Rambelings on C.S.Lewis

I posted this a number of years ago…

I love the way the Voyage of the Dawn Treader starts..
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and his schoolmates called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his father and mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes."

Did you catch that? Lewis does not care much for the "modern" ok lets all say it together LIBERAL way of doing things, specially raising children. I don't think I had ever caught that last sentence until reading it again with my children recently. I especially like the way he lumps them all together with vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers!  Then if that is not enough they wore weird underwear; were they Mormon? C.S. Lewis both drank and smoked, a pipe; i believe maybe cigars. I'm sure he got sick of all the busy body nannies around telling him she should do neither. As if either of those things hindered him from writing such brilliant works like The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. That was 50 years ago it has gotten much worse today. Now our government has gotten in on the act. I mean aren't there more important things for our government to be doing than banning smoking from all public places? Or telling CEO's how much they can make. I hope to be a CEO, well CIO one day. Who is the government or the Church or even my mother to say how much I should make? Now smoking cigarettes is just dumb but if you want to destroy your lungs in spite of all the medical information we have who am I or the Government to tell you what you can or can not do.

It is not just smoking, last fall at one of my son’s soccer games, a mom, who attends our Church, came up to me and said she had seen me out riding my bike earlier that morning. I started making small talk about I don't get to ride nearly as much as I would like to, then she said " I noticed you were not wearing a helmet, you really should you know." Excuse me! Am I your child? Am I not a 40 year old man? OK 44 but who is counting. ( i still feel 20) The point is I am old enough to make decisions for myself. Is she offering to come to my house and fold my underwear? Because if she is going to act like my mother she is going to take on the whole job! What is happening to us? can we not think for ourselves? Do we need someone to hold our hands all the time? Apparently there are a lot of people out there who think so.

That brings me to another pet peeve of mine. In the Evangelical Christian world there is a fad called Accountability Groups. Not where you thought I was going with this is it? Yes it is a fad, it comes and goes. Anyway men are supposed to sit around drink coffee stuff their faces with doughnuts and hold each other accountable. Accountable for your daily walk with Christ, your relationships stuff like that. Which I suppose is ok, what I object to is the idea that EVERY MAN NEEDS to be in an Accountability Group. The way they will look down at you if you are not in an Accountability group. Excuse me, I have a personal relationship with the sovereign God of the universe. Is He not strong enough to hold me Accountable? Some of them actually go around the circle and ask questions like " did you look at pornography this week?" Some of them ask very personal questions about the relationship you have with your wife, not taking into account that your relationship with your wife is sacred and PRIVATE! My dad went to one once, it was made up of all pastors in the area, at this group they passed out a questionnaire with questions like have you ever rented a pornographic video? Check Yes or No. Dad told me he refused to fill it out. He told the men in that group, "that if I say Yes, you will think I am not fit for the ministry, some of you will go home and tell your wives maybe even you congregation. At the very least you will smugly think, I'm doing a lot better than that guy. If I say No you obviously will not believe me, or you will think that guy thinks he is perfect and is just waiting for an opening in the Trinity. Is there any one here that honestly thinks I could get up in the pulpit every week, and preach the world of God to my congregation knowing I have been living my life in this way? Do any of you do that? There you go, if you say yes, we will all think you’re not fit for the ministry, if you say no it is human nature to not believe you."  I have never been so proud of my Dad, I really wish I could have been there, I would have liked to seen the looks on their faces. Some of them wouldn't know an expository sermon if it bit them on the butt...but that is another issue...

Now I am not saying do not participate in small group Bible Studies or prayer groups. There is a difference. One is allowing the Holy Spirit to work in each individual in its own way. The other is a bunch of busy bodies trying to usurp the Holy Spirits role. Like Aslan says, "everybody has his or her own story, and they are only told their story, not someone else story."
We say we don't want a nanny state government. ( although most of the population voted for one the last two elections)
Why do we want a bunch of nanny Christian's running around?