The author of Brideshead Revisited was a nasty man. So much so that “a woman once remarked to Waugh that, though he claimed to be a Christian, he was one of the most unpleasant men she had ever met. Did he not, she asked, sense any contradiction here? ‘Not at all,’ Waugh is supposed to have responded. ‘But just imagine me if I weren’t a Christian.'”
Source: Quoted in Joseph Epstein, Essays in Biography, Axios Press, 2012, p. 375. Related: C.S. Lewis’s defense of Christian ethics, in the Philosophers, Explained series:
That is fantastic!
I often find myself in spilt second decisions thinking I’m doing the right because I’m following my Christian values. Of course these decisions normally “feel” right regardless of Christianity or my days and days in catholic school and the lessons learned there. But sometimes I wonder if my moral decisions that seem correct in decision are just me – regardless of my Christian upbringing. I suppose it’s impossible to separate myself from that.