that no one wants to admit–after all, a real relationship with Christ begins with a knowledge of our own sin and with the admission that “we’re not all OK, myself least of all.” That is precisely the converse of the message being broadcast by the modern world. In reality, religion–Christianity–is not simply an easy expedient adopted by the weak to protect themselves from harsh naturalism. It is the acceptance of the even harder path that leads the weak to become strong through Him.
Christianity isn’t a warm, fuzzy blanket that we wrap ourselves in when we feel the cold of the universe. It is far more than a get-out-of-Hell-free card. It is the Universal Sovereign’s attempt to set us back to rights after we have so thoroughly injured ourselves and His creation that He would be justified in simply doing away with it all. The Truth of Christianity restores us to proper balance with Himself and with His creation as a whole. That affects our entire life in different ways, some comforting, some hard, but all good.
Just try to balance all that on a simple crutch!
__________
Interested in more about writing and reading from a Christian perspective? Check out While We’re Paused–the official blog of Lantern Hollow Press.
Mere Lewis 