sheldon vanauken.

i just finished reading a severe mercy.

it's about this guy who lost his wife. and they were really in love and stuff. but they were also agnostic/theist/Jesushaters. and while she was still alive the man started writing c.s. lewis to be like "so i heard you used to think Christianity was lame-o, but then you changed your mind, and i want to know how." and eventually they both became Christians because of the letters they wrote back and forth. and the letters are INCLUDED. unedited c.s. lewis.

so basically, a great book. i LOVE hearing about how agnostic/theist/Jesushaters become believers. it's fascinating to me, because it's not at all my experience.

read it.

even though that was a terrible, terrible summary. it does not do the book justice.

in the "afterword" the author wrote about why it took him so long to write the book. like a million years after she died. (i don't know why i'm expressing myself like a 16 year old today). it's not even part of the story, and it's not even interesting. i couldn't care less about anything he said in that part, EXCEPT...this quote about social causes...because i'm interested in doing that kind of work.

he was describing the 60's here.

"Movement goals, not God, became first, in fact - not only for me but for other Christians involved, including priests. I now think that making God secondary (which in the end is to make Him nothing) is, quite simply, the mortal danger in social action, especially in view of the marked intimations of virtue - even arrogant virtue - that often perilously accompany it. Some may avoid this danger, perhaps. But I was not obeying the first and greatest commandment - to love God first - nor is it clear that I was obeying the second - to love my neighbour. Hating the oppressors of my neighbor isn't perhaps quite what Christ had in mind."