Critic...Or Pupil?

C. S. Lewis's masterpiece, The Screwtape Letters, continues to be relevant and timely, despite its age and its references to World War II, etc. This excerpt, for example:

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

You mentioned casually in your last letter that the patient has continued to attend one church, and one only, since he was converted, and that he is not wholly pleased with it. May I ask what you are about? Why have I no report on the causes of his fidelity to the parish church? Do you realise that unless it is due to indifference it is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.

The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organisation should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings, it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy desires. The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how grovelling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!) This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper. So pray bestir yourself and send this fool the round of the neighbouring churches as soon as possible.

Spurgeon on Blessings

If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes the common pebbles of God's temporal bounties more precious than diamonds; and spiritual prayer cuts the diamond, and makes it glisten more. When thou art wrestling, like Jacob with the angel, and art nearly thrown down, ask the Holy Spirit to nerve thine arm. Consider how the Holy Spirit is the chariot-wheel of prayer. Prayer may be the chariot, the desire may draw it forth, but the Spirit is the very wheel whereby it moveth.

Church of the Week: Chamberlain Hall

This week's featured church is Chamberlain Hall, the auditorium at The Salvation Army's Camp Swoneky in southwest Ohio, near Kings Island.

Chamberlain Hall was (I think) the first building constructed at Camp Swoneky in 1958, after The Salvation Army closed Camp Glendale in Cincinnati and moved the summer camping program here. I probably attended my first worship service (or "meeting," as they're called in Army parlance) here very soon after, as my family moved to the area in late 1958, while I was still an infant.

It has come to be a precious place to me, as it was my weekly "church" while I was on staff at camp during the summers of 1973-75 and 1978. I also remember many memorable Labor Day camp meetings, where I sat under the ministry of Dr. Tom Hermiz, Commissioner Andy Miller, and others.

Also Good Policy for Dr. Lance D. Boyll

Mr. Bean Goes to Church

Church of the Week: Dominus Flevit Church

This week's church of the week is a small Fransciscan chapel located on the upper western slope of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, known as the Dominus Flevit ("The Lord Wept") Church. It is fashioned in the shape of a teardrop to symbolize the tears of Christ because it was built on the spot where, according to the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus looked over the city of Jerusalem and wept at the thought of its future destruction (Luke 19:37-42).

The building was designed by Italian architect Anton Barluzzin and constructed in 1954. It stands on the ruins of a 7th-century church, some mosaics of which still remain. The western window in Dominus Flevit provides a beautiful view of the Temple Mount, which in Jesus' day would have been dominated by the Great Temple built by Herod rather than the Dome of the Rock as it is today. It is easy for the visitor to see how Jesus could have been moved by the view...and the knowledge of the destruction to come.

We have seen this beautiful chapel on our visits to Jerusalem....most recently a few days ago! Interestingly enough, tradition also identifies this as the spot where Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet," composed his Lamentations.

This shot of the unique roof of Dominus Flevit also shows how close it is to the Church of All Nations, the spires of which can be seen just down the slope of the Mount of Olives.