UotNS and how it screws with your head

Gerry Quinn · 13 Jul 2010, 18:02 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:02:51 +0100
Subject: (urth) UotNS and how it screws with your head
References: <SNT123-W3648570337046E2ADD28E1CFB90 at phx.gbl>
	<AANLkTinqC-5pL3aTitEALTSi4IEaqhBPBX5jhLIMSzSt at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6F28257282C14DC78FA6BB776DAEC212@jill>

I think Wolfe has suggested more than once that our lives are 'a Christmas 
present'.  Even if there's nothing else, it's all Good.

- Gerry Quinn

From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> 
wrote:

> Wolfe is usually portrayed as a devout Catholic but, given his writing, I 
> have serious
> doubts whether he has the same view of grace and the "God Is Love" stuff 
> that most
> Christians have or are supposed to have. He really seems to have a dark 
> and pessimistic
> side which comes out in pretty much all his work. Where, in his work, is 
> the shining,
> uncompromised redemption we must (as christians) eventually, somehow 
> achieve? Is he
> saving that for his last novel maybe?

I think this deeply misunderstands Wolfe and Christianity.
Christianity is pretty much a "dark and pessimistic" religion when it
comes to the nature of this world. Christians believe that the
Universe is _broken_, beyond repair; God's only option for redemption
is Apocalypse, end the whole thing and start again. The only optimism
comes in the belief that some of us will get to participate in the
rebooted, unbroken Universe. C.S. Lewis put it very nicely:
Christianity is an underground movement in an occupied territory.

Nor is redemption something we must "achieve." It is given to us,
undeservedly; that's what "grace" is all about.

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