'This mutability is the fate of all movements, fashions, intellectual climates and the like. But a Christian movement is also up against something sterner that the mere fickleness of taste. We have not had (at least in junior Oxford) any real bitter opposition. But if we have many more successes, this will certainly appear. The enemy has not yet thought it worthwhile to fling his whole weight against us. But soon he will. This happens in the history of every Christian movement, beginning with the Ministry of Christ Himself. At first it is welcome to all who have no special reason for opposing it: at this stage he who is not against it is for it. What men notice is its difference from those aspects of the World which they already dislike. But later on, as the real meaning of the Christian claim becomes apparent, its demand for total surrender, the sheer chasm between Nature and Supernature, men are increasingly 'offended'. Dislike, terror, and finally hatred succeed: none who will give it what it asks (and it asks all) can endure it: and all who are not with it are against it. ...Long before it became as important as that the real opposition would have begun, and to be on the Christian side would be costing a man (at the least) his career.'
- C.S. Lewis, The Decline of Religion (God in the Dock)
No comments:
Post a Comment