...skin deep...prejudices....who me?

The Evangelical Alliance's, Friday Night Theology blog seizes on the extraordinary response that Susan Boyle has received in response to her appearance on 'Britain's Got Talent'.

Did you see it? Were you like most of us amazed at the talent "hidden" inside this rather dowdy looking very ordinary woman? If you were, wasn't it great to hear that talent emerge? How did it make you feel?

Let's learn an important lesson from this, let's stop judging people by what we see at first glance, and let's take the time to find the extraordinary hidden in each one of us. It's too easy to be carried along with the cult of superficiality in our consumer driven celebrity culture. Wouldn't it be great if Susan's success was the pin that pops this tacky bubble once and for all?

Reading between the lines

There was an interesting programme on the Beeb tonight, expounding Michael Ward's contention that CS Lewis' Narnia tales contain a hidden code. It's well accepted that the books are woven through with Christian allegory, which is unsurprising given Lewis' Christian faith. Ward's theory is that in addition to these allegorical references, Lewis also wove themes based on medieval cosmology through the works. No doubt any such reference to planets and such will have some seeking to change our view of Lewis' and his theology. Personally I think it simply attests to his creativity, and enjoyment of the craft of story telling.
How many of us would question the theological seriousness of say a well known Christian songwriter, who wrote a beautiful and complex love song, containing a romanticised reference to the moon? Would we rant about their having abandoned their faith and converted to some weird cult of reading horoscopes; or would we simply see it as using poetic language?
My view? Lewis the master apologist, story teller, and poet has simply left us a great work of children's literature...that continues to reveal more about it's writer, more than fifty years after they were written.