Roger Steer

Malcolm Muggeridge on ‘a Christian way of looking at life’

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-90), one of the first celebrities of the television age, who came to despise the media, died 24 years ago today on 14 November 1990.

Writing in the New Statesman on 10 March 1967 he said that ‘books like Resurrection or The Brothers Karamazov give me an almost overpowering sense of how uniquely marvellous a Christian way of looking at life is, and a passionate desire to share it. Likewise, listening to Bach, reading Pascal, looking at Chartres Cathedral or any of the other masterpieces of Christian art and thought. As for the Gospels and Epistles, I find them (especially St John) irresistibly wonderful as they reduce the jostling egos of now my own among them to the feeble crackling flicker of burning sticks against a majestic noonday sun. Is it not extraordinary to the point of being a miracle, that so loose and ill-constructed a narrative in an antique translation of a dubious text should after so many centuries still have power to quell and dominate a restless, opinionated, over-exercised and under-nourished twentieth century mind?’

In coming  days, on this blog, I shall be discussing Malcolm Muggeridge’s insights especially what  he saw as as ‘a Christian way of looking at life’. Please leave your own comments on this website.