Konner Johnson - "Myth Became Fact" - C.S. Lewis

     As a practicing Christian the claim that C.S. Lewis's friend makes, saying that people today are not actually Christians is very bold and a little startling. He also states that historic Christianity is barbarous and is not like modern day Christianity in any way. I think this idea is very interesting in part because while yes there are many differences in the two I do not think that one is so barbaric that one would not be able to recognize that they are very similar and to this day many of the same believes and traditions are still practiced.

    Lewis's friend, Corineus makes the comparison between Christianity and the English monarchy and emphasizes how "...the forms of kingship have been retained, but the reality has been abandoned." Lewis retorts this claim by saying that if you were to get rid of the English monarchy that you would leave out one element that is very crucial to the monarchy now. The same is true with Christianity, if you were to say that there is no correlation between the old Christianity and the new, you would be wrong. There is a correlation.

"Of this tragic dilemma myth is the partial solution. In the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction"

    This quote comes directly from the reading and relates a lot to what was talked about in class on Thursday (August 25th). We as humans have many things that are abstract and we cannot experience them in our lives but we have myths that give us insight into those ideas. The biggest example of this is death. No one has ever experienced death and been able to come back and talk about it. For this reason myths have been created to explain the afterlife and the process of death. 

"To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths.”

    This is how we must think as Christians. We must accept the history of the Bible but also look at it through the mythical lense. What flows into us from myth is reality and that is what flows into us from the Bible. Reality is about the truth and that is what we receive from it. The Bible is both a myth and a fact. It claims all these wonderful things which now have become true and also shows us the reality of our lives.