Sir: It is now de rigueur to debunk any attempt
to present historic Christianity in its proper light. Michael Harrington, writ- ing on C.S. Lewis, is all too predictable. There seems little point in contrasting The Abolition of Man with Mere Christianity. In the former, Lewis shows with inexorable logic the foolishness of failing to see the limitations of the intellect. Those who love to be known as intellectuals are rightly described as men without chests, whose brains seem large because their hearts have shrunk. 'Mere Christianity' has been a blessing to those of us who have grown heartily sick of arid intellectual debate, and as a result 'credo ergo sum' has replaced `cogito ergo sum'.
Chuck Colson, embroiled as he was with Watergate, describes in his book Born Again how he sat in his car reading Mere Christianity one fateful night. The tears flowed freely as he read of God's incredible kindness in Christ, and his life took on a new direction from that time. Like Pascal, he discovered that 'the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing'.
Perhaps one day Michael Harrington will make the same discovery.
R.A. Massie-Blomfield
Cavina School, P.O. Box 43090, Nairobi, Kenya
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