Barbarians

Chuck Colson gave a speech about C.S. Lewis on the great writer and philosopher's 100th birthday in 1998, and I just stumbled upon it. It's a great speech, required reading, (click here to read it) but I especially liked this quote, because it's so chilling. It is vague enough to be misunderstood and misinterpreted, but if you read all of Colson's speech, you'll understand.

The barbarians come, Lewis told us, not over the parapet, not carrying their clubs and wielding their weapons, but they come with polished fingernails and blue pin-striped suits, gathering in well-lighted conference rooms. They are the good people who say that they know how to make life better for all of us.

Here is a quote that will help clarify this. Colson writes in his book How Now Shall We Live?:

“The emphasis on social justice at the expense of private virtue is not only mistaken by downright dangerous. People without personal morality inevitably fail in their efforts to create public morality… ‘Our youths today are almost invariably taught they must change the world, not their souls. So they change the world, and it becomes worse’” (377).