As many of you know we've been going through Rob Bell's most recent book, Love Wins, with a chapter-by-chapter approach to discuss, debate, and continue the conversation. And though today's post isn't on Chapter 4, it is something I think we should all digest and consider as we continue the dialogue. Its a great piece from C. S. Lewis on how we read and understand. It will hopefully make the future of these posts more civil and grace-filled.
"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united – united with each other and against earlier and later ages – by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century – the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?” – lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement" -C.S. Lewis
[you can read the entire piece here]
Peace,
Ross
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