R,

Thank you for your letter. I appreciate you taking my concerns seriously and giving them some deep thought.

I think specifically I wasn’t just disagreeing/contradicting too much—in my experience most conversations about interpreting books benefit from some forms of disagreement/debate, provided that it occurs within certain bounds. My concern more precisely was that I was stepping out side of those boundaries because the points on which I was contending against Lewis were rather fundamental questions of theology. My academic training in religion has been almost exclusively premised on a non-confessional / secular principles, as have most of my informal conversations. Given that context I think my instincts to strike at the most fundamental contentions I have with Lewis make sense—in a space where confessional analysis is practiced, however, such interventions can be jaring and unwelcome. Hence my text messages.

I am glad to hear that there are non-Christians who attend and I look forward to meeting Jill at some point in the future! I certainly believe I still have a lot to learn from Christianity, and indeed from Clive in particular—even if what I learn from Clive most often is mostly defined by the contours of my disagreements with him. I’m very glad you stated the goal of the group— “to learn how to become better Christians, or people-who-learn-from-Christianity” (¶4). I would not want to come into your group and undermine that goal; if that is my enduring impact, it would be better for me to find other reading groups to join.

“And so it felt abrasive and startling to suddenly have someone pose the opposite opinion, as antithetical to what we were learning as Christians. The book group has been a deeply precious community for us where build one another up, to learn how to be better Christians.” (¶6)
…
“But this group is trying to build up important life lessons built on the foundation of the more fundamental assumptions. It’s okay to not always agree with them, but it’s trying to focus on other, more developed questions. And we might not get to ask those questions if we are trying to tackle more fundamental ones” (
¶7)

This encapsulates my concerns precisely. I can tell how precious this community is and I worry that my role as dealer in antitheses might be neither welcome nor useful. Or maybe it would be, I don’t know. But I do want you to know that I respect your group and what you’ll have built. At present, I think the best way for me to put that respect into practice might be to continue discussing The Four Loves with you on a one-on-one basis and wait a while before giving participating in the group directly another try. Would that be amenable to you?

☿

Your second letter, as it were, is more troubling to me. You say that our discussions about idol-worship trouble you, that this has weighed heavily on your mind, that it is heartbreaking. I’m sorry I did not realize how uncomfortable they these subjects have made you. My first instinct is often to provoke, to challenge, to disagree, to press the contradictions which infuse and undergird various subject matter to their breaking point. I think there is value in this but I also recognize that, under certain applications, it can be uncomfortable and unwelcome. When that is the case, I would always prefer to be aware of the fact (as you have graciously made me aware of it in this case) and together see if we can find other topics to discuss and methods to employ. Likewise, there are certainly subjects and modes I do not like to talk about all the time and I know you would respect my feelings in such cases as well.

I do not want to upset you. I certainly do not want to drive a wedge between us so shortly after we’ve renewed regular correspondence. We can discuss our thoughts on idol worship and my xenodoxical orientation on questions theological if you want to, but i would also be happy to orientate our conversations in other, less upsetting directions. To that end, I will hold off responding to the specifics of your letter until we have found time to vibe things out over a phone call. I probably will write up some notes elsewhere on ghosttraffic.net for the elucidation of my own thoughts on the matter—if you are curious, i’ll forward them to you. But please, do not feel any obligation to do so.

In Omnibus Solidaritas,

Zacharí Brumaire