Encounter With Light

By Jenn Weber Sinclair • Oct 1st, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

I recently read this incredible, fascinating book by a man named Sheldon Vanauken who wrote an autobiography of the great love he and his wife shared in the years before her death, and how they came to know Jesus Christ. Previously Agnostics, they came to befriend a group of Christians in Oxford as well as the straightforward and witty C.S. Lewis. I’m only on page 86, but I can’t seem to put this book down (One of the many pros of graduating from college…time for pleasure reading!).

This is a journal entry Sheldon penned while searching for the truth about Christianity:

“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things, perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy, to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity- and possibly nowhere else. If that were certain, it would be proof of a very high order.”
-Sheldon Vanauken

I feel undoubtedly challenged reading this - but excited, too! What a unique privilege we have as believers to let our attitudes and actions be a joyful reflection of Christ’s presence in our lives - and in all of Creation!

You can pick up a copy of this book in most books stores, I purchased mine at Borders It’s called A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken…I could not recommend it more enthusiastically!

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