Malcolm Muggeridge
Malcolm Muggeridge (b. 1903 - d. 1990) was a British journalist, writer, novelist, dramatist, TV and radio moderator and Christian apologist. He sharply criticised the modern trends in western civilization such as egoism, hedonism, morbid obsession with eroticism and ever increasingly consumerist lifestyle markedly colliding with increasing number of people suffering from hunger in the Third world. In 1974 he was one of the speakers at the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne where he gave address on topic: "Living Through An Apocalypse."[1][2]
Contents
Life
Malcolm Muggeridge was born in Croydon. In early period of his life he shared the socialistic views of his father and studied natural sciences at the Selwyn College in Cambridge. Later he worked as lecturer of English literature at Union Christian College in Alwaye (present-day Aluva in district of Kerala, India) and at Egyptian University in Cairo. In 1932-33 Muggeridge worked as correspondent for Manchester Guardian in Moscow. Here his idealistic views about communism suffered a death blow. He reported a triad of convincing articles about the famine in Ukraine. Their publishing was however postponed by several months since most Western leading intellectuals treated Soviet Union with naiveté and lack of critical thinking.[1][3] For example, Walter Duranty of the New York Times denied the existence of any famine.[4] During WWII he served as agent for intelligent services in Mozambique and Algeria[1] After the WWII he worked as an journalist in several newspapers such as Calcutta Statesman, Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, published satiric and illustrated Punch, participated in featured TV and radio programs (Panorama, Let Me Speak, Appoitment With). In 1966 he was elected rector of Edinburgh University. Two years later, i.e. in 1968, however, he resigned to this function in protest and refusal to initiative of free distribution of abortion medicaments to students. In 1969 he made a documentary about the Mother Teresa and in 1970s participated in the series about Paul the Apostle titled Paul:The Envoy Extraordinary.
Quotes
- “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has.”
- "Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream."
- “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.”
- “The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.”
- “The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”
- “[Pascal] was the first and perhaps is still the most effective voice to be raised in warning of the consequences of the enthronement of the human ego in contradistinction to the cross, symbolizing the ego's immolation. How beautiful it all seemed at the time of the Enlightenment, that man triumphant would bring to pass that earthly paradise whose groves of academe would ensure the realization forever of peace, plenty, and beatitude in practice. But what a nightmare of wars, famines, and folly was to result therefrom.” (The End of Christendom)[5]
- "People do not believe lies because they have to but because they want to."[6]
Bibliography
- The Thirties
- Chronicles of Wasted Time
- Jesus Rediscovered (1969)
- Jesus the Man Who Lives
- The End of Christendom (1980)[5]
- Christ and the Media
- A Third Testament
- Conversion (1988)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Marek Říčan (2011). "Křesťanský apologeta 20.století Malcolm Muggeridge (in English: Christian apologist of the 20th century Malcolm Muggeridge)" (in Czech). Život Víry (1): 22.
- ↑ LAUSANNE 1974 DOCUMENTS. The Lausanne Movement:Celebrating 40 years. Retrieved on June 22, 2014.
- ↑ Remembering the Holodomor. National Post. Retrieved on June 22, 2014. “Moscow's men, and their minions in the West, publicly denied there was any famine. Relief supplies were refused. The few truthful accounts of what was happening, by courageous reporters such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones, were denounced as propaganda.”
- ↑ DOCUMENTARIES: Useful Idiots (7 July 2010).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Malcolm Muggeridge (1980). The End of Christendom. W. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-08028-18379.
- ↑ Robert R. Reilly (2014). Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything. Ignatius Press, preface. ISBN 978-15861-78338.
