Jon Kennedy, Nanty Glo Home Page webmaster and owner, is a former teen and campus minister. He began his journalism career as teen columnist for the Nanty Glo Journal and its sister weekly newspapers from 1957 to '62 and became the Journal's third editor in 1962 at age 20. He has edited other newspapers and magazines, and more recently, webzines, ever since. His articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Christianity Today, and many other publications. His Jonals appear here on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Complete index of Jon Kennedy's Jonal articles

Jon Kennedy's latest book is The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia, now in stores, from Adams Media, F&W Publications. From May 9, 2007 through July 2, 2008 his blog entries or "Jonals" were articles inspired by readings in Lewis's work that didn't fit into the book. Click here for a list of all articles in the C.S. Lewis Overflow series. The book is available for purchase in support of the Liberty Museum in Nanty Glo and is also available on Amazon.

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Change

Jonal entry 1101 | May 20 2009

A fundamental difference between orthodox Christianity and man-centered forms of humanism is that Christianity affirms the possibility of change in human beings where other humanisms, at best, consider basic change highly unlikely; “people never change,” is the mantra often heard. Perhaps through years of psychotherapy or the right prescription, some temporary changes can be wrought, “scientific” humanists allow, but everything else is programmed-in; anything that “looks like” change is just faking it, they claim. Not only do Christians confess that human beings can be changed—not by “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” but by falling on the grace of God, repenting of their sins and trusting Christ for salvation and thence living lives of obedience to Him and His precepts—they believe these processes are absolutely essential to finding the purpose of their human existence.

Yet, I believe (as C.S. Lewis did) there is always ambiguity about human repentance. It effects true changes, true improvements, in individuals, yet it is also always imperfect; always on the way but not quite there in this life. A story told about a fifth century holy ascetic, later known as a saint, St. Sisoe, illustrates:

Surrounded at the moment of his impending repose [death] by his brethren, he appeared to be conversing with unseen persons, and the brethren asked: “Father, tell us with whom you are carrying on a conversation?” St Sisoe answered, “They are angels who have come to take me, but I am praying them to leave me for a short time so that I may repent.” When the brethren, knowing that Sisoe was perfect in virtue, responded, “You have no need of repentance, father,” the Saint answered, “Truly I do not know if I have even begun to repent."

Also illustrative is the quotation from Lewis in today's "Thought for today": "God never allows a human conflict to become unambiguously one between simple good and simple evil." Or, as he put a similar thought in a letter in 1961: "In general, I incline to think that tho' the blessed will participate in the Divine Nature, they will do so always in a mode which does not simply annihilate their humanity. Otherwise it is difficult to see why the species was created at all." Lewis believed, as the early church generally believed, that Christ's followers will be perfected, even made "divine" in the life to come (John 10:34, “Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods?"). But even then there will always be a sense or a memory of our humanity about us. And theologically, being human is defined by freedom of choice. To be created in the image of God and re-created through the second birth into His likeness means that we shall become perfect, even as Jesus our Lord was and is perfect, as he taught in Matthew 5:48: "Therefore be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." But we will still, somehow, be human.

So to be a Christian is to be a changed person but also a person who is always changing for the better until, when we stand before our Creator, we are finally made perfect. But I think the "anti-Christian" humanists are deeply invested in their belief that no one changes. I've already hinted that psychotherapy and pharmaceuticals (I don't discount the validity of either and probably owe my life to the latter) stand to profit from the proposition that all change is at best temporary (until the next session or the next fix, er..., next dose). The sex, entertainment, and gambling industries generally profit from people thinking there's no use even trying to get their minds out of the gutter or trying to live by any higher motive than greed (which is what keeps gambling one of the most profitable enterprises in the world).

—Webmaster Jon Kennedy

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