I've been curled up on the couch with a Lewis's Letters to Malcolm book this week. He never wrote a book on prayer, because, well, who am I to tell one how to pray? but his personal field notes on prayer have left me reflective on my own spiritual life.
Book review: “The Great Divorce” by C. S. Lewis
My patient parents put up with me reading The Great Divorce to them this week while they were visiting. Re-reading Lewis always brings fresh insights. Lewis's "The Great Divorce" was one of the books that helped me overcome my religiously inspired self-loathing and realize I wasn't doomed to go to the Mormon version of hell.
Book review: “C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason”
Materialism (the idea that there are no supernatural causes) is such a fundamental assumption of modern science, rarely will anyone take the time to state it. But here, C. S. Lewis takes the existence of reason itself as a refutation of materialism. A great analysis by Reppert.
C. S. Lewis’s secret system in “Chronicles of Narnia”: Book review of “Planet Narnia”
Planet Narnia was a Goodreads recommendation based on my Favorites shelf that is clearly dominated by the works of C. S. Lewis. I haven't read a book by C. S. Lewis for a good two years now, and I was wanting to rekindle some of the spiritual insights I had gathered while reading his works.... Continue Reading →
Letters to a a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine
Dorothy Sayers, detective novelist I was absolutely ecstatic when Goodreads pulled this recommendation out of its hat! Dorothy Sayers is another close acquaintance of C. S. Lewis. I first became familiar with her from the letters of C. S. Lewis in which he writes to her and about her quite frequently. I first tried to... Continue Reading →
After the dust settles: Yet another response to Josh and Lolly Weed’s post
Much has already been said concerning the Weeds’ post about their divorce. My wife and I were debating whether to post at all. It has been covered in so many places already, including Slate, The Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and on blogs like here and here. But we felt our response unique to... Continue Reading →
Book review: True love in Vanauken’s “A Severe Mercy”
I first ran into the name Sheldon Vanauken when reading The Collected Letters of C S Lewis a few years ago. Intent on reading everything I could by Lewis, I was glad to hear that I wasn't completely finished when I reached the end of his novels. Several of the letters in that tome were... Continue Reading →
A defense of Mormon culture: Maintaining sacred space
Today, I was thinking about a vague topic, and perhaps one that has come under a lot of scrutiny recently. I mean the topic of Mormon culture. Oftentimes, someone will blame a seeming injustice within the Church on the culture rather than something explicitly stated in doctrine. I suppose Mormon culture is a catch-all for... Continue Reading →
How I Stopped Narrating My Life As a Tragedy: A Few Reflections from a Gay Mormon
Have you seen the movie "Hotel Transylvania"? The vast majority of the film is slapstick comedy with Adam Sandler playing a ridiculous Count Dracula with his best friends Frankenstein, Wayne the werewolf, and Murray the mummy making fart joke all along the way. But underneath that crusty layer of the McDonald's level of humor is... Continue Reading →
The argument for democracy is its mediocrity — Sense Hofstede
Any review of the argument for democracy as the best form of governance as a matter of tradition starts with Churchill’s citation in the House of Commons of the quote that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. I oblige. Its popularity shows how wary many people have become of... Continue Reading →