Sublime

I recently finished the short work The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis.  His “starting-point” illustration is from the story of Coleridge where two men look at a waterfall and one calls it “sublime” while the other calls it “pretty.”  He then quotes from what he calls “The Green Book” (a high school level English book).

 When the man said this is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall… Actually … he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings.  What he was saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word ‘Sublime”, or shortly I have sublime feelings.

This quote illustrates the main issue in the decline of western civilization: a loss of objective meaning. The word “sublime” no longer has objective meaning. Nothing has objective meaning. This loss of meaning impacts all of our society including visual art, poetry, architecture, music, politics, law, and religion.

A panel of prominent Evangelical pastors and leaders were asked what the greatest problem in Christianity was today. They all claimed it was a lack of genuine love for God and improper Christian affections. These same evangelicals point to the introduction of popular forms of worship as a leading factor in this problem. They generally see implementing appropriate forms as the primary means to restore proper affection. This is naïve.  The problem is not just with Evangelicals and its source is not with popular forms of worship. The issues evangelicals face are part of the larger broader culture in which evangelicals find themselves.

The reality for Christianity today is that our doctrinal statements are incomplete.  What was taken for granted for almost 2000 years can be no longer. We need a doctrine of objective value.  We do not need a new doctrine but a clear concise articulation of what Christianity has always believed. The “Abolition of Man” is an important work summarizing the problem of the loss of meaning and is helpful in finding a solution.

Christian leaders need to be thinking through these issues. Thankfully, some are.