Long Burn

A peculiar people

My blogging guru and best man Tim McGuire (see Primate Brow Flash link to the right) has posted a link to a great article by a guy named Frank who writes the blog Slacktivist. The article quotes C. S. Lewis:

“The real test is this. Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything—God and our friends and ourselves included—as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Here is the link to the full article:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/03/a_peculiar_peop.html

Also in the Slacktivist blog:

"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things," Philippians 4:8

posted by Matt_J @ 9:14 AM