Saturday, July 21, 2007

The "Great Sin"

I'm teaching (in part) on "pride" tomorrow. In preparation for this, I decided to read C.S. Lewis's chapter in Mere Christianity on the subject. Here are some excerpts:

“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves…The vice I am talking of is Pride…”

“Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”

“He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are.”

“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud…If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”

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