Engaging Enemies (and other opponents) with Humility

I read this piece from Stanley Hauwewas which reminded me of this letter of C. S Lewis' written to his brother on September 10, 1939 at the beginning of World War 2:

In the Litany this morning we had some extra petitions, one of which was, ‘Prosper, oh Lord, our righteous cause’. Assuming that it was the work of the bishop or someone higher up, when I met Bleiben [the vicar] in the porch, I ventured to protest against the audacity of informing God that our cause was righteous – a point on which he has his own views . . . I hope it is quite like ours, of course, but one never knows with him.

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2

And that reminded me of this by Charles Williams also written in the midst of WW2 (1942):

The conversion, where it is demanded, of the wild justice of revenge to the civil justice of the Divine City is the precise operation of the Holy Spirit towards Christ. All we need to do is attend to the goodwill, to the civility; the justice (in the personal relation) can be left to Christ. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord.’ It is perhaps desirable to notice that the repayment is not limited to our enemy. We shall be unfortunate if we forget the trespasses, the debts, which our enemies desire to repay with their wild justice and are content to leave to his promise. It is important that we should be ready to forgive the Germans; it is not unimportant to recognize that many Germans (including Herr Hitler? Possibly; we do not very well know) may feel that they have much to forgive us. Many reconciliations have unfortunately broken down because both parties have come prepared to forgive but unprepared to be forgiven. Instruction is as badly needed in this as in many other less vital things; that holy light which we call humility has an exact power of illumination all its own.

The Forgiveness of Sins, p. 113

Can you imagine such things being said in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Who in America dared to suggest that Osama bin Laden and al-Quaeda might have much to forgive us? That the attacks, however inexcusable, might be understood as an act of 'the wild justice of revenge'? Or, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, that God might have his own ideas about the righteousness of our cause? Would we be willing to say such things today about Afghanistan? Pakistan? Iran? China? Russia?

A couple of things strike me in the above quotes. Both Lewis and Williams refuse to get caught up in nationalistic rhetoric that assumes that 'God is with us' or that their country is particularly blessed by God. Even in the midst of war, they were compelled by their Christian convictions to accept the possibility that their nation was wrong and that their enemies might well have grievances of their own. If that is the faithful Christian attitude in the midst of war how much more so in times of (relative) peace? It raises questions about the ease with which Americans blend God-talk and patriotism which smacks of syncretism. It raises questions about the rhetoric of American exceptionalism.

I am also struck with the fundamental humility expressed by Lewis and Williams. Both demonstrate an admirable reticence to claim to know overmuch about God's mind or to assume their side is necessarily God's. Both recognize that all humans are fundamentally bound to one another in a relational web and all humans are caught in the sin that infects that web. We should thus be wary of presuming our own innocence or consigning blame to others – both are awe-full things to contemplate if we recognize that we are all live under the awesome gaze of God's love and judgment.

If all this could be said in the midst of WW 2 where the right and wrong seemed so clear, might such things be said in other contexts? For example, might it change our perspective if Episcopalians acknowledged that those who have left the Episcopal Church to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) have 'much to forgive us' and their leaving represents a sort of 'wild justice'? And what if members of ACNA acknowledged that God might indeed have his own opinions about the issues over which they have left the Episcopal Church and whether those issues warranted schism? In the secular setting, if we adopted Lewis' and Williams' attitude would we engage our political opponents differently? What about in work, school, family, or other personal contexts? Are we willing to acknowledge that those who irritate or frustrate us might have as much or more cause for grievance against us?

I know enough of both Lewis and Williams to know that neither would advocate anything like a posture of moral equivalency. But, what both do seem to advocate is a deep humility and reticence to blame. And I find both refreshing.

God Endured What He Decreed

The fourth day of Christmas, Holy Innocents, calls to mind these thoughts from Dorothy Sayers and Charles Williams:

Dorothy Sayers:

What does the Church think of Christ? The Church’s answer is categorical and uncompromising, and it is this: That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God “by whom all things were made.” His body and brain were those of a common man; his personality was the personality of God, so far as that personality could be expressed in human terms. He was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; he was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”—he was God.

Now, this is not just a pious commonplace: it is not a commonplace at all. For what it means is this, among other things: that for whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he [God] had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.

- The Greatest Drama Ever Staged, The Whimsical Christian

Charles Williams:

The original act of creation can be believed to be good and charitable; it is credible that Almighty God should deign to create beings to share His Joy. It is credible that he should deign to increase their Joy by creating them with the power of free will so that their joy should be voluntary. It is certain that if they have the power of choosing joy in Him they must have the power of choosing the opposite of joy in Him. . .

He could have willed us not to be after the Fall. He did not. Now the distress of creation is so vehement and prolonged, so tortuous and torturing, that even naturally it is revolting to our sense of justice, much more supernaturally. We are instructed that He contemplates, from His infinite felicities, the agonies of His creation, and deliberately maintains them in it. . . The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together. (Romans 8:22)

This is a creation then that ‘needs’ (let the word be permitted) justifying. The Cross justifies it to this extent at least–that just as He submitted us to His inexorable will, so He submitted Himself to our wills (and therefore to His). He made us; He maintained us in our pain. At least, however, on the Christian showing, He consented to be Himself subject to it. If, obscurely, He would not cease to preserve us in the full horror of existence, at least He shared it. This is the first approach to justice in the whole situation. Whatever He chose He chose fully, for Himself as for us. This is, I think, unique in the theistic religions of the world. I do not remember any other in which the Creator so accepted the terms of His own terms–at least in the limited sense of existence upon this earth. It is true that His life was short. His pain (humanly speaking) comparatively brief. But at least, alone among the gods, He deigned to endure the justice He decreed.

- The Cross (from Charles Williams: Selected Writings, chosen by Anne Ridler)

More on Forgiveness from Charles Williams

Last week I posted an extened quote from Charles Williams' essay on The Forgivenss of Sins. I like Williams. Reading him regularly conjures the feeling of Christmas. Here are two more quotes from the same essay, which can be found here.

Forgivenesss is not normally a thrilling or an exciting thing. The metaphor which our Lord used has a particular aptness--it is the taking up, the carrying, the Cross, not the being crucified: it is the intolerable weight of the duty, and not its agony, which defeats us--'the weight of glory'. p. 192-193

. . . .

Many reconciliations have unfortunateley broken down because both parties have come prepared to forgive and unprepared to be forgiven. Instruction is as badly needed in this as in many other less vital things; that holy light which we call humility has an exact power of illumnination all its own. p. 193

Heroic Sanctity of Forgiveness

Heroic sanctity is required perhaps to forgive, but not to forgive is ordinary sin. There is no alternative; the greatness of the injury cannot supply that. It becomes–an excuse? No, a temptation: the greater the injury, the greater the temptation; the more excusable the sin, the no less sin.

The injury done to many in this kind of war is greater than the injury done to one in private, but the result, from a Christian point of view, cannot be other. That must be, everywhere and always, the renewal of love.
- Charles Williams.

Charles Williams (1886-1945) was a member of the Inklings, the literary discussion group that included J. R.R. Tolkien and C. S Lewis. He is a favorite of mine (see here). He was an editor and author of several strange but wonderful “supernatural thrillers”. He was also a lay theologian – mostly self-taught, idiosyncratic, but orthodox. He wrote several theological books and essays. His writing style is not always easy to follow, but what he has to say is almost always wise, evocative, and worth the trouble.

The following is from a book he wrote, On Forgiveness of Sins, which he dedicated to the Inklings. It was originally part of a series of books that included The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. It was published in 1942, in the thick of World War II. The point he makes is no less challenging or pertinent for Christians today:

Forgiveness of all injuries is demanded of the Christian because of the nature of our Lord, and it is demanded entirely. The phrase ‘things that cannot be forgiven’ is therefore to him intellectually meaningless. But it may in fact mean a good deal all the same. It is true that few of us are, fortunately, in a position to understand that meaning; no injuries of which the forgiveness seem unbelievable have ever been done to us. But probably there are at the present moment more persons alive in Europe than for many generations to whom such injuries have been done. . . . The massacres, the tortures, and the slavery, which have appeared in Europe of late that have impressed themselves upon us. In the ruined homes of Rotterdam–or indeed of England–among the oppressed thousands of Poland, there are those to whom the phrase ‘things that cannot be forgiven’ has fearful meaning. Must they nevertheless be forgiven? They must. Must vengeance, must even resentment, be put off? It must. There is certainly a distinction between the desire for private vengeance and the execution of public justice. But there is no excuse for concealing private vengeance under the disguise of public justice. . . .The injury done to many in this kind of war is greater than the injury done to one in private, but the result, from a Christian point of view, cannot be other. That must be, everywhere and always, the renewal of love. But in such states as we are now considering, that renewal means little less than heroic sanctity. It is upon such heroic sanctities that the Church depends–depends in the sense that they are the rule, its energy, and its great examples. . .

Heroic sanctity is required perhaps to forgive, but not to forgive is ordinary sin. There is no alternative; the greatness of the injury cannot supply that. It becomes–an excuse? No, a temptation: the greater the injury, the greater the temptation; the more excusable the sin, the no less sin.

He Came Down From Heaven and Forgiveness of Sin, p. 165-167

Repentance

"Repentance is no more than a passionate intention to know all things after the mode of heaven."
- Charles Williams, He Came Down From Heaven, p. 60

A Little Something for Valentine's Day

"It is the moral duty of lovers, as they certainly at moments know, to plunge with love into each other's life -- bringing power: power to resist temptation, to reject, to affirm, to purify, to pray."
- Charles Williams, The Figure of Beatrice, p. 204

Williams suggests that this duty is the business of Heaven.

Dance Me to the End of Love - The funniest videos clips are here

The Incarnation as the Reason for Creation

For the fifth day of Christmas, a little something from Charles Williams. Referencing Duns Scotus, Williams suggests:

The Incarnation is the point of creation, and the divine 'reason' for it. It pleased God in His self-willed activity to be incarnate. But obviously this union of Himself with matter in flesh did not necessarily involve the creation of other flesh. It would have been sufficient to Himself to be Himself united with matter, and that 'united with' means a union very much beyond our powers to conceive; more than a union, a unity. Even now, in spite of the Athanasian Creed, the single existence of the Incarnate Word is too often almost Gnostically contemplated as an inhabitation of the flesh by the Word. But it is not so; what he is He is wholly and absolutely, and even in His death and in the separation of body and soul He remained wholly and absolutely one. His act could have been to Himself alone. He decreed that it should not be; He determined creation; He determined not only to be incarnate, but to be incarnate by means of a mother. He proposed to Himself to be born into a world.

This decree upon Himself was the decree that brought mankind into being. It was His will to make creatures of such a kind that they should share in that particular joy of His existence in flesh. He bade for Himself a mother and all her companions; perhaps the mystery of the mortal maternity of God was greater than that, but at least it was that. It was the great and single act of active love, consonant with nothing but His nature, compared to which the Redemption (if indeed He were infinitely to maintain all souls alive) was but a sheer act of justice. Our flesh was to hold, to its degree, the secrets of His own.

"Natural Goodness" in Selected Writings p. 107

All Saints Sunday -- 11/1/09

Every now and then I visit the Wade Center at Wheaton College. I like to sit and read and sometimes work on a sermon in the museum there. The museum

showcases memorabilia and rotating wall displays which highlight selections from our collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and artifacts” related to seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

There are some big items: an actual wardrobe from C. S. Lewis’ childhood home (complete with fur coats and a sign warning that the Wade Center will not be responsible for any one who might try to enter), a desk from his office at Magdalen College of Oxford University, and the desk on which J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. In display cases, one can see a pair of glasses once owned by Dorothy Sayers; a pipe and tea mug that belonged to Lewis along with a mug that he likely used for other beverages; and the honorary MA diploma awarded by Oxford to Charles Williams along with the mortar board he wore upon receiving that diploma.

I confess that for me it feels like a pilgrimage destination, a shrine full of holy relics. Except for Barfield who I have not read, each of these authors has inspired and nourished me spiritually. Each has expanded my imagination, which is another way of saying each has enhanced my capacity for faith, love, and wonder. When I am there I feel their presence and my faith is encouraged.

As you know, I am particularly fond of Charles Williams. Though he is not an officially recognized saint, his effect on those who knew him gets at what all the saints are about.

The poet, W. H. Auden, who attributed his conversion to Christianity to Williams, wrote,

for the first time in my life I felt myself in the presence of personal sanctity. I had met many good people before who made me feel ashamed of my own shortcomings, but in the presence of this man . . . I did not feel ashamed. I felt transformed into a person who was incapable of doing or thinking anything base or unloving.

"Transformed into a person who was incapable of doing or thinking anything base or unloving" is another way of saying sanctified or made holy. The saints we celebrate on Saints days and today, on All Saints, are those Christians who stand out as exhibiting exemplary holiness. Which is to say that by God’s grace they are particularly transparent to God’s goodness. Saints are fragrant with the aroma of heaven. That transparent goodness and fragrant aroma changes those with whom they have contact.

And even more is changed. Upon learning that his friend had died, C. S. Lewis wrote that when he tried to combine the idea of death with the idea of Charles Williams he found that "it was the idea of death that was changed."

The saints anticipate – embody even – a glimpse of the splendor of resurrection glory. A glory that is stronger than death.

Because the glory of God is stronger than death, those who have been received into the fullness of that glory are never completely removed from us. Though they have "ascended the hill of the LORD" and "stand in his holy place" having received their blessing and reward from the King of glory, they continue to encourage those of us still making the ascent up the hill of sanctification. We are knit together in a great fellowship with them with threads stronger than death.

Among other things, this is what is meant when we affirm in the Apostles' Creed that we believe in “the communion of saints”. Those who God has "tested and found worthy of himself", those who he has refined like gold, still shine forth in our midst. The saints "run like sparks through the stubble" of this world igniting our imagination and our expectation of another world where all will be made new and the stench of sin, disease and death will be no more. They enhance our capacity for faith and love. Through them the Holy Spirit can transform us and inspire in us the desire to be persons who are incapable of doing or thinking anything base or unloving.

And so we rejoice in their fellowship and run with endurance the race that is set before us that we might, together with them, receive the crown of glory that never fades away.