1 Corinthians // Abolition of Man // Christendom

1 Corinthians 5-8
5

Reject egregious sin in the church.  If they want to be called a Christian, and have their sin okayed, send them to Satan, stripping them of their Christian profession.  Your job is to deal with those in the church doing this, not so much those outside.

6

Why are you suing each other before unbelieving judges?  Work it out, or just suffer the wrong instead.  Jesus washed you clean of all those sins that will keep the rest out of the kingdom of God.  Sexual immorality especially violates the temple of the Holy Spirit - your body.

7

God gave marriage in part to deal with sexual temptation, so stay single if you can, or marry.  Those married should not divorce unless an unbeliever breaks it off.  Live as you were when saved: circumcised, married, slave, doesn't matter.  In times of persecution you might not want to marry.  Don't let marriage get in the way of serving God.  Widows can remarry.

8

On food offered to idols, idols aren't real and all foods are clean.  But some have associated certain food with their past idolatry and will refuse it.  Let them.  Don't even eat it where they can see, to help them.

CS Lewis expert Michael Ward, on The Abolition of Man at Hillsdale College.

This is a deep, academic dive!

Lewis asserted objective ethical and aesthetic value, on philosophical grounds, not only Christian ones.  He did this, not as an act of compromise, but as a sort of philosophical pre-evangelism.  We need to recover men with chests, a mixture of head (mind) and belly (bodily desires/needs).  Is the chest the soul?

R.R. Reno in First Things is always bracing:

"Like iron filings to a magnet, every dimension of life is tensed with potential for subordination to Christ."

He suggests Christendom may not be dead, after a prominent NYC police shooting, when "for more than two hours, the center of New York City had gone silent for a funeral Mass."

On the other hand, he isn't of the VanTil/CREC type I hang with, either: "the relation of the Church and the world is up to the world, which is sometimes hostile, sometimes indifferent, and sometimes solicitous."  A lot of "my guys" would say, no it's up to the Church's faithfulness.  I'm more with Reno.