We have (I include myself) done and said and thought many things wrong in our lives. That is what it means to live another day: successes, maybe; mistakes, sins, and errors are guaranteed--we are still earthbound. And while some doubters might think from the previous post that they got a "Get-Out-of-Jail-Free" Pass from George MacDonald, that is not at all correct: they overlooked the critically important qualifier “honest” before the word "doubter."
MacDonald deals with our laziness and tendency towards self-deceit:
“No man is condemned for anything he has done: he is condemned for continuing to do wrong once he knows better-and has an avenue; out of his wrongdoing. But [if he chooses differently], he is condemned for not coming out of the darkness; for not coming to the light.”
I spent a couple days browsing the web looking for good Christian websites or blogs--I haven’t found too many. I know I am picky: my standards are strict for both the appearance and the content. As I read the blogs/websites, I tried put myself in the shoes of an agnostic, if there really is such as thing. I was looking for a broad view on the spiritual landscape. Eventually, I returned to hard copies for the best, most probing pieces. I agree with C S Lewis that George MacDonald is one of the best original Christian thinkers of the past 200 years. MacDonald pointedly deals with covert doubts that people harbor, and even leans towards celebrating honest doubters but without sacrificing the Truth of Christ. True to Christ whom he loves, MacDonald has a penchant for condemning false religion (going through the motions). No wonder he was an ostracized minister in his lifetime.
(I have updated his language) –
Honesty Before God, Honest Ignorance vs Going Along to Get Along
“Don’t let your cowardice agree that a word is ‘light’ because another calls it ‘light,’ [if] it looks to you [like] darkness. Either say the thing is not what is seems, or that God never said or did it.
But it is wrong to misinterpret what God does and then say the thing, as [someone has represented it to you], must be right because God did it. No, that is of the devil. But, on the other hand, do not try to believe anything that affects you as darkness.
Still, even if you [make] a mistake and refuse to believe something is true, you will have done less wrong to Christ by your refusal than if you had initially accepted [believed] something to be of Him while it really seemed to be darkness to you.
[It is better in practice to ] Let your words be few, so as to prevent yourself from saying anything which later you’ll regret in your heart.”
- George MacDonald
“Poets have… often communicated in their own mode of expression truths identical with the theologians’ truths; but just because of the difference in the modes of expression, we often fail to see the identity of the statements.”
- Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker
