Priestesses in the church?

In this article CS Lewis explains why he believes there shouldn't be priestesses in the church. He describes the way the male role had been set down for Christianity. He explains that the male role is not interchangeable with the female role. Christ is the bridegroom, Jesus is the son of God, and so on and so forth. I really liked his analog of the ball. He stated that if we had a male leading and he wasn't very good, replacing him with a woman doesn't help anything. They have different roles. The man should go to dance classes and become better at his role, but he should not simply be replaced. I agree with CS Lewis in that women would not be ordained. In class it was mentioned that there is a big difference between teaching and being an ordained preacher. I really liked that because it distinguished the fact that women can teach, they just shouldn't be ordained. I personally believe that if there is a controversial issue we should go to scripture. There is a verse that says do not do anything to cause your brother to stumble. If it is going to cause someone to fall if you made a woman a minister then it shouldn't be done. Because it states it in the Bible and people go there for their source of truth it should not be contradicted. Otherwise it can cause people to question what is really true.

the light in the tool shed

In this article CS Lewis describes the difference between looking at something and looking along it. He starts it with the analogy of seeing a light in a dark toolshed and it just looks like a ray of light and a bunch of dust. He then goes on stating that when he walked up and looked directly along the light it was a whole different experience. He could see the sun and all the toolshed faded away. What he was trying to explain here is that when we are experiencing something it is entirely different than when we are watching someone else experience it. When you watch someone else experience it you summarize it to a simple "chemical imbalance" or whatever. When your actually experiencing it, you feel like it's real. There's no chemicals involved, only the experience to you. I think what CS Lewis is saying is that we shouldn't discredit things that people are experiencing with scientific facts to explain it. I believe CS Lewis is stating that we need both the experience and the scientific view in order to really understand it to it's full potential. When we throw out one or the other we loose that potential. It become's only an experience, or simply a chemical and it no longer retains that meaning to us. CS Lewis is encouraging us to use both our experiences and the facts in order to truly comprehend these kinds of things.

inner rings

I really liked this article by CS Lewis because it helped me realize how common these inner rings are. Everyone wants to get in them. I thought it was interesting to find that CS Lewis sated that we do nothing good to get into these rings. I once was friends with these two pretty cool guys, but they were outcasts just like me. I wanted to get into the inner ring with some of the cooler guys. Once I started talking to some of the guys that were in the inner ring, they began to make fun of my other friends. I began to join in for acceptance, and eventually treated them with complete contempt. I had made some new friends and I was in the inner ring, but I had become a completely different person. I did terrible things to them and hated them thoroughly. It was horrible. When I look back at that I realize much that statement is true. CS Lewis states that we finally get in but we have in turn become a monster. We have gone against all that we stood for in order to gain acceptance.

friendship

CS Lewis describes friendship to be the most spiritual of loves. He states that out of all the loves this is the least corrupted. To have friendship one must be centered with their friend around a common interest. He explains that when a relationship is started between a man and a woman they are looking towards each other. When a friendship is started they are side by side looking towards a common interest. This is why friendship is best carachterized by male-male relationships or female-female relationships. CS Lewis states that the friendship between a man and a woman is always compromised by the thought of being more than just a friendship unless they are extremely ugly so that there is no possibility of attraction there. This was interesting to me because I found it to be true in my life. When I become friends with a girl the possibility is always there. At times it can even make things awkward. The only time it works is when I am completely unattracted to them like Lewis comments on.
Another interesting thought mentioned in this article is that friendship is not necessary for survival. Humans must have a mate in order for us to reproduce, but friendship is not at all necessary. CS Lewis writes that friendship can be compared to the existence of this earth. God did not need it to survive but made it anyway. Friendship is not necessary but is made to make survival wortwhile.

Eros

I found it intriguing that CS Lewis described the Eros as completely toward the person emotionally in the sense that it wouldn't even matter if she was a woman or not. CS Lewis is stating that there is nothing sexual about it. When a person falls in love with another with eros they are in love with who they are, not with what they look like. He also describes that venus, the sexual love, is within eros for the perfect marriage. When two people are married they need to have that attraction there. If it isn't there then it is almost as though they care for them more as a close friend and not as a spouse. This is important to keep in mind. If there is no attraction there then there is no appeal to get married. It would change nothing in the realtionship and maybe even make it awkward.
CS Lewis brings up the point that Venus can exist outside of eros. The two are connected but do not have to be. One can have a sexual attraction without being in love with the person. This made sense to me. Living in a Christian home and growing up in Christian School, I was always under the impression that sexual attraction like that was bad and a sin. When I grew older I began to understand that it was a nessesary part of life. When CS Lewis describes it as going hand in hand with the other aspects of love in a relationship it really helped me understand what place the sexual attraction has in the life of a Christian.

The sermon and the lunch

I found this article very interesting because I grew up in a pastor's home. I sometimes saw this to be true in lots of homes that we went and visited and even in our own home. I found it interesting when he stated that it wasn't because the preacher was insicere. It was the fact that he was preaching on an ideal home situation that did not exist. I really liked the way he described this. in my home I always saw that my dad was really doing this for the right reasons and he was very sincere. I saw that people didn't listen to him because he would do this very thing. Reading this helped me understand why some people who have good things to say are ignored by people. I think it also has to do with being hypocritical. I saw a lot of people who were completely different people once they left the church. When I saw this I would immediately ignore them in the church. I never could listen those people because they were not fit to be preaching these things in my mind. I would stonewall and block them out completely. This can cause lots of problems. I think this is why people need to live according to the word. How is a nonbeliever going to ever come to Christ if christians are not the kind of people one would want to have anything to do with?

vocation in the kingdom of God

In this chapter Plantinga touches on the fact that our whole purpose here on this earth is to strive for the kingdom of God. He describes how those in miserable circumstances search for it with that much more hope and passion. He pushes us to strive for it with the same passion. He states that everything we do is pushing us toward or away from the kingdom. He urges us not to be comfortable with the world we live in to where we don't want the kingdom to come back just yet but to push for the coming of the kingdom at all times and in all circumstances. He urges us to have that passion for the kingdom. He also tries to emphasize the point that the kingdom should be our only desire. We should not be happy with the things of this world but always yearn for the coming of the kingdom. Later on he spoke of how the best place for us to leasrn of this was through christian schools. I don't know if it was merely propaganda but I don't think he really thought this through. If you are at a christian school you are completely surrounded by things of God that you would not see at a public school, but there are some benefits of going to a public school as well. One of the things I have noticed is that public schools have so much more of reality. They can help one strengthen their faith if they can overcome. this is very important I think because otherwise when you graduate and you go out into the real world and all of the sudden are surrounded by all these things that were just taken out of the equation earlier. I do think there are benefits to both. I really think it depends on where you are at within your faith.