May you be blessed this Christmas and throughout the New Year! Let us remember how God sent His son Jesus to us 2000 years ago. It was the first Christmas and the greatest gift we could ever receive: Jesus - "God is Salvation."
Blessings,
Joe
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
My Testimony
I've been having this crazy feeling to share my testimony lately. I think God is calling me right now to share it with others, so here it is. This is what God has done...
I grew up in a wonderful, loving, home. I was the middle child of the family, with an older brother and a younger sister. My parents truly loved each other and us (and still do). Both my mother and father were both born and raised Catholic and so I was baptized as an infant into the Catholic faith. Our family never missed a Sunday Mass, only occasionally for a baseball game. I grew up my whole life knowing about God and some of the stories in the Bible, but never cared to know anymore about it. I had the foundation laid, but what you might call a nominal faith. My life growing up revolved around sports. Well, sports and some school in between. I excelled at baseball and because of this, I was offered a scholarship to the University of St. Francis in Joliet.
At St. Francis, my life revolved around school and being the best player on the team. Specifically, I wanted to be the best hitter ever at St. Francis and get drafted to play baseball professionally. I valued my education intensely and wanted to excel greatly in the classroom. Some of my achievements at St. Francis included earning a 3.65/4.0 GPA throughout my four years in college, being named an All-American Scholar Athlete my junior and senior year, and graduating with honors. Some of the achievements on baseball field included leading our team all 4 years in hitting, with a career batting average of .390, setting school records in hits, stolen bases, and doubles, I was All-Conference all four years, and an All-American my freshmen and senior seasons. During the end of my sophomore year, I began dating a mysterious, but beautiful, talented, and intelligent woman named Meghan. She was a softball player at St. Francis, so needless to say we had a lot in common and hit-it-off (no pun intended) right away.
At this point in my life I didn’t feel I had a lot going for me. I knew I did. I was smart, athletic, energetic, and had many friends. I had many talents, including teaching myself to play guitar. I was excelling at school and baseball, had a wonderful girlfriend, and was looked up to by a lot of people. I was “happy” but I couldn’t help but feel I was still missing something. I always needed more.
Despite my seemingly perfect life, things began to change during my junior year. I knew my college years were going to be coming to an end, so my priorities began to change. I was feeling unfulfilled and upset that my life revolved around school and baseball. I felt empty. I wanted to start exploring other options, so I helped form a band with some friends. It was extremely fun to play loud, emotional, and energetic music. It made me feel good, so I started devoting more time to the band. I’m the kind of person who, if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do the absolute best I can at it, or I’m not going to do it at all. I was the lead singer (don’t laugh) and guitarist, and I was writing the majority of our songs. If someone knew me from the outside, they would have thought I was one of the happiest and most pleasant persons to be around, but the songs I wrote in this band were depressing, angry, and vulgar. I thought that’s what you have to do! Heavy metal music is about being angry with things and getting your frustrations out. I was “getting things out,” and filling the void in my heart, or so I thought.
Regardless, I still worked hard at school and baseball; those things were natural for me, but I couldn’t help but look for something more. I took the summer off from baseball heading into my senior season to write music for the band and work. I was working with the grounds crew at Silver Cross Field, umpiring girl’s softball games, and giving hitting lessons. I was so caught up in filling my life with anything that would fill the feeling of emptiness. I could not get rid of. I wanted more than what I had. I began to drink. At first, it was occasionally, but it eventually became more and more. When you’re around people who are influencing you and into things you normally aren’t into, you begin to become the influenced instead of the influencer. The pressure of playing the part in the band began to take its toll and I began to even entertain the idea of trying drugs. I was so caught up in trying to find meaning and an identity I was flirting with more and more dangerous things. I thought, well, everyone else in the music industry seems to be under some kind of influence, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Plus, it was readily available and some of my friends already indulged.
Sadly, during all this, I was neglecting the one person who constantly loved me for who I was the whole time, Meghan. I was taking her for granted.
We had told each other that we loved each other, but I had heard that once before in a previous long-term relationship. I knew Meghan was special and I knew she liked me a lot, but I was numb to the whole “love” thing. I wasn’t about to hand out my love again and get burned. God knows I didn’t like that feeling. Because of this, I was spending less time with her and more time with the band. The event that would change both our paths was about to happen and it would take almost losing Meghan for me to “wake up.”
The band and I decided to head down to a college party at one of the band members’ fraternity houses. We went out to a bar he previously worked at and had what I had thought was a great time sitting around a table staring at each other, shouting at the top of our lungs over deafening music, drinking over-priced drinks, laughing about 1st grade humor, and getting all our clothes smoky. It was…”great.” Needless to say I had too much to drink and when you drink too much you’re thinking isn’t as clear as it normally is, duh. You get careless. You forget where you are. And you forget who you are, especially when you don’t know to begin with.
To make a long story short…I got so careless I almost cheated on Meghan that night. In a moment of carelessness, selfishness, weakness, and shamefulness I lusted over another woman and forgot about the one person who didn’t do anything wrong, but only love me for who I was. That was the breaking point.
It was a month before I was able to confess to Meghan what I had done. I had tried to suppress the constant feeling of guilt over it, but I started to not be able to sleep at night. My life had reached a new level of fakeness. Not only was I fake with the band and myself, I was now fake with Meghan. I finally told her. It was one of the worst feelings I have ever felt in my entire life. The look of disappointment and frustration on her face was almost too much to bear. I felt the entire world I had carefully cultivated collapsing around me. I was “that” guy; the liar, the cheater, the selfish and prideful hypocrite.
I tell you all this background, not to bring your mood down, but so that you can better understand what God was working with. For 20 some years, God had witnessed a prideful man living a life for himself only. He had seen a man searching to fulfill himself in all the wrong places. He had a man given a wonderful life and girlfriend about to throw it all away.
Meghan and I talked that night over the phone…well, she talked mostly and I listened. She told me I needed to talk to “Marc” maybe and figure things out. She may have mentioned something about God or church or who knows, I wasn’t listening, but she didn’t make a big thing about talking to Marc. She almost mentioned his name in passing while she was yelling…crying…er, talking to me. Let me tell you about Marc. Marc is Meghan’s step dad. He was born into a Jewish family, but had become a Jehovah’s Witness for some time. But now, for the past 6 years he has known His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ personally. Up until that point in time, I had barely ever spoken to Marc. I probably had one of those usual fake conversations with him, “Hey Mark, how’s the weather?” You know the type. Anyway, Meghan and my conversation ended in; maybe I’ll call you in a couple of days, maybe I won’t. So I got off the tailgate of my truck, hung up the phone, and thanked her for our conversation by slamming the tail gate closed (you can still see the dent today). I figured my two choices now were either the band and that life or Meghan and who knows what.
I went searching…at Barnes and Noble…specifically, the Bible section. I was thinking what every man has ever thought, “What does she want from me?” So I picked up a “Chicken Soup for the Soul Bible”…it was pretty looking…and drove home. As I opened this Bible, for the first time in my life ever going to it for advice, I thought, “Ok, what does she want me to do, read it?” As I read a couple of pages, I can’t even remember what I was reading, I had this strange feeling to get up and call Marc. The thought entered my head like a subtle whisper, but I ignored it. I thought, “I barely know Marc. I have never spoken seriously to Marc. And, Mark doesn’t even care what’s going on in my life right now.” I kept reading. Again! This thought to get up and call Marc came upon me and before I knew it, I was grabbing the phone from downstairs and dialing his number (how I don’t know, because to this day I still have to look at my cell phone to call them).
Marc answered the phone and for three hours, for three hours, he patiently listened and answered every single question I threw at him about God, faith, religion, and life. We read the Bible right over the phone and as I read the passages Marc directed me to, it was as if the Holy Spirit was speaking to me Himself! That night in June of 2004, I gave my life to Jesus. After Marc and I got off the phone I remember crying myself to sleep praying, “Jesus, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender.”
I came to find out later, that when I called Marc, it was probably one of the worst times for him to have to spend three hours on the phone with someone. He was right in the middle of trying to figure something out for his work the next day. God was testing Marc’s faith and patience as well as leading me to Jesus.
Oh yeah, what about Meghan? Well, God seemed to take care of that too. I went over to her house after a weekend of not speaking with her to share this new “thing” called Jesus I had just discovered. I said to her, “Meg, I just found out my choice isn’t either the band or you; it’s Jesus. We need Jesus.” She began crying right away and oddly enough, I knew everything was going to be fine. It would still take a lot of talking and long walks before this trial would be behind us, but in the midst of all of it, I saw first hand from someone in human flesh what it was like to forgive someone. I knew I was going to marry her (August 26, 2006).
Had Meghan not loved me for who I was, had Marc not given me the time of day, and had Meghan not forgiven me, like Jesus does, I would not be here today. Everything is different now. The old is gone, the new is now. God says through Paul in Ephesians, “…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ever since that night in June, I have felt fulfilled like never before and it never stops (maybe it’s all the food we Baptist eat?)! There’s a sense of peace that you have to experience to know what I’m talking about. Words do not do it justice – you have to experience Jesus to know wholeness. God has replaced all my fears with tears of joy, with an abundance of friends, with a family who’s getting to know the Lord better every day, and with a wife like a golden crown. I am so much more at peace in Christ than anything this world has ever offered. I know what the world has to offer – nothing for me. I leave you with the words God spoke through Paul in Philippians,
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Blessings,
Joe
I grew up in a wonderful, loving, home. I was the middle child of the family, with an older brother and a younger sister. My parents truly loved each other and us (and still do). Both my mother and father were both born and raised Catholic and so I was baptized as an infant into the Catholic faith. Our family never missed a Sunday Mass, only occasionally for a baseball game. I grew up my whole life knowing about God and some of the stories in the Bible, but never cared to know anymore about it. I had the foundation laid, but what you might call a nominal faith. My life growing up revolved around sports. Well, sports and some school in between. I excelled at baseball and because of this, I was offered a scholarship to the University of St. Francis in Joliet.
At St. Francis, my life revolved around school and being the best player on the team. Specifically, I wanted to be the best hitter ever at St. Francis and get drafted to play baseball professionally. I valued my education intensely and wanted to excel greatly in the classroom. Some of my achievements at St. Francis included earning a 3.65/4.0 GPA throughout my four years in college, being named an All-American Scholar Athlete my junior and senior year, and graduating with honors. Some of the achievements on baseball field included leading our team all 4 years in hitting, with a career batting average of .390, setting school records in hits, stolen bases, and doubles, I was All-Conference all four years, and an All-American my freshmen and senior seasons. During the end of my sophomore year, I began dating a mysterious, but beautiful, talented, and intelligent woman named Meghan. She was a softball player at St. Francis, so needless to say we had a lot in common and hit-it-off (no pun intended) right away.
At this point in my life I didn’t feel I had a lot going for me. I knew I did. I was smart, athletic, energetic, and had many friends. I had many talents, including teaching myself to play guitar. I was excelling at school and baseball, had a wonderful girlfriend, and was looked up to by a lot of people. I was “happy” but I couldn’t help but feel I was still missing something. I always needed more.
Despite my seemingly perfect life, things began to change during my junior year. I knew my college years were going to be coming to an end, so my priorities began to change. I was feeling unfulfilled and upset that my life revolved around school and baseball. I felt empty. I wanted to start exploring other options, so I helped form a band with some friends. It was extremely fun to play loud, emotional, and energetic music. It made me feel good, so I started devoting more time to the band. I’m the kind of person who, if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do the absolute best I can at it, or I’m not going to do it at all. I was the lead singer (don’t laugh) and guitarist, and I was writing the majority of our songs. If someone knew me from the outside, they would have thought I was one of the happiest and most pleasant persons to be around, but the songs I wrote in this band were depressing, angry, and vulgar. I thought that’s what you have to do! Heavy metal music is about being angry with things and getting your frustrations out. I was “getting things out,” and filling the void in my heart, or so I thought.
Regardless, I still worked hard at school and baseball; those things were natural for me, but I couldn’t help but look for something more. I took the summer off from baseball heading into my senior season to write music for the band and work. I was working with the grounds crew at Silver Cross Field, umpiring girl’s softball games, and giving hitting lessons. I was so caught up in filling my life with anything that would fill the feeling of emptiness. I could not get rid of. I wanted more than what I had. I began to drink. At first, it was occasionally, but it eventually became more and more. When you’re around people who are influencing you and into things you normally aren’t into, you begin to become the influenced instead of the influencer. The pressure of playing the part in the band began to take its toll and I began to even entertain the idea of trying drugs. I was so caught up in trying to find meaning and an identity I was flirting with more and more dangerous things. I thought, well, everyone else in the music industry seems to be under some kind of influence, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Plus, it was readily available and some of my friends already indulged.
Sadly, during all this, I was neglecting the one person who constantly loved me for who I was the whole time, Meghan. I was taking her for granted.
We had told each other that we loved each other, but I had heard that once before in a previous long-term relationship. I knew Meghan was special and I knew she liked me a lot, but I was numb to the whole “love” thing. I wasn’t about to hand out my love again and get burned. God knows I didn’t like that feeling. Because of this, I was spending less time with her and more time with the band. The event that would change both our paths was about to happen and it would take almost losing Meghan for me to “wake up.”
The band and I decided to head down to a college party at one of the band members’ fraternity houses. We went out to a bar he previously worked at and had what I had thought was a great time sitting around a table staring at each other, shouting at the top of our lungs over deafening music, drinking over-priced drinks, laughing about 1st grade humor, and getting all our clothes smoky. It was…”great.” Needless to say I had too much to drink and when you drink too much you’re thinking isn’t as clear as it normally is, duh. You get careless. You forget where you are. And you forget who you are, especially when you don’t know to begin with.
To make a long story short…I got so careless I almost cheated on Meghan that night. In a moment of carelessness, selfishness, weakness, and shamefulness I lusted over another woman and forgot about the one person who didn’t do anything wrong, but only love me for who I was. That was the breaking point.
It was a month before I was able to confess to Meghan what I had done. I had tried to suppress the constant feeling of guilt over it, but I started to not be able to sleep at night. My life had reached a new level of fakeness. Not only was I fake with the band and myself, I was now fake with Meghan. I finally told her. It was one of the worst feelings I have ever felt in my entire life. The look of disappointment and frustration on her face was almost too much to bear. I felt the entire world I had carefully cultivated collapsing around me. I was “that” guy; the liar, the cheater, the selfish and prideful hypocrite.
I tell you all this background, not to bring your mood down, but so that you can better understand what God was working with. For 20 some years, God had witnessed a prideful man living a life for himself only. He had seen a man searching to fulfill himself in all the wrong places. He had a man given a wonderful life and girlfriend about to throw it all away.
Meghan and I talked that night over the phone…well, she talked mostly and I listened. She told me I needed to talk to “Marc” maybe and figure things out. She may have mentioned something about God or church or who knows, I wasn’t listening, but she didn’t make a big thing about talking to Marc. She almost mentioned his name in passing while she was yelling…crying…er, talking to me. Let me tell you about Marc. Marc is Meghan’s step dad. He was born into a Jewish family, but had become a Jehovah’s Witness for some time. But now, for the past 6 years he has known His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ personally. Up until that point in time, I had barely ever spoken to Marc. I probably had one of those usual fake conversations with him, “Hey Mark, how’s the weather?” You know the type. Anyway, Meghan and my conversation ended in; maybe I’ll call you in a couple of days, maybe I won’t. So I got off the tailgate of my truck, hung up the phone, and thanked her for our conversation by slamming the tail gate closed (you can still see the dent today). I figured my two choices now were either the band and that life or Meghan and who knows what.
I went searching…at Barnes and Noble…specifically, the Bible section. I was thinking what every man has ever thought, “What does she want from me?” So I picked up a “Chicken Soup for the Soul Bible”…it was pretty looking…and drove home. As I opened this Bible, for the first time in my life ever going to it for advice, I thought, “Ok, what does she want me to do, read it?” As I read a couple of pages, I can’t even remember what I was reading, I had this strange feeling to get up and call Marc. The thought entered my head like a subtle whisper, but I ignored it. I thought, “I barely know Marc. I have never spoken seriously to Marc. And, Mark doesn’t even care what’s going on in my life right now.” I kept reading. Again! This thought to get up and call Marc came upon me and before I knew it, I was grabbing the phone from downstairs and dialing his number (how I don’t know, because to this day I still have to look at my cell phone to call them).
Marc answered the phone and for three hours, for three hours, he patiently listened and answered every single question I threw at him about God, faith, religion, and life. We read the Bible right over the phone and as I read the passages Marc directed me to, it was as if the Holy Spirit was speaking to me Himself! That night in June of 2004, I gave my life to Jesus. After Marc and I got off the phone I remember crying myself to sleep praying, “Jesus, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender.”
I came to find out later, that when I called Marc, it was probably one of the worst times for him to have to spend three hours on the phone with someone. He was right in the middle of trying to figure something out for his work the next day. God was testing Marc’s faith and patience as well as leading me to Jesus.
Oh yeah, what about Meghan? Well, God seemed to take care of that too. I went over to her house after a weekend of not speaking with her to share this new “thing” called Jesus I had just discovered. I said to her, “Meg, I just found out my choice isn’t either the band or you; it’s Jesus. We need Jesus.” She began crying right away and oddly enough, I knew everything was going to be fine. It would still take a lot of talking and long walks before this trial would be behind us, but in the midst of all of it, I saw first hand from someone in human flesh what it was like to forgive someone. I knew I was going to marry her (August 26, 2006).
Had Meghan not loved me for who I was, had Marc not given me the time of day, and had Meghan not forgiven me, like Jesus does, I would not be here today. Everything is different now. The old is gone, the new is now. God says through Paul in Ephesians, “…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ever since that night in June, I have felt fulfilled like never before and it never stops (maybe it’s all the food we Baptist eat?)! There’s a sense of peace that you have to experience to know what I’m talking about. Words do not do it justice – you have to experience Jesus to know wholeness. God has replaced all my fears with tears of joy, with an abundance of friends, with a family who’s getting to know the Lord better every day, and with a wife like a golden crown. I am so much more at peace in Christ than anything this world has ever offered. I know what the world has to offer – nothing for me. I leave you with the words God spoke through Paul in Philippians,
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Blessings,
Joe
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The Creator
In chapter 1 of "The Question of God," Nicholi draws the lines between the "materialist," Freud and the "logician," Lewis. Freud divided all people into "believers" and "unbelievers" in many of his writings. Under unbelievers he includes: materialists, seekers, skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. Under believers he includes anyone from a nominal believer in a Creator to those, like Lewis, who "describe a transforming spiritual experience that revolutionizes their lives and literally makes them into "new creatures."
Freud called his worldview "scientific" based on the premise that knowledge comes only from research. As I read more and more articles and books, I find this way of thinking rather dogmatic. Since Freud's premise cannot be based on experimental research itself, it's rather presumptuous to assume all knowledge comes from "research."
In speaking with Lee Stroble in "The Case for a Creator," Greg Boyd points out that historical "scholars," as in the Jesus Seminar, often make these assumptions too. "Everyone would agree that you don't appeal to supernatural causes if you don't have to, " he says, "But these scholars go beyond that and say you don't ever have to. They operate under the assumption that everything in history has happened according to their own experiences, and since they've never seen the supernatural, they assume miracles have never occurred in history."
Freud, of course, realized he could not prove a negative or that God didn't exist, so he went on the offensive by trying to prove the alternative. He insisted scripture was full of "contradictions, revisions, and falsifications." That the tales of miracles "contradicted everything that had been taught by sober observation..." He wrote basically that religion was the invention of primitive peoples and reflected their "gross ignorance." In regards to Christianity, he specifically insisted that the teachings of Jesus were "psychologically impossible (actually, so did Jesus in Mark 10:17-31) and useless for our lives."
He hypothesized that once people became more educated, they would "turn away" from the "fairy tales of religion." It seems this type of thinking has been revived in Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It also seems this is a prophecy by Freud yet unfulfilled.
Lewis's views next.
Blessings,
Joe
Freud called his worldview "scientific" based on the premise that knowledge comes only from research. As I read more and more articles and books, I find this way of thinking rather dogmatic. Since Freud's premise cannot be based on experimental research itself, it's rather presumptuous to assume all knowledge comes from "research."
In speaking with Lee Stroble in "The Case for a Creator," Greg Boyd points out that historical "scholars," as in the Jesus Seminar, often make these assumptions too. "Everyone would agree that you don't appeal to supernatural causes if you don't have to, " he says, "But these scholars go beyond that and say you don't ever have to. They operate under the assumption that everything in history has happened according to their own experiences, and since they've never seen the supernatural, they assume miracles have never occurred in history."
Freud, of course, realized he could not prove a negative or that God didn't exist, so he went on the offensive by trying to prove the alternative. He insisted scripture was full of "contradictions, revisions, and falsifications." That the tales of miracles "contradicted everything that had been taught by sober observation..." He wrote basically that religion was the invention of primitive peoples and reflected their "gross ignorance." In regards to Christianity, he specifically insisted that the teachings of Jesus were "psychologically impossible (actually, so did Jesus in Mark 10:17-31) and useless for our lives."
He hypothesized that once people became more educated, they would "turn away" from the "fairy tales of religion." It seems this type of thinking has been revived in Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion (Ecclesiastes 1:9). It also seems this is a prophecy by Freud yet unfulfilled.
Lewis's views next.
Blessings,
Joe
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Protagonists Conclusions
After reading a little about Freud and Lewis's biographies, it's easy to see the parallelism's in both of their lives. Both suffered great losses early in their childhoods and suffered in their relationships to their fathers. Both possessed what Nicholi calls "intellectual gifts" that foreshadowed the impact they would have as adults. Even though they both received instruction in faith early on, they both threw it away after reading and learning from people they looked up to. Freud's influences included Feurbach and the scientists he studied with in medical school and Lewis by the teachers who gave him the impression, "religious ideas were sheer illusion...a kind of endemic nonsense."
What strikes me the most is how both Freud and Lewis, at least initially, embraced atheism because of a deep-seated anger due to their circumstances. In my own experience, I hear this come up a lot when talking with non-believers: "How could an all-powerful and benevolent God allow suffering to happen?" Freud and Lewis debate this in Chapter 8.
Nevertheless, Freud continued on in his atheism, while Lewis rejected it and embraced the "very view he once thought nonsense."
Chapter 2: The Creator
Blessings,
Joe
What strikes me the most is how both Freud and Lewis, at least initially, embraced atheism because of a deep-seated anger due to their circumstances. In my own experience, I hear this come up a lot when talking with non-believers: "How could an all-powerful and benevolent God allow suffering to happen?" Freud and Lewis debate this in Chapter 8.
Nevertheless, Freud continued on in his atheism, while Lewis rejected it and embraced the "very view he once thought nonsense."
Chapter 2: The Creator
Blessings,
Joe
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Protagonist #2: Question of God
Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29th, 1898 in Belfast Ireland. Lewis's Scottish mother, Florence, came from a "cooler race" as Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy. Their minds were "critical and ironic who had the talent for happiness." His father, Albert, was from a Welsh family who "were true Welshmen, sentimental, passionate, and rhetorical, easily moved both to anger and to tenderness; men who laughed and cried a great deal and had not much the talent for happiness."
Years later, the influences from his family would cause him to write about his "mothers cheerful and tranquil affection," and that "the ups and downs" of his father's emotional life bred in him "a certain dislike or distrust of emotion as something uncomfortable and embarrassing and even dangerous."
As a young boy, Lewis remembers attending church services where his grandfather would preach highly emotional sermons often weeping at the pulpit. Him and his brother, Warren, could hardly contain themselves in embarrassment and often giggled at these services. Nicholi writes that, "these early experiences with formal religion played no small role in Lewis's later repudiation of his nominal childhood faith, his seeing the spiritual worldview as "silly" and his embrace of a materialistic alternative."
Other series of events that solidified Lewis's early skepticism to faith included the death of his paternal grandfather and mother. After numerous consultations by different doctors, they decided to attempt surgery on his mother to remove the cancer from within. The operation took place in their own home where Lewis remembers "being taken into her bedroom to observe her corpse and that his 'grief was overwhelmed in terror'." Nicholi writes that "the impact of this loss - the change in his father's demeanor and subsequently the change in his relationship to his two boys, Lewis's depression and pessimism of many years, and the 'first religious experience' of praying in vain for his mother's recovery - all were crucial."
Lewis was eventually "shipped" off to England at the age of 9 with his brother to attend a public school where he had a very difficult time adjusting. It's here that Lewis ran into another "bump in the road." His first headmaster - nicknamed "Oldie" - whipped students with a cane and had a reputation for cruelty. "Oldies" brutality was so bad, eventually the school had to close down because of a lack of students. What was worse, he was a clergyman of the Church of England, which made a lasting impression upon Lewis.
However, not all of Lewis's early childhood experiences would be proved negative. Nicholi talks about Lewis's autobiography where he writes, "Life in a vile boarding school...teaches one to live by hope. Even in a sense, by faith; for at the beginning of each term, home and the holidays are so far off that it is as hard to realize them as to realize heaven."
Lewis began to have his framework of skepticism loosened by his new school matron at Cherbourg, Miss Cowie. Supposedly, Miss Cowie was still in her "spiritual immaturity" and "floundering" in many different cults, which she discussed with Lewis. Lewis writes, "Little by little, unconsciously, unintentionally, she loosened the whole framework, blunted all the sharp edges of my belief. The vagueness, the merely speculative character, of all this Occultism began to spread..."
Lewis believes the impression he got from Miss Cowie was that religion, though utterly false, was birthed from man, whom, tended to make a blunder out of it. He also began to be sick of the turbulent atmosphere the educational system seemed to be in. He wrote, "I have never seen a community so competitive, so full of snobbery and flunkeyism, a ruling class so selfish and so self-conscious, or a proletariat so fawning, so lacking in all solidarity and sense of corporate honor." Lewis adds that, "For the last thirty years or so England has been filled with a bitter, truculent, skeptical, debunking, and cynical intellisgentsia."
Finally, Lewis's foundation in logic and critical thinking was fostered under the tutelage of William T. Kirkpatrick. The "Great Knock" as Lewis called Kirkpatrick was a militant atheist and logician. He instilled in Lewis a love of reading and writing. Both the "Great Knock" and Lewis based their atheism on anthropological studies such as Frazer's Golden Bough, as Nicholi points out. Like Freud in many respects, Lewis believed "religion" was man's own invention and believed Christianity was like other pagan religions. Eventually, Lewis discovered George MacDonald's "Phatastes" where his imagination was "baptized" and where he would later take numerous quotes from for his own books. Nicholi notes that, "Little did Lewis know that MacDonald was writing about the spiritual worldview that he, Lewis, would embrace some fifteen years later."
Blessings,
Joe
Years later, the influences from his family would cause him to write about his "mothers cheerful and tranquil affection," and that "the ups and downs" of his father's emotional life bred in him "a certain dislike or distrust of emotion as something uncomfortable and embarrassing and even dangerous."
As a young boy, Lewis remembers attending church services where his grandfather would preach highly emotional sermons often weeping at the pulpit. Him and his brother, Warren, could hardly contain themselves in embarrassment and often giggled at these services. Nicholi writes that, "these early experiences with formal religion played no small role in Lewis's later repudiation of his nominal childhood faith, his seeing the spiritual worldview as "silly" and his embrace of a materialistic alternative."
Other series of events that solidified Lewis's early skepticism to faith included the death of his paternal grandfather and mother. After numerous consultations by different doctors, they decided to attempt surgery on his mother to remove the cancer from within. The operation took place in their own home where Lewis remembers "being taken into her bedroom to observe her corpse and that his 'grief was overwhelmed in terror'." Nicholi writes that "the impact of this loss - the change in his father's demeanor and subsequently the change in his relationship to his two boys, Lewis's depression and pessimism of many years, and the 'first religious experience' of praying in vain for his mother's recovery - all were crucial."
Lewis was eventually "shipped" off to England at the age of 9 with his brother to attend a public school where he had a very difficult time adjusting. It's here that Lewis ran into another "bump in the road." His first headmaster - nicknamed "Oldie" - whipped students with a cane and had a reputation for cruelty. "Oldies" brutality was so bad, eventually the school had to close down because of a lack of students. What was worse, he was a clergyman of the Church of England, which made a lasting impression upon Lewis.
However, not all of Lewis's early childhood experiences would be proved negative. Nicholi talks about Lewis's autobiography where he writes, "Life in a vile boarding school...teaches one to live by hope. Even in a sense, by faith; for at the beginning of each term, home and the holidays are so far off that it is as hard to realize them as to realize heaven."
Lewis began to have his framework of skepticism loosened by his new school matron at Cherbourg, Miss Cowie. Supposedly, Miss Cowie was still in her "spiritual immaturity" and "floundering" in many different cults, which she discussed with Lewis. Lewis writes, "Little by little, unconsciously, unintentionally, she loosened the whole framework, blunted all the sharp edges of my belief. The vagueness, the merely speculative character, of all this Occultism began to spread..."
Lewis believes the impression he got from Miss Cowie was that religion, though utterly false, was birthed from man, whom, tended to make a blunder out of it. He also began to be sick of the turbulent atmosphere the educational system seemed to be in. He wrote, "I have never seen a community so competitive, so full of snobbery and flunkeyism, a ruling class so selfish and so self-conscious, or a proletariat so fawning, so lacking in all solidarity and sense of corporate honor." Lewis adds that, "For the last thirty years or so England has been filled with a bitter, truculent, skeptical, debunking, and cynical intellisgentsia."
Finally, Lewis's foundation in logic and critical thinking was fostered under the tutelage of William T. Kirkpatrick. The "Great Knock" as Lewis called Kirkpatrick was a militant atheist and logician. He instilled in Lewis a love of reading and writing. Both the "Great Knock" and Lewis based their atheism on anthropological studies such as Frazer's Golden Bough, as Nicholi points out. Like Freud in many respects, Lewis believed "religion" was man's own invention and believed Christianity was like other pagan religions. Eventually, Lewis discovered George MacDonald's "Phatastes" where his imagination was "baptized" and where he would later take numerous quotes from for his own books. Nicholi notes that, "Little did Lewis know that MacDonald was writing about the spiritual worldview that he, Lewis, would embrace some fifteen years later."
Blessings,
Joe
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Protagonists: Question of God
Chapter 1 in "The Question of God" starts out with biographies on the lives of Freud and Lewis. It's interesting to read about two men from two totally different backgrounds, whom, early on in their lives refused the notion of a supreme being, yet one continued on in his atheism, while the other converted.
Nicholi begins by talking about Freud, who's father had been educated as an Orthodox Jew. Freud wrote "My familiarity with the Bible story (at a time almost before I had learnt the art of reading) had, as I recognized much later, an enduring effect upon the direction of my interest." Freud, as the books points out, naturally associated his spiritual worldview with his father, whom, although had given up many Jewish practices, would regularly read his Bible in Hebrew and celebrate Purim and Passover. His feelings for his father were "ambivalent" at best, but we learn something about his relationship to his father through the anti-semitiscm they faced throughout life. When he was 10 years old, his father was approached by a anti-semitic bully who knocked his cap off into the mud, shouting, "Jew! Get off the pavement!" When Freud asked his father what he did, his father replied, "I went in the roadway and picked up my cap." Freud said that struck him as "unheroic conduct on the part of a big, strong man..." Determined not to live in the shadow of anti-semitiscm, Freud would not spend his life taking on a passive acceptance to his condition, but would fight it tooth and nail.
Another event in Freud's life that would play a major role in his antagonism to the spiritual worldview lay in his broken relationship with his Catholic nanny. Freud became very attached to his nanny at a young age because his mother had been consumed by the sickness and death of his younger sibling. His nanny instilled in him many of the basic tenets of the Catholic faith and it's in these observations (the kneeling, signs of the cross, and routineness of mass) that scholars believe caused him to write papers comparing religious practices with obsessive symptons and referring to religion as the "universal obsessional neurosis." Scholars speculate, it was only after his nanny was dismissed abrubtly from her service - being accused of stealing - that Freud's anger and disappointment toward faith and the Catholic Church were planted. Freud confirms this in some of the letters he wrote mentioning how he would often dream of his childhood nanny.
Other influences in Freud's life may have been in his reading of Ludwig Feurbach's, "The Essence of Christianity," in which Feurbach asserts in his conclusions, "We have shown that the substance and object of religion is altogether human; we have shown that divine wisdom is human wisdom; that the secret of theology is anthropology; that the absolute mind is the so-called finite subjective mind." The cultural environment of Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the medical school where he studied also influenced Freud. Historian Peter Gay wrote about "sizable pockets of anticlericalism and of secularist contempt for all religion." It's no wonder Freud would accept many of these "pockets" in the scientific community, whose acceptance he so strongly desired to advance his career and theories.
These major events and experiences laid the foundation for Freud's studies and many of his theory formulations. He formulated a theory by observing clinically that children experience a phase in their psychosexual development during which they experience positive feelings toward the parent of the opposite sex and feelings of rivalry toward the parent of the same sex. He called this the Oedipus Complex. He wrote, I have found in my own case too, [the phenomenon of] being in love with my mother and jealous of my father, and I now consider it a universal event in early childhood." However, one wonder if Freud ultimately based this analysis on "self-evaluation" - he did, after all, come from a very unusual family with an elderly father and attractive teenager for a mother.
Nevertheless, these events and upbringing laid the foundation for one of Freud's major assertions against the existence of a Creator; that one's ambivalence toward parental authority - especially the positive feelings of that ambivalence - forms the basis of one's deep seated wish for God.
Next we examine Lewis' childhood.
Blessings,
Joe
Nicholi begins by talking about Freud, who's father had been educated as an Orthodox Jew. Freud wrote "My familiarity with the Bible story (at a time almost before I had learnt the art of reading) had, as I recognized much later, an enduring effect upon the direction of my interest." Freud, as the books points out, naturally associated his spiritual worldview with his father, whom, although had given up many Jewish practices, would regularly read his Bible in Hebrew and celebrate Purim and Passover. His feelings for his father were "ambivalent" at best, but we learn something about his relationship to his father through the anti-semitiscm they faced throughout life. When he was 10 years old, his father was approached by a anti-semitic bully who knocked his cap off into the mud, shouting, "Jew! Get off the pavement!" When Freud asked his father what he did, his father replied, "I went in the roadway and picked up my cap." Freud said that struck him as "unheroic conduct on the part of a big, strong man..." Determined not to live in the shadow of anti-semitiscm, Freud would not spend his life taking on a passive acceptance to his condition, but would fight it tooth and nail.
Another event in Freud's life that would play a major role in his antagonism to the spiritual worldview lay in his broken relationship with his Catholic nanny. Freud became very attached to his nanny at a young age because his mother had been consumed by the sickness and death of his younger sibling. His nanny instilled in him many of the basic tenets of the Catholic faith and it's in these observations (the kneeling, signs of the cross, and routineness of mass) that scholars believe caused him to write papers comparing religious practices with obsessive symptons and referring to religion as the "universal obsessional neurosis." Scholars speculate, it was only after his nanny was dismissed abrubtly from her service - being accused of stealing - that Freud's anger and disappointment toward faith and the Catholic Church were planted. Freud confirms this in some of the letters he wrote mentioning how he would often dream of his childhood nanny.
Other influences in Freud's life may have been in his reading of Ludwig Feurbach's, "The Essence of Christianity," in which Feurbach asserts in his conclusions, "We have shown that the substance and object of religion is altogether human; we have shown that divine wisdom is human wisdom; that the secret of theology is anthropology; that the absolute mind is the so-called finite subjective mind." The cultural environment of Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the medical school where he studied also influenced Freud. Historian Peter Gay wrote about "sizable pockets of anticlericalism and of secularist contempt for all religion." It's no wonder Freud would accept many of these "pockets" in the scientific community, whose acceptance he so strongly desired to advance his career and theories.
These major events and experiences laid the foundation for Freud's studies and many of his theory formulations. He formulated a theory by observing clinically that children experience a phase in their psychosexual development during which they experience positive feelings toward the parent of the opposite sex and feelings of rivalry toward the parent of the same sex. He called this the Oedipus Complex. He wrote, I have found in my own case too, [the phenomenon of] being in love with my mother and jealous of my father, and I now consider it a universal event in early childhood." However, one wonder if Freud ultimately based this analysis on "self-evaluation" - he did, after all, come from a very unusual family with an elderly father and attractive teenager for a mother.
Nevertheless, these events and upbringing laid the foundation for one of Freud's major assertions against the existence of a Creator; that one's ambivalence toward parental authority - especially the positive feelings of that ambivalence - forms the basis of one's deep seated wish for God.
Next we examine Lewis' childhood.
Blessings,
Joe
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Been a while!
Wow, it's been a long time since we've had a new post up here! Sorry for the delay, but I have lots to post.
I'm reading a book called "The Question of God." It's by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi an associate professor of pschiatry at Harvard Medical School. To give you an idea of what it's about, click here.
"C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life."
I'll post some ideas in the next few weeks.
Blessings,
Joe
I'm reading a book called "The Question of God." It's by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi an associate professor of pschiatry at Harvard Medical School. To give you an idea of what it's about, click here.
"C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life."
I'll post some ideas in the next few weeks.
Blessings,
Joe
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