It was written during the most difficult period of my life… a time of extreme anguish, during which I wondered whether I would be able to hold on to my life. Everything came crashing down – my self-esteem, my energy to live and work, my sense of being loved, my hope for healing, my trust in God… everything. Here I was, a writer about the spiritual life, known as someone who loves God and gives hope to people, flat on the ground and in total darkness.

What had happened? l had come face to face with my own nothingness. It was as if all that had given my life meaning was pulled away and l could see nothing in front of me but a bottomless abyss.

The strange thing was that this happened shortly after I had found my true home. After many years of life in universities, where I never felt fully at home, I had become a member of L’Arche, a community of men and women with mental disabilities. I had been received with open arms, given all the attention and affection I could ever hope for, and offered a safe and loving pIace to grow spiritually as well as emotionally. Everything seemed ideal. But precisely at that time I fell apart – as if I needed a safe place to hit bottom!

Just when all those around me were assuring me they loved me, cared for me, appreciated me, yes, even admired me, I experienced myself as a useless, unloved, and despicable person. Just when people were putting their arms around me, I saw the endless depth of my human misery and felt that there was nothing worth living for. Just when I had found a home, I felt absolutely homeless. Just when I was being praised for my spiritual insights, I felt devoid of faith. Just when people were thanking me for bringing them closer to God, I felt that God had abandoned me. It was as if the house I had finally found had no floors. The anguish completely paralysed me. I could no longer sleep. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I could not be reached by consoling words or arguments. I no longer had any interest in other people’s problems. I lost all appetite for food and could not appreciate the beauty of music, art, or even nature. All had become darkness. Within me there was one long scream coming from a place I didn’t know existed, a place full of demons.

All of this was triggered by the sudden interruption of a friendship. Going to L’Arche and living with very vulnerable people, I had gradually let go of many of my inner guards and opened my heart more fully to others. Among my many friends, one had been able to touch me in a way I had never been touched before. Our friendship encouraged me to allow myself to be loved and cared for with greater trust and confidence. It was a totally new experience for me, and it brought immense joy and peace. It seemed as if a door of my interior life had been opened, a door that had remained locked during my youth and most of my adult life.

But this deeply satisfying friendship became the road to my anguish, because soon I discovered that the enormous space that had been opened for me could not be filled by the one who had opened it. I became possessive, needy, and dependent, and when the friendship finally had to be interrupted, I fell apart. I felt abandoned, rejected, and betrayed. Indeed, the extremes touched each other.

Intellectually I knew that no human friendship could fulfil the deepest longing of my heart. I knew that only God could give me what I desired. I knew that I had been set on a road where nobody could walk with me but Jesus. But all this knowledge didn’t help me in my pain.

I realised quite soon that it would be impossible to survive this mentally and spiritually debilitating anguish without leaving my community and surrendering myself to people who would be able to lead me to a new freedom. Through a unique grace, I found the place and the people to give me the psychological and spiritual attention I needed. During the six months that followed, I lived through an agony that seemed never to end. But the two guides who were given to me did not leave me alone and kept gently moving me from one day to the next, holding on to me as parents hold a wounded child.

To my surprise, I never lost the ability to write. In fact, writing became part of my struggle for survival.

(From Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love)

(William Gurnall, Christian Armour, vol 2, 60)

Conscious of his status as one of the high priests of the “new” atheism, he knew that anything he might say on his deathbed – however delirious or demented – might be used as evidence against the position he gave his life to advancing.

Even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s “hello darkness my old friend”. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)

Fittingly for one who positioned himself in direct opposition to God, Hitchens here offers his own twist on the words in the Bible’s last chapter, the ones that warn against adding or subtracting anything from the written testimony. As a formidable writer, Hitchens certainly knew the power of the word, if not the Word.

However, one of the differences between John (the writer of Revelation) and Christopher Hitchens (the writer of God Is Not Great) is that the former had seen and heard things he could never disavow, not even in the pangs of death. Regardless of the torture, he knew he was in no danger of undergoing a deathbed conversion to atheism.

Hitchens, on the other hand, was just prophetic enough to recognise that when caught in the teeth of his final moments, his mind – in common with all human minds – might well default to certain strong convictions, many of which he gave his life to denying.

Is God a wishful delusion born of fear? Or is that a better description of atheism? Well, like John before him, Christopher now knows for certain.

But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit, therefore, who has spoken through the mouths of the prophets must penetrate into our hearts to persuade us that they faithfully proclaimed what had been divinely commanded.

By this power we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly, to obey him, yet also more vitally and more effectively than by mere human willing or knowing… I speak of nothing other than what each believer experiences within himself.”

(John Calvin, quoted in Iain Murray, Evangelicalism Divided, 157-158)

The Puritans would have criticized the modern evangelistic appeal, with its wheedling for “decisions”, as an unfortunate attempt by man to intrude into the Holy Spirit’s province. It is for God, not man, to fix the time of conversion.

It is, in fact, the rankest Pelagianism to suppose that a sinner can “decide for Christ” whenever the evangelist wishes. When he has finished instructing, applying and exhorting, his pulpit work is done. It is not his business to devise devices in order to extort “decisions”. He would be wiser to go away and pray for God’s blessing on what he has said.

It is God’s sovereign prerogative to make His Word effective, and the preacher’s behaviour in the pulpit should be governed by recognition of, and subjection to, divine sovereignty in this matter.”

(Puritan Preaching, J. I. Packer)

“Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church. These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbes rather than priests, prelates rather than bishops.

Happy those who approach them! Being persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors.

As they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also; it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind the scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the patron, the fatter the curacy for the favourite.

And then, there is Rome. A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist; you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot.

Every skull-cap may dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. What a nursery of aspirations is a seminary! Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation?”

[HT: Zach Moore]

Here’s a fascinating article by Meghan O’Gieblyn at Guernica Magazine, describing her exodus from the “Christian” music scene of the 1990s.

“We need to bring under review all our evangelistic plans and practices–our missions, rallies, and campaigns; our sermons, talks, and testimonies; our big meetings, our little meetings, and our presentation of the gospel in personal dealing; the tracts that we give, the books that we lend, the letters that we write–and to ask about each of them questions such as the following:

“Is this way of presenting Christ calculated to impress on people that the gospel is a word from God? Is it calculated to divert their attention from man and all things merely human to God and His truth? Or is its tendency rather to distract attention from the Author and authority of the message to the person and performance of the messenger? Does it make the gospel sound like a human idea, a preacher’s plaything, or like a divine revelation, before which the human messenger himself stands in awe? Does this way of presenting Christ savour of human cleverness and showmanship? Does it tend thereby to exalt man? Or does it embody rather the straightforward, unaffected simplicity of the messenger whose sole concern is to deliver his message, and who has no wish to call attention to himself, and who desires so far as he can to blot himself out and hide, as it were, behind his message, fearing nothing so much as that men should admire and applaud him when they ought to be bowing down and humbling themselves before the mighty Lord whom he represents?

“Again: is this way of presenting Christ calculated to promote, or impede, the work of the word in the men’s minds? Is it going to clarify the meaning of the message, or to leave it enigmatic and obscure, locked up in pious jargon and oracular formulae? Is it going to make people think, and think hard, and think hard about God, and about themselves in relation to God? Or will it tend to stifle thought by playing exclusively on the emotions? Is it calculated to stir the mind, or put it to sleep? Is this way of presenting Christ an attempt to move men by the force of feeling, or of truth? Not, of course, that there is anything wrong with emotion; it is strange for a person to be converted without emotion; what is wrong is the sort of appeal to emotion, and playing on emotion, which harrows people’s feelings as a substitute for instructing their minds.

“Again: we have to ask, is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey to people thedoctrine of the gospel, and not just part of it, but the whole of it–the truth about our Creator and His claims, and about ourselves as guilty, lost, and helpless sinners, needing to be born again, and about the Son of God who became man, and died for sins, and lives to forgive sinners and bring them to God? Or is it likely to be deficient here, and deal in half-truths, and leave people with an incomplete understanding of these things, and hurry them on to the demand for faith and repentance without having made it clear just what they need to repent of, or what they ought to believe?

“Again: we have to ask, is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey to people the application of the gospel, and not just part of it, but the whole of it–the summons to see and know oneself as God sees and knows one, that is, as a sinful creature, and to face the breadth and depth of the need into which a wrong relationship with God has brought one, and to face too the cost and consequences of turning to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord? Or is it likely to be deficient here, and to gloss over some of this, and to give an inadequate, distorted impression of what the gospel requires? Will it, for instance, leave people unaware that they have any immediate obligation to respond to Christ at all? Or will it leave them supposing that al they have to do is to trust Christ as a sin-bearer, not realizing that they must also deny themselves and enthrone Him as their Lord (the error which we might call only-believism)? Or will it leave them imagining that the whole of what they have to do is to consecrate themselves to Christ as their Master, not realzing that they must also receive Him as their Saviour (the error which we might call good-resolutionism)? We need to remember here that spiritually it is even more dangerous for a man whose conscience is roused to make a misconceived response to the gospel, and take up with a defective religious practice, than for him to make no response at all. If you turn a publican into a Pharisee, you make his condition worse, not better.

“Again: we have to ask, is this way of presenting Christ calculated to convey gospel truth in a manner that is appropriately serious? Is it calculated to make people feel that they are indeed facing a matter of life and death? Is it calculated to make them see and feel the greatness of God, and the greatness of their sin and need, and the greatness of the grace of Christ? Is it calculated to make them aware of the awful majesty and holiness of God? Will it help them to realize that it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands? Or is this way of presenting Christ so light and casual and cosy and jolly as to make it hard for the hearers to feel that the gospel is a matter of any consequence, save as a pick-me-up for life’s misfits? It is a gross insult to God, and a real disservice to men, to cheapen and trivialize the gospel by one’s presentation of it. Not that we should put on an affected solemnity when speaking of spiritual things; there is nothing more essentially frivolous than a mock seriousness, and nothing more likely to make hypocrites out of our hearers.

What is needed is this: that we, who would speak for Christ, should pray constantly that God will put and keep in our hearts a sense of His greatness and glory, and of the joy of fellowship with Him, and of the dreadfulness of spending time and eternity without Him; and then that God will enable us to speak honestly, straightforwardly, and just as we feel about these matters. Then we shall be really natural in presenting the gospel–and really serious too.”

(From p86-91. Thanks to Thabiti Anyabwile for drawing my attention to it.)

In a fusty second hand bookstore in DC last week, I came across an old copy of one of my favourite books, Fahrenheit 451. Immediately, I flicked to the back and started reading Ray Bradbury’s afterword. (I don’t know why I read books I don’t own in reverse. Maybe because reading books without paying for them feels like theft. I’m afraid I’ll be interrupted before I find out, or remind myself, what happens at the end).

It’s a furious bit of writing, as you might expect from an author who had seen his parable against censorship repeatedly censored. And I wonder whether it has something to say to we Christian writers and editors who, in the laudable desire to reach as many as possible with the gospel, edit or rewrite our books until every last drop of transcendence, wonder and personality is gone.

Some five years back, the editors of yet another anthology for school readers put together a volume with some 400 (count ‘em) short stories in it. How do you cram 400 short stories by Twain, Irving, Poe, Maupassant and Bierce into one book?

Simplicity itself. Skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy. Every adjective that counted, every verb that moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito – out! Every simile that would have made a sub-moron’s mouth twitch – gone! Any aside that explained the two-bit philosophy of a first-rate writer – lost!

Every story, slenderized, starved, bluepenciled, leeched and bled white, resembled every other story. Twain read like Poe read like Shakespeare read like Dostoevsky read like – in the finale – Edgar Guest. Every word of more than three syllables had been razored. Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention – shot dead.

[...] There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

[...] For, let’s face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet’s father’s ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer – he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.

Assuming it were possible to use words of only one syllable to proclaim the grandeur of the gospel, would we even want to do it? We may congratulate ourselves that every reader over the age of 12 will have been able to understand it. But what, exactly, will they have understood? And what might they have lost?