The Introduction

"A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of

a rule which is not tyranny and an obedience which is not slavery."

C.S. Lewis--Abolition of Man

C.S. Lewis is my "guy"--my hero. I began reading some of his Christian philosophical works--works like Abolition of Man and The Four Loves--over the past summer, and he is now my long lost Grandfather. One of the things I love most about his writing ability is that he is very capable of telling and discussing the Christian faith. He was a professor of classics, so he knew how to teach and he knew what literature does. But, he can also show his readers what faith looks like, and this is probably the most important trait a Christian could ever have, whatever their trade. You can say, say, say; but work is done with the hands and the heart, in which lies the will. Once, a close friend told me that God puts people to work in the place that is best suited for them to get to know God. This sentiment is spelled out in the life of C.S. Lewis. He most definitely knew the character of the Gospel of Christ in his writings. It is evident in works like The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce--fictional stories that pertain to recent times, yet still evoke very truthful reflections by showing the Christian faith. I highly recommend Lewis to anyone who is interested in reading Christian philosophy works. Anyone who has read him is bound to get a glimpse of what I intend to make of my blog for the semester.

With this being said, I figured I would devote my first blog post to being more of an introductory statement. This way, class members who will be reading it this semester can get a sense of my overall theme without having to coast along through the first few posts, only to find that they just don't really care for the material.

I think the title of the blog speaks for itself: I want to provide readers with some of my own personal journals, experiences, and book reviews that relate to my faith in Jesus. This is my greatest passion--writing about my faith. I'm thinking that some people might see my topic as being a little off-putting with the whole religious aspect. But to be completely honest, I would rather come to find that people think my choice of subject meaningless, rather than seeing this as some underhanded attempt to "convert" readers via internet--not that I would put it past God's power to work in such ways. This is not my goal. But, if I write a book review, for instance, I wont be able to simply say, "read this book because I thought it was good." Obviously, I will have to explain why it was a good book to me, and that will lead to discussions about understanding God and faith development. If readers think that some book review or personal journal of mine is in any way my attempt to swindle them into reading that book for spiritual purposes, or even loving Jesus, that is fine. I hope that the blog might have some sort of influence. But, I will say it again, this is not my ultimate purpose. The greater goal is to make an attempt at painting a picture of what living the Christian faith looks like in one person's life (my own.) Of course, readers could just read the gospels. That being said, I need to stress that I am not trying to make some sort of estranged, self-Bible out of this blog either...

Here is my philosophy (if it stands to be such a "philosophical" matter): if people do not care to read what I am writing about, then they should not read what I write. If I were saying this to you (the reader), it would be with a smile and genuine sincerity--no resentment; no smug tone. And I would not say it to you in this manner because I have to act that way as a Christian, (I don't,) but because I was simply being truthful with you.

I am looking forward to reading everyone's blogs throughout the rest of the semester! This is one of the most interesting assignments I have ever taken part in. Some of the blogs I have recently looked at seem very interesting!