Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, N. Ireland in 1898 to Protestant parents and, for most of his adult life, was a Tutor at Oxford and a lecturer of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge. He wrote more than thirty books, and his most popular accomplishments include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity. At age 32, through the encouragement of his devout Roman Catholic friend and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), and after reading The Everlasting Man by Roman Catholic convert, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity from atheism and returned to his Anglican roots where he remained until his death in 1963.
Read MoreMysticism in the Emerging Church
First we must define just what the term ‘mysticism’ means. Mysticism is an attempt to gain ultimate knowledge of God by a direct experience that bypasses the mind. As practiced by those who claim to be Christian, mysticism not only bypasses the mind, but it circumvents Christ Jesus as mediator. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church has assimilated into herself the mystery elements of pagan religions; however, in 1965, at the time of Vatican Council II, Papal Rome officially joined itself with pagan religions and their practice of seeking to know God by direct experience. Some of the exact words of approval for these practices are still in the Vatican Council II documents.
Read MoreThe Alignment of New Evangelicals with Apostasy
Evangelicals throughout the centuries have maintained that by justification by faith—and by faith alone—sinful human beings are in Christ made right before the all Holy God.1 Justification itself is a judicial declarative act on the part of God alone.
Read MoreThe Adulation of Man in The Purpose Driven Life
Degrading the nature of God to the level of a doting person who craves for a relationship with sinful mankind is part of what one finds in Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life movement. Reading the Bible is displaced by the advice to “gather a small group of friends and form a Purpose-Driven Life Reading Group to review these chapters on a weekly basis.”1 “The last thing many believers need today is to go to another Bible study.”2 Most serious of all, in place of the Gospel, Warren merely formulates a whispered prayer and urges one to find one’s “true self.”
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