Welcome to Sean's Blog

Terry Eagleton on Richard Dawkins

Terry Eagleton is a very clever literary critics and theorist, currently a prof in Manchester and formerly of Oxford where I heard him lecture during my brief spell as an English undergraduate. Here, in the London Review of Books, he takes on Richard Dawkins's latest hysterical production, The God Delusion beautifully. It is hilarious and pointed as well as right on the money theologically. Eagleton is a kind of erstwhile Marxist Catholic.

My favourite line: "The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you."

Revisiting Narnia

I haven't read The Chronicles of Narnia in years and now I am wishing I had re-read it sooner. I am pleasantly surprised at how much is coming back to me, although it does take some of the surprise away. Just started The Last Battle... not expecting to sleep too much tonight.

I think the last time I read the whole lots through was before I became a Christian so it is fascinating to me how much more resonance and life it has for me as a result of that. It's also stretching my view of Jesus in a wonderful way. Probably my view of him is far too tame, and (as any afficionado will know) one thing that comes through again and again is that Aslan is "not a tame lion".

That's enough for a first post.