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Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses show the beloved author and theologian bringing hope and courage in a time of great doubt. "The Weight of Glory," considered by many to be Lewis's finest sermon of all, is an incomparable explication of virtue, goodness, desire, and glory. Also included are: "Transposition," "On Forgiveness," "Why I Am Not a Pacifist," and "Learning in War-Time," in which Lewis presents his compassionate vision of Christianity in language that is both lucid and compelling.
Publication
HarperOne (2015), Edition: 1, 208 pages
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LibraryThing member atimco
I have always loved the title of this collection of addresses, pulled from the passage in 2 Corinthians 4 that says, "For this momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory, far beyond all comparison." In the title sermon, arguably one of Lewis's finest, he identifies
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (26)
Later writers — notably John Piper, in his Desiring God which I just finished and which served, in one of those delightful spiritual "coincidences" of God's, to hammer home the point to me — have caught on to the incredible truth represented here. It is wonderful to feel the freedom to eagerly pursue one's own happiness, and to know that happiness can only be found in God.
Other small nuggets of truth from the other eight addresses are still with me. In one address, Lewis is speaking to a graduating class, and instead of preaching the usual about working hard and being ambitious, he describes the endless struggle to be in what he calls "the inner ring" — and what we sacrifice along the way for that insipid status. It's very thought provoking. Another idea that has stuck with me is from his sermon "Transposition," in which he discusses the tongues-speaking of Acts 2 and some possible reasons that the Holy Spirit manifested in this way; it is the translation of a higher language to a lower.
In "Membership," Lewis talks about the refreshing acknowledgment of our inequalities in the Church. Again, Lewis is the forerunner of truths I have been learning from other sources of late:
But the function of equality is purely protective. It is medicine, not food. By treating human persons (in judicious defiance of the observed facts) as if they were all the same kind of things, we avoid innumerable evils. But it is not on this that we were made to live. It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls, then I think it conceals a dangerous error. The infinite value of each human soul is not a Christian doctrine. God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul, considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. (170)
Not a popular view nowadays, to be sure, in our culture of precious self-esteem and positive thinking, but very refreshing. There is a lot of freedom for the creature when it stops viewing itself as the reason for its own (and God's) existence.
I enjoyed the introduction by Walter Hooper and the little anecdotes he relates about Lewis. Sometimes it seems almost a little like hero-worship. But the more I know of Lewis's work and the profundity of his thought, the more understandable this level of admiration appears.
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our problem not as too much desire for personal happiness, but desires for happiness that are too weak and too easily satisfied with sin's empty pleasures. In an oft-quoted passage, Lewis writes:The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (26)
Later writers — notably John Piper, in his Desiring God which I just finished and which served, in one of those delightful spiritual "coincidences" of God's, to hammer home the point to me — have caught on to the incredible truth represented here. It is wonderful to feel the freedom to eagerly pursue one's own happiness, and to know that happiness can only be found in God.
Other small nuggets of truth from the other eight addresses are still with me. In one address, Lewis is speaking to a graduating class, and instead of preaching the usual about working hard and being ambitious, he describes the endless struggle to be in what he calls "the inner ring" — and what we sacrifice along the way for that insipid status. It's very thought provoking. Another idea that has stuck with me is from his sermon "Transposition," in which he discusses the tongues-speaking of Acts 2 and some possible reasons that the Holy Spirit manifested in this way; it is the translation of a higher language to a lower.
In "Membership," Lewis talks about the refreshing acknowledgment of our inequalities in the Church. Again, Lewis is the forerunner of truths I have been learning from other sources of late:
But the function of equality is purely protective. It is medicine, not food. By treating human persons (in judicious defiance of the observed facts) as if they were all the same kind of things, we avoid innumerable evils. But it is not on this that we were made to live. It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls, then I think it conceals a dangerous error. The infinite value of each human soul is not a Christian doctrine. God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul, considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. (170)
Not a popular view nowadays, to be sure, in our culture of precious self-esteem and positive thinking, but very refreshing. There is a lot of freedom for the creature when it stops viewing itself as the reason for its own (and God's) existence.
I enjoyed the introduction by Walter Hooper and the little anecdotes he relates about Lewis. Sometimes it seems almost a little like hero-worship. But the more I know of Lewis's work and the profundity of his thought, the more understandable this level of admiration appears.
Show Less
LibraryThing member homeschoolmimzi
I find it difficult to write a review of C.S.Lewis' writings... They are so intense, so deep, and varied. And that is why it takes me extra long to read and absorb anything Lewis has written.
This book is a collection of essays, presentations, addresses, full of insight and wisdom. In The Weight
Here is one of the many passages I underlined:
Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object..... In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence... (the desire) we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our existence.
Passages like this just make you sit and think. And they reveal so much of your inner perhaps yet unrealized thoughts and desires..
I'm glad I own this book as it's one I'm going to re-read for sure.
This book is a collection of essays, presentations, addresses, full of insight and wisdom. In The Weight
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of Glory , my favorite of them, Lewis writes of Heaven. And it is indescribably inspiring and logical.Here is one of the many passages I underlined:
Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object..... In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence... (the desire) we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our existence.
Passages like this just make you sit and think. And they reveal so much of your inner perhaps yet unrealized thoughts and desires..
I'm glad I own this book as it's one I'm going to re-read for sure.
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LibraryThing member MusicMom41
This book is a collection based on talks that Lewis gave over the years. He edited them for reading but said he did not change them because they are a record of his ideas at the time of the talks. All of them are worth reading and rereading. This time through “On Forgiveness” really sent me a
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message that I need. “Why I Am Not a Pacifist” still carries impact especially in these uncertain times during the Iraq War and “learning in War-Time” also speaks to continuing to learn as your “days become shorter.” All of the talks are good and I suspect any time I reread them I will get new “messages” from them. He was a very special Christian and these talks also show his “human” side. Show Less
LibraryThing member CowPi
This collection of essays gets its title from the first one, a sermon reflecting on a verse from Corinthians. The last paragraph of this first essay makes the whole book worth it!!!
LibraryThing member GEPPSTER53
I haven't read Lewis in years. The book includes a great intro by his bio Hooper and a half a dozen speeches. Lewis' chapter on pacificists (Mennonites are notoriously pacifists) and why learn during a time of war were especially helpful.
LibraryThing member 3wheeledlibrarian
"The Weight of Glory" (which was originally a sermon) is one of the fundamental documents in my life that I keep returning to at critical moments.
LibraryThing member nittnut
I loved this book, and I loved taking my time reading it. It is a collection of essays on life and faith. I think that even someone who does not consider themselves to be Christian would find something of value here. My favorite essays were "The Weight of Glory", "Is Theology Poetry?", "The Inner
The Weight of Glory
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship... It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
Is Theology Poetry?
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
The Inner Ring
And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric, for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
Membership
How true membership in a body differs from inclusion in a collective may be seen in the structure of a family. The grandfather, the parents, the grown-up son, the child, the dog, and the cat are true members (in the organic sense), precisely because they are not members or units of a homogenous class. They are not interchangeable...If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure.
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Ring", and "Membership".The Weight of Glory
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship... It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
Is Theology Poetry?
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
The Inner Ring
And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric, for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
Membership
How true membership in a body differs from inclusion in a collective may be seen in the structure of a family. The grandfather, the parents, the grown-up son, the child, the dog, and the cat are true members (in the organic sense), precisely because they are not members or units of a homogenous class. They are not interchangeable...If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure.
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LibraryThing member erinjamieson
'Transposition' and 'On Forgiveness' were the two most powerful addresses to me. In transposition, he shows that scientists are always trying to show the way spiritual truths can be explained by physical scientific evidence. These proofs should not bother us because they are scene through a worldly
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lens. This is God's world and he designed it that way. God not only sees things through spiritually, but also physically. His works are intricate and loving. Just because there are physical explanations to spiritual truths does not negate the truth of their spirituality. It is just one level of their existence. 'On Forgiveness' emphasizes that we should be slow to excuse our own shortcomings and quick to forgive others as is often not the case. These addresses remind me that I have not read enough of C.S. Lewis. Show Less
LibraryThing member tangentrider
Beautifully crafted essays, full of wonderful ideas and arguments.
LibraryThing member justagirlwithabook
This book is part of my C.S. Lewis collection. I went through a huge phase where I was just obsessed with anything and everything by him. While I don't agree with all of his theology, I do love his writing style and the things he has to say about faith. He was a good one.
LibraryThing member WaterMillChurch
Reason is the organ of truth but imagination is the organ of meaning. Unselfishness & self denial are not the same as love. Desiring our own good is good not bad. God finds our desires not too strong but too weak. It is most important how God thinks of us not how we think of God. Glory is as bright
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luminosity - united with the beauty we see, nature is only a symbol. There are no ordinary people. Take each other seriously - the weight of your neighbor's glory. Show Less
LibraryThing member lachlanp
I really enjoyed some of the messages in this collection. I won't say they all grabbed my attention; some of them were dry, too many words spent on a simple thing. Others were works of art that made their point well.
My favourites were these:
* The Weight of Glory - the best, both for its wording and
* Transposition - the concept of things being "transposed" (I would use the word "projected") from a greater realm to a lesser. Just like a sunrise on a mountaintop can be captured by painting a flat canvas, and a full symphonic score can be arranged for a piano, so the glories of God, Christ, and Heaven are transposed into, projected onto, reduced down into our realm into things we can understand. When the Bible describes these things (sometimes in ways that seem mundane or even weird) we mustn't forget that the realities they represent are far greater than we can understand.
* On Forgiveness - a reminder to not confuse asking God to forgive our sins with asking him for excuse our sins. When we have sinned, there may have been extenuating circumstances -- God knows -- but we are still at fault. When we ask God to forgive us we must own our sin, acknowledge it, and then ask for him to cover it with Christ's blood. Not try to say "It wasn't my fault."
* A Slip of the Tongue - are we really prepared for the cost of "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."? Are we prepared to be slaves of Christ, to be not our own but "bought with a price"? Often we want to be close to God, but not too close. We want to get close enough to receive his benefits, but we also want to keep a little corner of our life for ourselves. While praying one day, Lewis accidentally prayed to be done with spiritual things so as to not miss out on the earthly things, rather than the other way around. This caused him to meditate on the fact that deep down, he actually wanted this.
My favourites were these:
* The Weight of Glory - the best, both for its wording and
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its content. Explains that the aching dissatisfaction we have with the best things in this life reveals a something that can satisfy, but is only available in the next life. The point being 1. don't waste your life trying to content yourself with empty things, but long for and strive for the coming approval of God (which he identifies as the thing), and 2. remember that those around you are immortal beings headed for an awesome eternal glory or a horrific eternal shame/destruction. Let that be a gravity to your life.* Transposition - the concept of things being "transposed" (I would use the word "projected") from a greater realm to a lesser. Just like a sunrise on a mountaintop can be captured by painting a flat canvas, and a full symphonic score can be arranged for a piano, so the glories of God, Christ, and Heaven are transposed into, projected onto, reduced down into our realm into things we can understand. When the Bible describes these things (sometimes in ways that seem mundane or even weird) we mustn't forget that the realities they represent are far greater than we can understand.
* On Forgiveness - a reminder to not confuse asking God to forgive our sins with asking him for excuse our sins. When we have sinned, there may have been extenuating circumstances -- God knows -- but we are still at fault. When we ask God to forgive us we must own our sin, acknowledge it, and then ask for him to cover it with Christ's blood. Not try to say "It wasn't my fault."
* A Slip of the Tongue - are we really prepared for the cost of "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."? Are we prepared to be slaves of Christ, to be not our own but "bought with a price"? Often we want to be close to God, but not too close. We want to get close enough to receive his benefits, but we also want to keep a little corner of our life for ourselves. While praying one day, Lewis accidentally prayed to be done with spiritual things so as to not miss out on the earthly things, rather than the other way around. This caused him to meditate on the fact that deep down, he actually wanted this.
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