Conversions/Reversions

With the reversion of Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, to the Catholic Church, the blogosphere has been abuzz this week. This was balanced by news that Bill Cork, who, until very recently, was Director of Young Adult and Campus Ministry for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, had reverted to being a Seventh Day Adventist, even going so far as, inexplicably, being re-baptized! Anyway, to that end, in a spirit of ecumenism and true interfaith respect, acknowledging the imonk for posting this and alerting me to it, I offer this letter of C.S. Lewis to a woman of his close acquaintance, who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic. Notice the date, 10 November (the day before my b-day) is the birthday of Martin Luther!


Magdelen College,
Oxford
Nov. 10th 1952

Dear Mrs. _________,

It is a little difficult to explain how I feel that tho’ you have taken a way which is not for me I nevertheless can congratulate you — I suppose because your faith and joy are so obviously increased. Naturally, I do not draw from that the same conclusions as you — but there is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence! I believe we are very near to one another, but not because I am at all on the Rome-ward frontier of my own communion. I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes. I would even carry this beyond the borders of Christianity: how much more one has in common with a real Jew or Muslim than with a wretched liberalising, occidentalised specimen of the same categories. Let us by all means pray for one another: it is perhaps the only form of "work for re-union" which never does anything but good. God bless you.

Yours most sincerely
C. S. Lewis