{"id":275,"date":"2005-08-22T20:54:55","date_gmt":"2005-08-22T20:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=275"},"modified":"2010-05-08T20:55:36","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T20:55:36","slug":"a-grief-observed-and-the-importance-of-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/a-grief-observed-and-the-importance-of-context\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Grief Observed” and the Importance of Context"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a popular homeschooling discussion list, someone recently posted a quote (found on a website) from C. S. Lewis\u2019s book A Grief Observed<\/a>,<\/em> proclaimed with alarm that this was not Bible truth, suggested that Lewis was not a Christian, and advocated reading Lewis\u2019s \u201cquotes\u201d to detect his \u201cdangerous\u201d mixture of lies with truth.<\/p>\n

Here is the passage she quoted:<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are \u00a0tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be<\/em>\u2014<\/em>or so it feels<\/em>\u2014<\/em>welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

This was my reply:<\/p>\n

Merely reading any author’s “quotes” is a dangerous and inaccurate way to evaluate him.\u00a0 Consider, for example, what we might think was being taught about God if we read certain verses (or even most of the book) of Ecclesiastes out of context.<\/p>\n

I took the time to read A Grief Observed<\/a><\/em> last week to put the quote in its context.<\/p>\n

The quote above appears on page 4 out of 89 pages of Lewis’s personal journal after the painful death (by cancer) of his beloved wife.\u00a0 This quote was part of the outpouring of his grief in the first couple of weeks after her death.\u00a0 Nowhere does Lewis assert that his reaction is “Bible truth.” In fact, reading the whole book would show you that later in the book he acknowledges that his early reaction was inaccurate.\u00a0 On page 53, for example, he writes, “I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted.\u00a0 Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face?”<\/p>\n

A Grief Observed<\/a><\/em> is not a theological treatise but a personal journal, originally private, that Lewis eventually published, perhaps in the hope of reaching other grieving people with the comfort he ultimately found in God. It is a deeply felt exploration of his personal grief, including his temporary sense of God not answering his prayers, and ultimately a restatement of his faith in God.<\/p>\n

Was Lewis’s theology 100% accurate?\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00a0 Is anyone’s theology 100% accurate here on earth?\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00a0 There are some of Lewis’s statements I disagree with.\u00a0 But there is a wealth of biblical truth in his writings.<\/p>\n

Please, don’t limit yourself to reading Lewis’s “quotes.”\u00a0 Read his books<\/em>. At least, if you want to make public proclamations that he is not a Christian, read his books\u2014in fact, read all of them before you draw and publicize such a conclusion.\u00a0 If you want to ignore his books, or even announce that you have chosen not to read them because you disagree with what little you know of his theology, that’s fine. But please don’t make public judgments about a person’s eternal destiny on the basis of a few out-of-context quotes on a website.<\/p>\n

Mary Jo<\/p>\n

Copyright 2005 by Mary Jo Tate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a popular homeschooling discussion list, someone recently posted a quote (found on a website) from C. S. Lewis\u2019s book A Grief Observed, proclaimed with alarm that this was not Bible truth, suggested that Lewis was not a Christian, and advocated reading Lewis\u2019s \u201cquotes\u201d to detect his \u201cdangerous\u201d mixture of lies with truth. Here is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}