About Mere O
Mere Orthodoxy, or Mere O as we affectionately call it, began in April 2004 as a place for a group of college guys to stay in touch. What began with modest aspirations of simply staying in touch with each other’s intellectual pursuits has now expanded: we want to be a place where readers of all ages can gather to think deeply about the truth of the Christian faith with respect to the culture around us. Though we are better at talking about some parts of culture than others, we work hard to address many different media and issues for our readers.
Why Mere Orthodoxy? The name is a fusion of the two most famous writings of two significant influences on us: C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity) and G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy). More than that, the name identifies what we want to convey and preserve–an orthodoxy that is confidently humble yet not constrained to theology alone. “Faith of our fathers, living still”–as thinkers, we want to see how that faith applies to law, to science, to philosophy, to art, to movies, to music, to whatever we happen to be thinking about at the time.
That’s Mere Orthodoxy. Stick around, read a bit, and raise your own voice. We’ll do our best to listen.
I find it interesting that you refer to Lewis and Chesterton as your primary influences.
Even a casual study of the Great Tradition reveals that apart from the Sacred Scriptures of any Tradition, the only real sources of Wisdom and Spiritual Guidance within any Tradition have been the Realized Saints, Yogis, Mystics and Sages.
Such unique beings are revered and even worshiped in the Buddhist and Hindu Traditions. So too within the various branches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and even within the Catholic Christian Tradition (to a limited degree–always tempered by the power politics of the church)
C S Lewis was not in any sense a Realized Saint. Neither was Chesterton for that matter, although some would like to pretend that he was a “mystic” (and much of what Chesterton said is nonsense too)
Plus they were both very much a product of their times.
Times in which the consciousness of Western culture altogether had been thoroughly secularized for well over two centuries.
This process of the secularization of everything began with the Renaissance when the focus of Western culture turned from Contemplation of The Divine (as defined by the Catholic Tradition) to that of focusing on the latent potentials of meat-body man only (and mostly white European males too).
The Divine was thus systematically and quite rapidly eliminated from the picture–this was what was signaled by Nietzsche’s famous “God” is Dead exclamation.
The religion that Chesterton and then Lewis, and now you guys, want to resurrect is little more than a collective longing for the revival of some imagined, but never real, past.
Why for instance have no living Saints(who were unambiguously and recognizably Alive with the fullness of God) appeared in the last 100 years.
Saints that did not, and do not need to be officially vetted and authorized by the saint-making-machinery of the church.
And why too, have no Illuminated Saints appeared within Western culture for over 500 years–since the Renaissance.
Sue,
Interesting perspective. Any examples of these “Realized Saints, Yogis, Mystics and Sages” that you want to point to?
Best,
Matt
This is Jaime Laviena, I am an editor for Christian.com which is a social network dedicated to the christian community. As I look through the your web site I feel a collaboration would be a great way for us to target a larger young audience. I would be inclined to acknowledge your website offering it to our users as I’m sure our audience would benefit from what your web site has to offer. I look forward to your thoughts or questions regarding the matter.