New Beginnings... in Washington D.C.

So I made it down here safely Saturday afternoon. Julie and Emily (fellow Hillsdale students) met me at the airport which was kind of them. It makes arriving in a new city a little easier when you have people you know there to greet you. I arrived at the house where I am staying this summer around 1:30pm and took some time to unpack and sleep for a bit. After meeting my host family, who are wonderful people indeed, I watched the Red Wings destroy the Penguins in Game One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

I worshiped this morning at Christ Reformed Church through whom I found my host family. It is a small congregation in a tough environment for traditional worship style. For many reasons, it is hard to plant and build a conservative reformed church in the D.C. area. Most interns attend Capitol Hill Baptist... which is probably where I would have gone it if weren't for my finding of a URC church in the area.

This afternoon I experimented with the bus system which will be part of my daily commute. Although the route was different today because of the weekend, I think I understand what I'm doing. I'll be up early leave and myself plenty of time tomorrow for my morning commute. The bus is actually cheaper than the subway especially if you transfer lines on the same trip. Thus, I will take advantage of any reduced fare I can get. If you are familiar with the D.C. area, I'll be bording at the Pentagon (yellow line) and take that to L'enfant Plaza which is the transfer point for the yellow, green, orange, and blue lines. After that it is two stops on the orange or blue line to Capitol Hill South. And then two blocks later is the Rayburn Office building where I will be working. I walked around Capitol Hill today and fell in love with it all over again. I am so glad to be here for the summer.

I met up with Dakota, another fellow Hillsdale student for dinner in Union Station. After receiving many free sampless from the restuarants in the food court, I ate delicious Japanese Chicken Teriyaki. Now I am back at the house dreading my early morning alarm. Hopefully things go smooth the first day on the job...

I will post more when I get a better idea what I will be doing this summer...

C.S. Lewis- the Sacred and the Secular (Part III)

According to C.S. Lewis, a healthy love for country is also one that is mindful of the country's view of itself. If idealists within become the policy makers, their attempt to remake the world can become dangerous. Ideology itself once it overtakes a nation leads many to embrace a "false transcendence" of what is earthly and what is heavenly. Note the similar analysis to Eric Voegelin's claim that moderns always seek to immanentize the eschaton.

Lewis begins by establishing a more realistic role for a country to fight for. In the Screwtape Letters, Screwtape urges Wormwood to tempt the young man into making "the world an end and faith a means." With this accomplished, "it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing." With this in mind, war makes little difference in the normal human condition Lewis writes in "Learning in Wartime," "The war crates no absolutely new situations; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it." In the Four Loves, Lewis distinguishes between fighting for the cause of one's country versus the cause of justice or any other attribute as a whole. When wars become abstracted they become less justifiable for men to die for.

In "Why I am not a Pacifist" Lewis criticizes those who believe that "the greatest permanent miseries in human life must be curable if only we find the right cure." Hence the fanaticism of many systematizers for men such as Marx, Darwin, Hitler, and Stalin all claimed to have the right answers. Rather than claim all the answers, Lewis encourages us to "work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace." Attacking the "immediate evils" is far better than claims for "universal peace" which can never occur one earth.

Lewis cautions against the willingness to die for any cause a nation enters into. Again in "Learning in Wartime," Lewis reminds his readers that those who "surrender... without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation" risk surrendering the things that only belong to God. In the Screwtape Letters, Screwtape urges Wormwood to encourage the young man into a position where"Meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity..." When man attempts to claim the things of God, Lewis writes in "Learning in Wartime" that man looks for a heaven on earth that will "turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man."

In the Four Loves, Lewis claims that when ones particular country's cause becomes the "cause of God," wars will eventually become "wars of annihilation." Continues Lewis, "A false transcendence is given to things which are very much of this world." A unhealthy nationalistic spirit attempts to "borrow" the things of the heavenly society and use them in the earthly society to justify "the most abominable actions." This unhealthy mixing of the sacred and the secular is a violation of the Augustinian City of God/City of Man dichotomy.

The consequences of this way of thinking leads to potentially interesting consequences regarding the mixing of religion and patriotism. Such thoughts I continue to wrestle with as I learn how to love correctly my own country.

Lewis on the Teaching of History (Part II)

In order to develop a healthy love for country C.S. Lewis attributes the proper education of a country's youth as necessary to instilling a correct view of the nation's past. Lewis specifically addresses the teaching of history, however, the education of children always encompasses knowledge as a whole. One should contrast Lewis's statements against both "liberal" or "conservative" educators who both seek to tell their own stories of how America came to be. As Dr. Gamble says "we are all born bad historians" and should thus attempt to learn carefully how to study and understand history. A proper understanding is vital for producing the right type of character within the human soul, that will allow him to discern good from evil, right from wrong, among human nature.

Developing proper historical consciousness is a topic that would take a book or two or three. A good friend of mine wrote his senior thesis on the work of John Lukacs who I would definitely recommend reading. Good historical method is the surest way to fight the evils of historicism and those who claim to have a "philosophy of history." Failure to understand history leads to serious miscalculations regrading some of the most fundamental questions of humanity.

In The Screwtape Letters Lewis warns against becoming either of two radical positions, "an extreme patriot" or "an ardent pacifist." Leading people into either of these extremes is a tactic of Satan that leads to destruction. Knowledge must go on even during times of war according to Lewis in his essay "Learning in Wartime." Says Lewis, "The pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God's sake. An appetite for these exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain." Lewis continues:

... we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion.

In another essay titled, "Why I am not a Pacifist," Lewis criticizes what he later calls the "chronological snobbery" of progressives who assume "human history is a simple, unilinear movement from worse to better- what is called a belief in progress so that any given generation is always in all respects wiser than all previous generations." These people seem to believe that "the whole world was wrong until the day before yesterday and now has suddenly become right." Such a belief in history lacks a proper understanding of human nature and historical consciousness.

In the Four Loves, Lewis's discussion on love of country takes him once again to the topic of education. It is easy for one to only look at the heroic actions of the past while failing to remembering that "the actual history of every country is full of shabby and even shameful things." Nonetheless, Lewis encourages people to be strengthened by the images of the past without being "deceived or puffed up." Such images only become dangerous when "mistaken or substituted for serious and systematic historical study."

How then do we teach our children so as to avoid an unhealthy nationalistic pride? Lewis turns to stories with the emphasis on the tale and the picture which "fires the imagination." This way of doing history avoids a type of patriotism that indoctrinates the young in "false or biased history" that assumes their particular nation is superior in people, culture, and tradition. A belief that somehow ones people are "chosen" might lead to fatal and dire consequences.

Lewis's reflections on the proper love of country seem to further cement the changing feelings I have about my own country. Coinciding with my newfound desire to work in education someday, Lewis helps put into perspective the necessity of correctly teaching history as a way to monitor the health of a country. Perhaps a reason for the current sickness of our own nation can be traced to the irresponsible ways we have handled history in the education of our children.

C.S. Lewis on the Love of Country (Part I)

In the course of reading and re-reading C.S. Lewis over the past few weeks I've focused primarily on his writings regarding a healthy love of country. It seems as if Lewis also speaks of this in relation to three areas. First he always discusses a healthy love of country in contrast to an unhealthy nationalism. This makes sense in the context of Lewis's writings. Both world wars were the result of a nationalism so overpowering that it eventually became a destructive ideology. Second, Lewis discusses love of country in relation to the necessity of teaching good history. I find this an interesting connection on Lewis's part for it all of a sudden elevates the role of education in the ordinary lives of all people. Third and finally, Lewis always enters a discussion of the temporary versus the permanent, the dichotomy of the City of God and the City of Man. Confusing the two often leads dire consequences according to Lewis.

For this post, I will focus on the healthy love of country Lewis describes especially in relation to the sacrifice of the dead in war. Such thoughts are fitting as another Memorial Day has come and gone in America, and we as citizens remember the sacrifice of the many brave generations before us.

In The Four Loves Lewis emphasizes a patriotism that "asks to be left alone" for it values home, place, community, and a particular way of life. Such a man appreciates his own local customs and habits recognizing "all the things he would miss" if it were lost. Certainly, many of our soldiers have died for their home and families protecting those particular things about home that only they themselves could love and appreciate.

In his essay "Learning in Wartime," Lewis points out the worth in dying for ones country. However, such a tremendous duty is not worth living for as the only type of life worth living and dying for is spiritual in nature. It is from the sacrifice of war do we realize the reality of death and pain. Lewis observes that war is not unique to suffering for we will all most likely suffer as we ourselves die. Neither does war deprive men of a chance to have peace with God for its reality forces men to confront their eternity much sooner. What war does to death according to Lewis, is that it forces us to remember it. By making death real, we can be aware of our own mortality.

In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis through Screwtape reminds Wormwood how much better it would be if "all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie... promising life to the dying..." War threatens the "contented worldliness" that men often fall into for "In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever." Similar to "Learning in Wartime" Lewis notes the fragility of life that naturally accompanies war.

Lewis's brilliant but simple reminders encourage the citizen to love his country and remember those who died before us. The reality of death only helps us see more clearly the temporary state of the world we are in. A healthy love of country allows us to recognize our proper place in the world we live in and the place of those who have died before us.

Christian Humanism

Humanism is the idea that men should become more of who they are intended to be. Education, specifically liberal education, is one method of achieving this. Indeed, the revival of culture and education in the Renaissance introduced further ideas of humanism from thinkers including Petrarch, Pico, and to some extent Machiavelli. Yet humanism unchecked can become nothing more than the worship of man even in his sinful state. Believing that men are created by God is an important recognition of who man is intended to be. If one accepts that man was created, as the Westminster Confession states, "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," than true humanism is Christian Humanism.

This past spring semester saw my acceptance of Christian humanism under the influence of Dr. Birzer's class titled American Order and Disorder. The tradition of Christian humanism is found within a wide variety of thinkers in the Western tradition. The early church fathers including the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas Christianized the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. Paul himself identifies Christian humanism in numerous places throughout his epistles with one of the most notable references occuring in Acts at Mars Hill where he claimed that in Christ we live and move and have our being. This tradition is carried through Augustine, Aquinas, Petrarch, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and many of the early American founding fathers. A revival of Christian humanism occured in the twentieth century to counter the rising secularism and ideology. These figures included T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, Christopher Dawson, and Russell Kirk.

Indeed the Christian humanist understands the role of grace to sanctify the sin of the modern world and provide a way of escape from the false worship of man within humanism. Christian humanism reveals to man his place in the tradition and thus the world he lives in. Jesus Christ represents the true Logos who holds all things together. By Him all things are created and it is only when we rest in Him can we know who we are as individuals.

My own ideas as reflected in previous posts, and in the posts to come, are examples of the Christian humanism that has become part of my life. I hope to continue in the conversation of Christian humanism in a world that has long forsaken the true Logos, the Word that became flesh to dwell among us.

Not Knowing

One of the most important lessons I learned this past school year was the transparency or opaqueness of knowledge. Within the context of especially modernity, ideologues desire to have complete knowledge of the world through the systems they implement. Their desire to create an earthly paradise often stops at no boundaries and is a reason for the unfathomable bloodbath that marks the 20th century.

But such ideas do not necessarily contain such terrible consequences. The desire to know things is human but finite man must come to terms early in his life, how limited he really is. No matter how many times we think we can "control our own destiny," perhaps the Lord's ways are much different than our own ways. Maybe in this world, there are some things we are NOT supposed to know.

I'm thankful for C.S Lewis's closing chapter in The Abolition of Man. These final words are meant as a warning for the man who desires answers at all costs so as to become his own god. Yet within the warning for the Christian, there is comfort. We do not need to know everything because God's plan is always best. When we seek to become more like Him we are better tuned to His will. Our prayer should not be to know, but to rest in Him.

Lewis writes in the final words of The Abolition of Man:
... the kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.... It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.

Sometimes attempting to see everything causes us to see nothing. Certainly ideologues in their attempt to enforce their view of the world on others, completely misunderstood the true nature of the world. Similarly, when we attempt to know everything we risk the chance of knowing nothing. It is good to find rest by trusting in God regardless of our circumstances.

Since last summer...

It is remarkable to think about how much I've changed in one year. I view the world in such a different way it is almost like I am a completely different human. In a sense, I think I am "more human" in the way that education can only make one "more human."

I was thinking about the random events that sort of spurred the change in my thought. My close friend and current roommate at the time assumed responsibility for the Fairfield Society at Hillsdale effective in the Fall 2008 semester. The Fairfield Society meets on Thursdays at 5:45 and you are encouraged to bring your dinner into the private dining room where we meet and listen to a presentation by a student on whatever topic he or she desires. It is usually something on the mind of the student that he may desire feedback from. Often the struggle is finding students willing to present thus my friend began pestering me to share my thoughts.

About this time, I was interacting with another friend who was set to enter Hillsdale in the fall as a freshman. This particular friend was a staunch libertarian who saw the world a lot differently than I did. We spent many IM and phone conversations hammering out our positions. I remember one of these phone conversations in which I made an identical argument against abortion and gay marriage. Something triggered in my head that night and it is hard for me to pinpoint exactly what it was. I do know I began making the sort of connections in all that I had learned at Hillsdale the past two years. I began to understand why I thought the way I did in my understanding of the world. This led to a Fairfield Presentation which I will outline in my next post that definitely was landmark day in life...

I was not left alone to deal with these new ways of thinking. I am thankful for a certain senior, who recently graduated Hillsdale with departmental honors in history, for his time in continuing to help me piece together many different ideas. This past academic year I took the classes that allowed me to firsthand engage these ideas with the thinkers behind them. This is not to say I've learned all I needed to learn. It does say however, that the way I think now is completely different than the way I think last summer.


I think this is an integral part of learning that I've really began to enjoy. We are always modifying the ways we think as we continue to learn and grow as human beings. Our fundamental convictions do not necessarily have to change. In my libertarian friend's case, they have changed... for the better! But in my case, I still remain a reformed, Christian, conservative... who just happens to see things a lot differently than ever before.

I'm happy to be a part of this conversation... and thankful that God has placed me at a college where such changes to ones character are not only encouraged, they are strengthened.