C. S. Lewis Blog

Evolution and C.S. Lewis: What Did He Really Believe?

2012-01-31T20:38:00.000-08:00

In the century and a half since Darwin published the Origin of the Species, no Christian theologian has given a more searching examination to the question of man's place in the cosmos than Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis.

His readers have naturally wondered what conclusion Lewis drew about evolutionary theory. A debate next week at Biola University, in La Mirada, California, confronts the question head-on: Was Lewis a Darwinian, a proponent of intelligent design, a theistic evolutionist, or something else altogether? The title of the debate is "Evolution and C.S. Lewis: What Did He Really Believe?" It is presented by Mike Peterson from Asbury Seminary and John West who helps direct the Center for Science & Culture at Biola.

The event is February 6 and it sounds like a great one. Learn more on the Biola website.

Observing Grief: 2

2012-01-26T15:59:00.000-08:00

C. S. Lewis was profoundly changed, as one should be, by his marriage to Joy Davidman. A Grief Observed is his ordeal of dealing with her death in light of the Gospel and the goodness of God. We turn to chapter two at present since chapter one is discussed in a previous entry. Chapter one concludes with Lewis still hearing her voice vividly, a voice that can turn him into a "whimpering child" at any moment.

C.S. Lewis with Joy Davidman

We pick up the second chapter with a real fear, that Lewis's opened door to love and affection will now close again. "Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is doomed to crawl back -- to be sucked back -- into it?" Lewis asks.

It's a legitimate question. Why do we let lose our affections when we know that they'll be broken with death or distrust or some other pain? Lewis struggles with an answer and he cringes to know that the raw memory of his wife will soon fade with time and through the natural process of grieving.

He struggles too with where exactly Joy resides, "in what place is she at the present time?" he asks. If not in a body then where? And Lewis wonders that if it's not the body he knows and loves, than is she still she? "Kind people have said to me, 'She is with God,'" he says. "In one sense that is most certain. She is, like God, incomprehensible and unimaginable."

Even though the answer might be true, it doesn't relinquish any pull away from his grief. "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly," he says perhaps with his throat curled up, "Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."

The truth? There is nothing easy about loss, and even that sounds cheap and pat. Lewis rails about her being in God's hands and if that's so, "she was in God's hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body? And if so, why?"

Lewis can't measure up God's goodness with hurting us, as he puts it. He wonders if there's really good in God or whether there is a God at all. Now, the tension here is if Lewis works himself from this desperate place of venting about God. Know that he does return, but not fully here in chapter two. He questions all of it and asks if it's a big practical joke - Jesus, the cross and the whole set up.

"Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense?" he asks. "Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it."

Maybe so, but it's encouraging to walk with Lewis, closely knit to grief and discovering grace again, despite the questions and the knife wound made by real suffering.

Think Seven

2012-01-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

The 28th volume of Seven is now available. It's a journal that is annually published by the Wade Center at Wheaton College. It get its name from the seven authors the Center ties together. Many know them as the Inklings. In 1965, Clyde Kilby fashioned the group and began collecting writings and forming relationships with key contacts. The seven: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams.

If you haven't been to the Wade, you should. It's part museum with Lewis wardrobe, Tolkien's desk, and other relics and mostly study center with original letters and a library of Inkling books. Since 1980, Seven has published scholarly articles and book reviews.

A rundown of number 28: Lewis's "Easley Fragment," Chesterton on MacDonald, Sayers and the creative reader, Tolkien's beautiful sorrow and the Somersham Pageant and Sayers. There are a good number of books reviewed too, but we'll keep you in suspense.

Visit www.wheaton.edu/wadecenter for more details.

Observing Grief: 1

2012-01-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

A Grief Observed is the subject for the next few entries. It's a short book of four chapters and it's a notebook of sorts as Lewis wrestles with his wife's death. The Problem of Pain was written years earlier (1940) but this account, as Douglas Gresham references in its introduction, is, "a stark recounting of one man's studied attempts to come to grips with and in the end defeat the emotional paralysis of the most shattering grief of his life."

In chapter one the loaded question is, "Where is God?" Lewis feels abandoned, like a door slammed in his face and bolted shut. "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God," he surmises. "The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him."

Because, if God allows such horrendous things to occur here, under his watch, where is the confidence that such a God can be relied on once the end comes? That's another question that Lewis circles round and round in this first chapter. Now that grief has touched him so closely, theology seems a distant neighbor to its reality.

The truth is, like any substantive theological view, Lewis is working out his view in light of his experience and finding the eternal truths of God to be abiding, at least he'll return to such a confidence as he continues his notes. He knew that the journey toward death, and eventually death itself, was an individual road. "Alone into the Alone," is what Lewis said Joy would tell him. "And how immensely improbable that it should be otherwise!" he seemingly shouts. "Time and space and body were the very thing that brought us together; the telephone wires by which we communicated. Cut one off, or cut both off simultaneously. Either way, mustn't the conversation stop?"

We know that death is not the end. Lewis knows it. But that doesn't make the path through grief easy to walk. Has grief and loss influenced your faith and has it helped shape your views on God?

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It's interesting to point out that A Grief Observed was originally published under a pseudonym (N. W. Clark) and it was only posthumously attributed to Lewis.

Screwtape Takes the Stage

2011-12-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to David Thereoux from the C.S. Lewis Society of California for this informational point: The sensational, stage production of The Screwtape Letters, starring Max McLean, will be touring the country on 2012.

This bestselling Christian masterpiece of religious satire by C.S. Lewis entertains and uplifts people with its hilarious, sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, the highly placed assistant to his demonic “father below.”

In addition, this fabulous stage production will be appearing across the U.S. in Los Angeles (Jan. 14-15), Salt Lake City (Jan. 28), Phoenix (Feb. 4), San Diego (Feb. 18), Sacramento (Mar. 3), Seattle (Mar. 10), Chicago (Mar. 16-18), Oklahoma City (Mar. 24), Indianapolis (Mar. 31), Buffalo (Apr. 14), Nashville (Apr. 27-28), Norfolk (May 1-6), Chicago (May 19), Atlanta (June 7-17), Grand Rapids (June 23), and Charlotte (June 29-30).

For more information go to www.screwtapeonstage.com.

The Christmas Challenge

2011-12-18T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season poses a heightened challenge to us: can we look beyond ourselves and into the divinity that has come down from heaven in the person of Jesus? Not that alone, but can we embrace the uncertainty that comes from total surrender?

Lewis:

The natural life in each of us is something self-centered, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world. ...It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centeredness and self will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid it.

We are ready to fight tooth and nail to keep secret all the things we don't want Jesus to root out. But, he must. And...

...the business of becoming a son of God, of being turned from a created thing into a begotten thing, of passing over from the temporary biological life into a timeless "spiritual" life has been done for us [through Jesus].

Lewis goes on to say that we must get close to him and as we do "we shall catch it," catch the "infection" of salvation and grace. The challenge of Christmas is to get close enough to wonder in the incarnation and not mistaken it as trite.

(Both citations are taken from Mere Christianity, chapter 5.)

Word Pictures for the Word Who Became Flesh

2011-12-11T20:39:00.000-08:00

by David C. Downing
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” That concise statement by the apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 5:19a) has kept theologians busy for nearly two thousand years, trying to understand what exactly is being affirmed in the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement.

C. S. Lewis never lost his sense of wonder about either one of these central Christian teachings. Referring to the Incarnation as “The Grand Miracle,” Lewis said he could not conceive how “eternal self-existent Spirit” could be combined with “a natural human organism” so as to make one person. He added, though, that every human embodies the same enigma to a lesser degree, an immortal spirit inhabiting a mortal body (Miracles, chap. 14).

Lewis was equally amazed by the doctrine of the Atonement, saying only that “the central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start.” He adds that one not need adopt any one theory of the Atonement, or to understand it fully, in order to benefit from the work of the cross. In the same way, a starving person can be saved by a timely meal, without knowing anything at all about the principles of nutrition (Mere Christianity, bk. 2, chap. 4.)

When trying to explain the deepest mysteries of Christian faith, Lewis often found it helpful to use analogies and metaphors instead of theological formulations. He invited his readers to use their imaginations to try and comprehend elusive doctrines that may well have baffled their intellects. Many of Lewis’s most memorable word-pictures appear in passages where he is trying to help readers grasp the significance of the crucial, but mystical, doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement.

The very idea that that an infinite, eternal God could descend into frail human flesh was an idea that astonished Lewis and one he often meditated upon. He remarked in Mere Christianity that this was even more a miracle than if a human should descend into the form of a slug (bk. 4, chap 4.) The cycle of descent and re-ascent, God become human in order that humans might become the children of God, was one that Lewis returned to often in his imagination. In one of his most extended comparisons, Lewis compares Christ to a pearl-diver, a passage so elaborate that it borders on allegory:

"One may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanishing rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the deathlike region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to colour and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing he went down to recover. He and it are both coloured now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost his color too" (Miracles, chap. 14).

In a similar vein, Lewis visualizes the Incarnate Infinite as a strong man called upon to lift a great burden. First he must stoop down very low, almost disappearing under the load, until at last he finds his grip and rises up again, straightening his back and balancing the whole weight upon his shoulders in order to carry it (Miracles, chap. 14).

Lewis offered equally evocative metaphors in his discussions of the Atonement. In one passage, he visualizes Christ, the God-Man, as a rescuer with one foot firmly planted on the riverbank, the other foot in the rushing water. It is this very stance that allows him to save the drowning, to snatch them out of the rapid current while remaining firmly anchored himself (Mere Christianity, bk. 2, chap. 4). In a more mystical vein, Lewis describes God as an infinite ocean of light, able to absorb all shadows: “The pure light walks the earth; the darkness, received into the heart of the Deity, is there swallowed up. Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?” (Letters to Malcolm, chap. 8).

Lewis also liked to describe key Christian doctrines as incomprehensibles which make everything else comprehensible. In one of his most famous analogies, Lewis said that “We believe that the sun is in the sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact, we cannot) but because we can see everything else” (Miracles, chap. 14). Lewis also compared the Incarnation to the missing chapter of a novel that gives meaning to the whole rest of the story. None of the other episodes quite make sense, or fit together into a whole, until this pivotal missing chapter has been added to the narrative (Miracles, chap. 14).

Finally, Lewis resorts to metaphors in trying to explain how God’s descent and his reconciling work have forever changed the human condition. Lewis says that we are like human statues in a sculpture’s studio waiting for that breath that will turn us into living beings. We have already been given physical life, bios, which is always subject to eventual decay and death. But God came down from heaven to bring Zoe, the spiritual life that abides forever (Mere Christianity, bk. 4, chap.1).

In an analogy that would have certainly hit close to home with Lewis’s original audience during World War Two, he compares spiritual warfare to the battle that was then raging all over the globe. Lewis explained that we are like residents of enemy-occupied territory. Our rightful ruler has landed once, and founded a secret society to help prepare for his eventual landing in force. One day the time will come for a full-scale invasion in which the tyrant will be overthrown.

To those skeptics who wonder if that day will ever come, Lewis speculated the great invasion is being postponed to give more people a chance to choose the right side before it is too late. No one would be too impressed with someone who decided to join the freedom fighters on the day the Allies liberated Paris. And the time for choosing sides will be over when Christ returns a second time. For that day will be the end of the world as we know it (Mere Christianity, bk 2, chap. 5).

Many articles and books have been written about the theological richness of Lewis’s imaginative writings, especially the Ransom trilogy and the Narnia Chronicles. But one can’t help being impressed by the opposite side of the coin, the way in which Lewis’s theological works are so thoroughly infused with the glow of his spiritual imagination.

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David C. Downing is the R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He has written numerous articles and reviews on C. S. Lewis, as well as four books: Planets in Peril (University of Massachusetts Press, 1992), a critical study of the Ransom trilogy; The Most Reluctant Convert (InterVarsity, 2002), an examination of Lewis’s journey to faith; Into the Wardrobe (Jossey-Bass, 2005), an in-depth overview of the Narnia Chronicles; Into the Region of Awe (InterVarsity, 2005), a study of how Lewis’s wide reading in Christian mysticism enhanced his own faith and enriched his imaginative writings.

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Downing serves as a consulting editor on Lewis for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. His most recent book is A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy (Cumberland Press, 2007). His college website may be found at http://users.etown.edu/d/downindc/)

Christmas Racket

2011-12-05T21:32:00.001-08:00

by Zach Kincaid
It seems to me that the Christmas season is not a time of hope, peace, joy, or love - not in the expectant sense of advent promise. C.S. Lewis says that he sent no cards out and gave no presents (except to children) because of the "commercial racket" that is Christmas. In another letter Lewis qualifies the season as a nightmare. Yes, Father Christmas does show up in Narnia to provide needed gifts for the journey, and perhaps Lewis uses this encounter to reclaim some sense about the holiday.

It is the bastardization of "the season to be jolly" that discounts the lowliness of the manger and the truth that it should make us low also. Lewis points to this ridicule of the scene in "The Nativity:" "Among the oxen (like an ox I am slow)... Among the asses (stubborn I as they)... Among the sheep (I like sheep have strayed)."

Ridiculous in every way. And because the modern world can't sell hay they make hay about the production of a holiday wholly centered on humankind (at best) rather than on incarnation - the touching down of God on earth.

Lewis writes about the incarnation in Miracles. He names it as the central miracle, that, "every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this." In other words, the incarnation is the hinge that open the heavens. And they are opened (or reopened) in a way that completes the myths of old and reimagines the relationship of God to his creation.

Jesus, God incarnate, enters nature in order to reclaim her. God, Lewis says, is part of nature like the corn-king of old and more... "He is not the soul of Nature nor any part of Nature," Lewis explains, "He inhabits eternity: He dwells in the high and holy place: Heaven is his throne, not His vehicle, earth is His footstool, not His vesture."

So, the incarnation is God's claim on us, not ours on him. He is the invader, the thief, the wrestler of Jacobs. "It is not to tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God for, to, and about, Man," Lewis says.

Advent prepares us to encounter The Incarnation and to turn off the noise of the Christmas racket while we point square into the face of God.

The Nativity
by C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I'm slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox's dullness might at length
Give me an ox's strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Savior where I looked for hay;
So may my beast like folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baaing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!

The Quality of Heaven

2011-11-20T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a question for you from The Great Divorce. Later in the story, George MacDonald meets up with the narrator and becomes the guide into Heave. He says that, “all that are in hell, choose it." Do you agree with that?

Further, he defines two different people, “those who say to God, ‘Thy will do done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done’.” In essence, MacDonald says, “The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: The bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness."

Is it attitude, faith or works that is argued in the story as the way to becoming a solid person in Heaven? Maybe it's all three?

(References are about page 69-75 in HarperOne's most recent printing.)

Douglas Gresham to Answer Your Questions on Live Twitter Chat

2011-11-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Coinciding with the launch of the official C.S. Lewis Twitter (@CSLEWIS), HarperOne Publishers is hosting a live Twitter chat with C.S. Lewis' stepson, and executive producer of the Narnia movies, Douglas Gresham at 2 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 16. Follow #CSLEWIS to participate or follow!

Gresham will be tweeting answers to questions and giving insights into Lewis as a man, an author, and a thinker that continues to shape the conversation around faith and life. Ask a question to #CSLEWIS and you could win a C.S. Lewis Boxed Set.

Follow @CSLEWIS today to get quotes, reflections, and exclusive products. HarperOne is currently doing daily give-aways of C.S. Lewis books and products to followers — including box sets of The C.S.Lewis Signature Classics, Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce, and many more. More than 200 books will be given away to followers of @CSLEWIS over the next few weeks!

You can get your free C.S. Lewis e-booklet right now at http://on.fb.me/CSLEWIS

If you are new to Twitter chats you can easily follow along by going here (http://tweetchat.com/room/cslewis) during the live event.

Tolerance and Truth

2011-11-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
I work at a private liberal arts college that carries no religious identity. I am often struck by the inconsistency in what many on campus deem as "tolerant." The definition of tolerant seems to necessitate that an individual give up any idea that is considered fundamentally true, and, so too if others do not adhere to that truth they are wrong.

The ironic reality is that there are absolute truths running around all over the place, especially on a college campus. It's simply that the absolute truths of Christianity are dismissed as radical, naive, socially unaware and the list goes on.

The truth? Tolerance is hollow. It affords peace that has no proposition for human change or love of neighbor.

As Christians, according to Lewis, we must not abandon the absolute truth of Christianity, not because we are making it but because it is making us -- it is fundamentally who we are and by it we have our being.

Here's a quote from The Weight of Glory that begins to address some of this:

The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world; the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific points of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Why, in your opinion, is there a dismissal of Christianity when it comes to science or other subjects? Do you agree with Lewis regarding Christian theology fitting into any list of subjects?

The Grey Town Community

2011-10-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Back to another question about The Great Divorce. It's disturbing to me that technology has in one breath connected us and alienated our need for one another, at least that's what it seems at a first glance (and, yes, there's irony in placing this on a blog).

As the passengers on the bus move from the grey town and up through the crack in heaven's floor, we learn that the grey town inhabitants can simply move to a new street and a new house by “imagining it.” Therefore there is no interdependency or community since there is no need to rely on one another. “If they needed real houses, they’d have to stay near where builders were,” says the Intelligent Man to our narrator. Or, could we say, "If they needed a real church or a real office building or a real main street or a real college quad...?"

How would you rate the need for community in your life - your neighbor, your local store owners, your church, your area school? Is there a relation to your pursuit of the Gospel? Have you seen this need fade due to technology, the busy pace of life, the need we have of each other or something else?

Death, Where is your Sting?

2011-10-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Lewis seems to talk a lot about pain and loss. As you know, he has two books clearly on the subject, The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed. We may throw in The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters if we widen the thought of explaining pain with the reality of death and the struggle of this life.

Lewis never attends to an easy answer. He's not confident in that. Instead, he quotes Augustine: "God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full - there's nowhere for Him to put it." So, what does God do, according to Lewis?

"While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?" So a heart attack or pancreatic cancer or the loss of a job or the loss of something even more grievous, like a wife in Lewis's case, is all to hunt us down and break us open for the Gospel. Lewis knows it's not pretty nor what the ruling reasoned class would have, but if our run is rooted in the love of Jesus, we must trust him.

"We are perplexed," says Lewis, "to see misfortune falling on descent, inoffensive people... [and then he "implores" us as readers][but] try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all of this must fall from them in the end , and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched."

So there are two obvious questions. Lewis would answer "yes" to both, but what are your thoughts. Is it God who doles out or at least allows pancreatic cancer or heart attacks or worse... harder still, does he allow abuse and starvation? If he does allow these things to occur, is it for the purpose of finding Him specifically (the death and resurrection and salvific work of Jesus)?

Lewis realizes that it's not as simple as answering in one word. That's why he has a number of books on the subject, not counting more than a few articles. But, in the end, Lewis is settled in the Truth and his trust that God is not safe but he is good. In that space, perhaps there is peace that passes understanding because the sting of death is robbed and we're allowed to embrace something beyond ourselves.

The quotes above are taken from The Problem of Pain.

The Great Iconoclast

2011-10-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

In writing through the pain of losing his wife, Lewis says that a picture is not good enough. He wants her. No resemblance or icon that approaches her likeness is enough. In the same way he says that he needs Christ and not something that resembles him and that his own ideas and images of God can provide a false construct.

"My idea of God is not a divine idea, he says in A Grief Observed. "It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins."

The offense is due to our expectation of what messiah-ship should look like. The world is always turning on iconoclasm; it never measures up. Lewis says that the sure thing is the grace of God, and that all else fails.

Why is it difficult throw out our previous notions and consider the offense of the Incarnation? How does suffering test this sovereign truth?

("The Great Iconoclast" is also the title of the excerpt in A Year with C.S. Lewis, October 3)

A Lack of Intellectual Life

2011-09-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

I reread The Great Divorce recently for another project and I was struck again by the richness of the vision of the life beyond our own. Lewis makes the eternal space of Heaven clear as opposed the chosen hells that are found through the small openings that are underfoot. So, here's a question -

In the first chapter of The Great Divorce the narrator, which we assume is Lewis, questions his surroundings and how people in the grey-colored town can be satisfied. A fellow bus rider says, “They’ve got cinemas and fish and chip shops and advertisements and all the sorts of things they want.The appalling lack of any intellectual life doesn’t worry them.” We also learn of the lonely exile that residents create for themselves as they move from house to house without anything being solid. I wonder if there's a prophetic relation to a life that is navigated by computers and devices that maintain solitude yet never quiet. Do you think the grey town is a parallel to our world? What do you think Lewis is saying about the "lack of intellectual life" and does that change faith and our pursuit of a happy life?

Lewis and Freud

2011-09-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Have you heard about "Freud's Last Session" performing at the Century Theatre in Detroit? Though Lewis and Freud are not said to have met, the premise provides a good contrast of the two thinkers, one that was also presented by Walden Media's "The Question of God."

Here's an except from the Detroit paper:

Lewis, who admits that he has sometimes struggled with issues of faith, has come to the conclusion that life is meaningless without true belief. Freud dismisses this notion as poppycock, something that can easily be explained away during a brief stay on a psychiatrist's couch. But even when the argument grows heated, the men share a mutual respect.

Faith isn't the only topic the two great minds discuss. The escalating war is obviously on their minds, and never far from Freud's is his daughter Anna. Lewis mentions her on several occasions, making the none-too-subtle observation that the father-daughter bond between them is much stronger than Freud would care to analyze.

Read the complete article. The play runs through November 20.

Hell

2011-08-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

by Zach Kincaid
Lewis is not shy about the afterlife and the intertwining of the spiritual with the material. Counter to the cyclical trend of finding ways for hell to either not exist or at least not be used for eternal damnation of humans, Lewis says something different: "I believe that if million chances were likely to do good, they would be given... Finality must come sometime, and it does not require a very robust faith to believe that omniscience knows when."

He further cites three ways that Jesus speaks of hell: punishment, destruction and banishment to darkness, each with a good bit of fire. This reveals that hell is an actual place where the damned will go, though it was not intended for people. "To enter heaven," he says, "is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being in earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains'." A person is only complete when his/her passions are obedient to God, Lewis says, but a person is hollow when it's damned since his/her passion is for self alone. How much of a person remains as a separate entity without God's oversight is a difficult question. Lewis calls this "the darkness outside."

Is God all powerful if souls wind up in hell? Lewis says no. God became vulnerable to his creatures when free will provided possible defeat. But, "What you call defeat," Lewis says, "I call miracle: for to make things which are not Itself, and thus to become, in a sense, capable of being resisted by its own handiwork, is the most astonishing and unimaginable of all the feats we attribute to the Deity."

Lewis thinks that the damned want to be damned. He thinks the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I think he's right. If we take seriously the rebel soul, we know that our own mire and clay are a comfort. If left without need of forgiveness and no want of resurrection, God does exactly what the person wants: nothing.

What I enjoy about Lewis is that he doesn't take easy roads nor does he tighten up the way through systematizing his faith. Rather he allows Truth to live beside mystery and keep on the hunt.

How do you reflect on the hard question of hell and salvation?

These reflections come from The Problem of Pain.

Surprises from Modern Unbelievers

2011-08-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
In his essay "God in the Dock," Lewis talks through several difficulties, or surprises, in "trying to present the Christian Faith to modern unbelievers." At the start of a new school year, I'm also reminded of such challenges. Granted, as Lewis admits, the subject is entirely too large. Instead, Lewis provides his anecdotal reasons and acknowledges his limitations in the same breath.

1. Materialism is not the only adversary to the Christian message. Lewis finds that a pantheistic outlook that absorbs no particular religious narrative is common.

2. People are skeptical about history. In the Christian story, it's less that one needs to believe in miracles, namely the resurrection, but more about the simple fact of it being an old, old story. They treat other old stories with the same eye of distrust.

3. The use of language is a barrier. In some ways, Christianity needs to be discovered and decoded by the current generation. That makes presentation and authenticity key.

4. The absence of sin. Not that sin is absent, but the thought, "I'm a sinner," is not present. There is no guilt so the idea that the Christian message is "good news."

5. Instead of God being the judge, the modern person judges God (God is in the dock).

6. The simple emotional appeal to come and follow Jesus often works much more than intellectualism, something Lewis admits is where most of his work is found.

I'm certain that these challenges still exist and being aware of them might serve us to not encounter the different challenge of arrogance.

A Difficult Week

2011-07-31T19:47:00.000-07:00

by Zach Kincaid
Last week's readings from A Year with C.S. Lewis focused on several radical commands of Jesus - to love enemies, to love neighbors like ourselves and to forgive as broadly as the east is from the west. In the heat of the summer as Pentecost Sundays meander on in a sure rhythm, it's challenging to refocus on the radical core of the Gospel. I'm appreciative of these readings from Mere Christianity. Here's a synopsis:

July 24
Does your experience suggest that virtue has come easy or are you nagged by grievous sins that cause you to know how wretched you are? The former is deceitful and the latter is a testimony to the truth. We are in fact all in the second category and can only find virtue through Christ in us.

July 25
Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Lewis asks, "How do I love myself?" He says we love ourselves knowing that we are far from perfect and far from descent.

July 26
We love ourselves with grace and with a level of humility and we are to love others the same way. It doesn't suggest we blanket love without any nod toward the right, but rather our love means we want all things to be redeemed.

July 27
The hope that we should have is for the good, whether in headline stories or on the block we live. Lewis makes the observation that sometimes when a story is not exhaustively bad we wish it were, perhaps to make ourselves feel better. That will "make us into little devils," he says.

July 28
As a Christian Lewis believed a person lives forever. There is no joy to be taken in hatred nor punishment nor killing, even, according to Lewis, each are necessary at times. "In other words," he says, "something inside us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed." We must wish good for our enemies, that he/she may be cured of ill thinking or evil in either this world or the next. (I suppose this goes for us too, as we are likely someone's enemy as well.)

July 29
Loveability should not determine love demonstrated. No matter the "self," we are to love. How does God love us? Lewis answers: "Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves." We are his creation and the goodness he sees in that "self" quality, is something he chooses to love and, in so doing, beckon us to be his own.

July 30
The theory of forgiveness is not the same as actually having an occasion to forgive. Lewis presents the Gestapo as an example of the seriousness of forgiveness. It doesn't end. "I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it," he says. "And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms."

I know I could very easily find Mere Christianity and read it, but digesting small bits that carry throughout the day offers a devotional, that, when brought through Scripture, I hope inspire change and growth in me.

Imagination Leading to Faith

2011-07-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
If you read Lewis, the idea of imagination leading to faith is richly woven into nearly all his work. He certainly imagines Heaven in The Great Divorce and hellish battles in Screwtape Letters. The idea of holding at bay all you know in order to believe afresh, could be, in some ways, the Twitter line for the entire Narnia series.

Lewis at Stonehenge (Read more)

But I was struck again by the obvious. If you read The Weight of Glory or Mere Christianity or any of his non-fiction, he gets to the conclusion of Jesus and a God-centric world through imagination. Sure, there is logic and doctrinal claims, but his main defense is to basically lead you into the story of faith.

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. (The Weight of Glory)

The story of faith is something Lewis connects with the ancients myths as pale reflections to the true God-man who came and fulfilled all the longing in those texts. In his discussion of modern science and all its exactness and clean lines (or want for them), Lewis says that we are "inveterate poets." who are awakened by the massive amount of stars in the sky and strike cords of reverence because we must.

The silence of eternal spaces terrified Pascal, but it was the greatness of Pascal that enabled them to do so. When we are frightened by the greatness of the universe, we are (almost literally) frightened by our own shadows: for these light years and billions of centuries are mere arithmetic until the shadow of man, the poet, the maker of myth, falls upon them. I do not say we are wrong to tremble at his shadow; it is the shadow of an image of God. But if ever the vastness of matter threatens to overcross our spirits, one must remember that it is matter spiritualized which does so. ("Dogma and the Universe" in God on the Dock)

So often we try to nail down faith and nail it to the solid following of rules, regulations and proper doctrine. If it's not this, we loosen faith to a point that informality never is harnessed with the beauty of liturgy and the strength of history. Lewis seemed to understand that Christianity needs a rootedness in ancient stories and rhythms, Christian tradition and history, all tinged with the fresh air of looking at that beam of light that shines through the door in ways that ground some of the levity.

Lewis provides another glimpse at how to approach faith in full awareness that we cannot hold it entirely in our hands, that we must imagine it and creatively stab at knowing the great God who invites us to such a dance.

This is only a brief observation, and not an original one at that. I invite your responses. How do you reflect on the majesty of creation and embellish it with imagination? Do you feel Lewis is too strong in his consideration of the creativity of the Christian faith versus the dogma of the faith? How do you see these two running side-by-side?

C.S. Lewis and Pacifism: A Failure of the Imagination

2011-06-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

by Tom Arthur
Whenever one disagrees with C.S. Lewis, there is sure to be much fear and trembling. I am a Christian today in large part due to Lewis’ writing, and, if he had the opportunity to respond to me on the subject of pacifism, I suspect I would meet the long shadow of the Great Knock! A fearsome idea if there ever was one.

I should say that I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of Lewis’ view of war, but he has written a very helpful brief essay on the topic titled, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist”, found in The Weight of Glory. I recently read this essay in preparation for a sermon on Memorial Day weekend. I was looking for a robust argument against pacifism, but found only a weak description of pacifism and therefore a weak argument against it. Ultimately Lewis’ seemed unable to imagine a theologically robust and courageous pacifism.

I will attempt to show how Lewis got pacifism wrong by first outlining his argument against pacifism and then bringing Lewis into conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. to show how King’s form of pacifism, active nonviolent resistance, answers Lewis’ objections to pacifism with a more imaginative and theologically robust view of the implications of the gospel.

Lewis’ Facts
Lewis makes the case against pacifism from four different angles: facts, intuition (or reason), authority, and passion (or emotions). For Lewis, the facts are less than clear. How do you answer the question about whether war does more good than bad? In the end Lewis finds that “history is full of useful wars as well as useless wars.”

Lewis’ Intuition
Lewis moves on to intuition. By this he means all the ways we reason out the facts. Lewis points out that while we are called to help and not harm, in order for us to help some, we must divert our actions from helping others. Pacifism assumes a kind of utopian ideal where we can help everyone. Furthermore, because only liberal societies tolerate pacifism, we would soon be overrun by totalitarian dictators. As well, Lewis sees pacifism as being built upon a materialistic worldview that assumes suffering and death are the greatest evils. A Christian spiritual worldview must certainly disagree.

Lewis’ Authority
Lewis continues his argument by citing both human and divine authorities. He claims that “general human authority” over all time “echoes with praise of righteous war.” As for divine authority, he points to “Christendom,” the Church of England’s thirty-nine articles, Thomas Aquinas (for Catholics), and St. Augustine (for the early church), and he suggests that the apostolic writings are all silent on or speak against pacifism.

Looking more closely at scripture, he considers Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Lewis believes Jesus is speaking in hyperbole and his teaching should be limited to neighborly disagreements where the only motivation is retaliation or revenge. He sums up Jesus’ teaching saying, “Insofar as you are simply an angry man who has been hurt, mortify your anger and do not hit back.”

While Lewis believes that pacifism is built primarily on this one verse, he points to several other verses that speak favorably of war. Jesus praised without reservation a Roman centurion (Matthew 8:10), and Paul (Romans 13:4) and Peter (1 Peter 2:14) speak sympathetically toward participation in governmental authority and presumably the authority of the sword.

Lewis’ Passion
Lastly, Lewis is skeptical of a “secret influence of passion” in the pacifist, because “pacifism threatens you with almost nothing…it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love.” On the other hand, joining the army leads to all kinds of hardships. Lewis never comes out and baldly says it, but he wonders by implication if pacifists aren’t really just cowards hiding behind a philosophical idea.

Lewis sums up an answer to the title of the essay, “Why I am not a pacifist,” saying, “If I tried to become [a pacifist], I should find a very doubtful factual basis, an obscure train of reasoning, a weight of authority both human and divine against me, and strong grounds for suspecting that my wishes had directed my decision.” Case closed. Pacifism sucks.

Martin Luther King Jr.
The primary problem with Lewis’ argument against pacifism is that it describes a pacifism and pacifist I am not familiar with. I am not a pacifist scholar, but I was introduced to some pretty serious pacifists while attending seminary and living in a new monastic community in the ghetto of Durham, NC. The pacifists I encountered were primarily influenced by the John Howard Yoder strain of pacifism as propagated through his student, Stanley Hauerwas, and the active nonviolent resistance of Martin Luther King Jr. They look and act nothing like what Lewis describes. I’ve read more King than I have Hauerwas or Yoder so let me bring into conversation with Lewis the thoughts and methods of King.

King’s “pacifist” theology and methodology are prolifically laid out in the first section of a compilation of his writings, A Testament of Hope. I will draw primarily from an essay titled, “An Experiment in Love.”

King’s Active Nonviolent Resistance
The first thing which should be said is that King didn’t like the word “pacifist.” He thought it sounded too, well, passive. King preferred the term “active nonviolent resistance,” which he says was first developed in the United States primarily in the black church around discussions of what Christian love should look like in the struggle for civil rights. He says:

Nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist…if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight…The method is passive physically but strongly active spiritually. It is not passive non-resistance to evil, it is active nonviolent resistance to evil.

Watching old newsreels of the civil rights movement, I’m hard pressed to see how Lewis’ implied virtue assassination of pacifists as cowards really sticks. These were no cowards who faced down crowds of antagonistic civilians, mounted police with billlysticks, German shepherds, and water canons with nothing but their bodies. In another essay, King says they marched into hostile territory with “no other weapon than their own bodies” (“A Gift of Love”). I think it is worth asking the question, which ideology and action requires more courage?

While King does not engage Patristic teachings, I cannot neglect to do so myself. Much of Lewis’ own theology seems to be based upon the authoritative theological tradition of the church and its supposed antipathy toward pacifism. Lewis makes the claim that the apostolic writings are all silent on or speak against pacifism. Lewis is simply wrong on this account. The Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus but written or compiled probably in the third or fourth century is very skeptical of any new Christian convert’s involvement with the military. Those who convert and are in the military may continue if they do so without wielding a weapon, and those who are not in the military are not allowed to join the military. The Apostolic Tradition, an earlier Christian tradition or authority than any Lewis appeals to, has a vision for Christian life that looks less like Lewis’ objections to pacifism and more like King’s active nonviolent resistance.

King’s Eschatology
While Lewis’ claims that pacifists have a materialistic world view that sees suffering and death as the greatest evil, King most certainly does not have a materialistic world view. He and his followers were willing to suffer and even die for a greater good. Why? Because King’s eschatology led him to believe that in the end God wins. He says that active nonviolent resistance “is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice,” and as King is fond of saying elsewhere, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

King’s Theology of Agape Love
Contrary to Lewis’ suggestion that pacifism is built entirely around one verse in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, King builds a theology of active nonviolent resistance upon a broad theological vision of God’s agape love as described throughout the entirety of the biblical witness. King says that agape “is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor (1 Cor 10:24)…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.” This agape love has practical implications for Christian community.

King’s Beloved Community
King called this community the “beloved community.” His vision of the beloved community where God’s agape love reigned was the ultimate goal for King. This goal predetermined the methods. If King was seeking ultimately to build community between enemies, then the methods he used to attain that end couldn’t put more obstacles in the way of that beloved community than it tore down. He says that active nonviolent resistance:

Does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding…The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.

King’s theological imagination for the eschaton determined the way his imagination worked out the means.

King’s Theology of the Cross
King saw this kind of agape love as most fully expressed not so much in Jesus’ teaching like the Sermon on the Mount, but in Jesus’ death on the cross. He says, “The cross is the eternal expression of the length to which God will go in order to triumph over all the forces that seek to block community. The resurrection is a symbol of God’s triumph over all the forces that seek to block community.” When compared to King’s theology of the cross, Lewis’ own theology of war seems rather thin when referencing the centurion and Paul and Peter’s statements about governmental authority. This is especially true when we take into account that in none of these verses is violence or war actually mentioned; whereas Jesus’ non-retaliatory actions on the cross are in direct response to violence.

King’s methods and theology could be summed up when he says:

To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate [our opponent], but to win his friendship and understanding.

Failure of the Imagination
Elsewhere I have written of Lewis’ powerful use of the imagination as a means of God’s grace in my own life. The Chronicles of Narnia were a window that Lewis opened on my imagination that allowed the light of God’s grace to shine into my life. I am forever thankful for his past and continuing influence on my faith. I regularly go back to him for guidance on how to think critically about various issues I must articulate as a pastor. And yet Lewis, perhaps because of the kind of pacifists he was interacting with during the World Wars, didn’t seem to be able to imagine a courageous pacifist with a robust eschatology who goes into conflict without a weapon. For this kind of imagination I am left to look elsewhere. In the end King has a bigger theological and methodological imagination.

----------------------------
Tom Arthur is a contributing writer for the book Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis and founding past president of the C. S. Lewis Festival in northern Michigan. He regularly blogs for Duke's Faith & Leadership website Call Response: www.faithandleadership.com/blog. While attending Duke Divinity School he organized the Duke Socratic Club in the spirit of Lewis’ Oxford Socratic Club where he cut his teeth debating theological essentials and inanities with a wide spectrum of ecumenical friends.

Mighty Ones, Who Do His Bidding

2011-06-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

by Janice Brown
(Title from Psalm 103:21)
Angels and devils are creatures of myth in the broadest sense, but they are also part of the true myth that is Christianity. Of devils, Lewis said that there are two equally serious errors: disbelief in them and an “excessive and unhealthy interest in them” (Preface to The Screwtape Letters).

The imaginative and theological cunning he brought to The Screwtape Letters made Lewis famous as a spokesperson for the demonic point of view—a point of view that was by his own confession a very oppressive one. Though The Screwtape Letters may be entertaining to read; Lewis did not find writing about devils pleasant. He did take much delight, however, in writing about their spiritual opposites, angels, in his fiction, non-fiction, letters, and poetry.

Several of his poems that are directly about angels, and these provide an introduction to Lewis’s sense of the nature of angels, and—by means of contrast—create a particular perspective on what it means to be human. Some deal with the inability of angels to understand human experience, and the idea that humans reflect the divine nature in a way that angels cannot.
The poem “On Being Human” builds an increasingly moving case for the sheer joy of being a human rather than an angel. Yet the vast superiority of angelic beings is apparent from the first stanza. Angels have a pure “intelligence” that allows them to “discern” the ultimate forms of nature, the “Archetypes,” and directly grasp the “verities” (absolute truths) that are accessible to mortal minds only indirectly and in limited forms. Their perception is astounding:

Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying,
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear,
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal
Huge Principles appear.

The Tree-ness of the tree they know—the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth’s salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it, all the holiness
Enacted by leaves’ fall and rising sap;

They know the things of nature as God knows them, perceiving the essential meaning of every created thing, and the holiness of it. Yet Angels cannot know the intensity of the world perceived through the senses: the blessing of coolness, the pleasure of summer smells, sea smells, fire smells, the satisfying flavors of food and drink. Nonetheless, their advantages are vast—“far richer they.” We, in our human form are in fact protected, guarded, by our senses, from the vast sphere they inhabit—“heavens too big to see”; we would die from exposure to that piercing glory, that “barb’d sublimity.” The divine beauty they live within would be like a fatal sword thrust: we could not endure it were that “dazzling edge of beauty” to be “unsheathed.” No, for us, living “within this tiny, charm’d interior” of our senses is enough for now. Yet in this homey space with our brains, our human consciousness, we have a point of connection with God himself that Angels cannot share. Because God became man and experienced our human, sense-bound existence, there is a secret that is “Forever ours, not theirs.” This private intimacy is something so wonderful, so absolutely unexpected that, as 1 Peter 1:12 tells us, angels long to understand it.

Modern infatuation with angels is based on imagery that is far removed from Psalm 103’s depiction of angels as “mighty ones who do his bidding.” With the loss of knowledge and respect for scriptures has come a greatly demeaned understanding spiritual realities, especially those concerned with supernatural occurrences. And Lewis is more concerned about the danger of a wrong conception of angels than about obliviousness to them. He speaks about this in his Preface to The Screwtape Letters:

[A] belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. . . . They are given wings . . . in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form because man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all. . . .  

In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily degenerated. Fra Angelico’s angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish and consolatory angels of nineteenth-century art. . . They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying “Fear not.” The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say “There, there.” (??)  

In The Discarded Image, Lewis’s Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, he explains that Plato associated angels with the stars, and thought of them as “true gods” (41) (in contrast to the degraded versions that of them that appeared in mythology), and he believed them to have some sort of material form (40). In the Middle Ages angels were understood as the “highest created spirits”(41)—godlike, but quite distinct from God, and essentially without material forms. In a letter of 1940 Lewis clarifies this point saying, “About Angels’ bodies: as far as I have seen incorporeality is the normal medieval view (appearances being explained by the temporary manufacture of a body of air)” (Letters II 450). The Discarded Image points out that there was some movement away from this view of angels as having no bodies. Florentine Platonists preferred the older more Platonic view — substantial angelic bodies reappeared, quite visibly, in art. But even then, the representations of these “immortal, celestial, and stellar creatures” (56) were best understood as symbolic. Lewis points out that “educated people in the Middle Ages ever believed these winged men who represent angels in painting and sculpture to be more than symbols” (71).

Yet Lewis saw the danger in presentation of angels in art and especially literature. He said, “The literary symbols are more dangerous because they are not so easily recognized as symbolical.” The exception was, of course, Dante. Lewis says. “Before his angels we sink in awe” (Preface to The Screwtape Letters, viii-ix).

We sink in awe, similarly, before the depiction of angels in Lewis’s fiction, particularly the Space Trilogy. In a letter of 1957 Lewis makes it clear that he was working off of both the view of the early Middle Ages that angels ethereal bodies of gross matter and the later view that they are composed simply of act and potentiality” (Letters II, p. 873). The absence of matter does not mean the absence of form. Lewis’s angels have a form based on their power and potentiality—a form that need not be, but may be, expressed in a material way. In the same letter Lewis observes that from a religious or theological point of view the question of the bodily manifestation of angels has little importance. He adds, “And anyway what do we mean by ‘Matter’?”(873).

In Out of the Silent Planet Ransom’s sense of ‘what is matter and what is not’ is challenged when he first encounters the eldila, the spiritual beings who preside over the planet Malacandra (or Mars). (Plot background: He has been kidnapped on earth by two evil men who have brought him to Mars to serve as an offering to the authority who rules the planet, but he escapes from them and finds protection and friendship the the Malacandrian creatures called hrossa.) Eldila are first described to Ransom (by his hrossa friend Hyoi) as a kind of hnau—or rational beings, but beings that are hard to see because light goes right through them and they may be easily mistaken “for a sunbeam or even a moving of the leaves” (76). Ransom greatly fears the presiding edila whom rules the planet, but it is not like a fear of the supernatural in the sense that one fears a ghost. He knows that the Oyarsa was “a real person” (86), and that, having been summoned, he must go and appear before him. The journey to this dreaded audience means ascending to higher elevations and traversing a far more austere and terrifying landscape than the comfortable valleys where he had felt safe. The difficulty of seeing eldila is a large part of the fear. Ransom asks the sorn, who is his guide for this difficult journey, “Why can I not see them? Have they no bodies?” The sorn explains:

Of course they have bodies. There are a great many bodies that you cannot see. . . . Body is movement. . . . If movement is faster, than that which moves is more nearly in two places at once. . . . But if movement is faster still . . . faster an faster, in the end the moving thing would be in all places at once. . . . The swiftest thing that that touches our senses is light, we only see slower things by it, so that for us light is on the edge—the last thing we know before things become to swift for us. But the body of an eldil is a movement swift as light; you may say its body is made of light, but not of that which is light for the eldil. His “light” is a swifter movement which for us is nothing at all: and what we call light is for him a thing like water, a visible thing, a thing he can touch and bathe in—even a dark thing when not illumined by the swifter. And what we call firm things—flesh and earth—seem to him thinner, and harder to see, than our light, and more like clouds and nearly nothing. To us the eldil is a thin half-real body that can go through walls and rocks: to himself he goes through them because he is solid and firm and they are like a cloud. (94-95)

The explanation provides a rational context within which Ransom can begin to think about the eldila with a little understanding and much respect, rather than simply fear.

Soon Ransom comes to Melidorn the place where the Oyarsa manifests himself to the creatures of the planet. He is called into his presence. Despite the sorn’s explanation, Ransom feels “a tingling of his blood and a pricking of his fingers as if lightning were near him; and his heart and body seemed . . . to be made of water” (119)

“What are you so afraid of, Ransom of Thulcandra?” it said [the eldil asks].
“Of you, Oyarsa, because you are unlike me and I cannot see you.”
“Those are not great reasons,” said the voice. . . “These are not the real reasons. . . . You began to be afraid of me before you set foot in my world. And you have spent your time then in flying from me. My servant told you to come to me, you would not.” (119-20)

In order to explain his fear Ransom is forced to identify the root of it: the sinfulness of his own planet where “false eldila” (fallen angels) destroy men is what has caused human beings to assume that if there is any life beyond their own air it is evil” (121).

Yet goodness is the most magnificent characteristic of this eldil—this presiding Oyarsa—who deals out justice tempered with mercy to the two other earthlings and to Ransom. Indeed goodness is the most magnificent characteristic of all the eldila we encounter in the trilogy. And the goodness is most striking for being both serene and energized.

In Perelandra, the second book of the trilogy Ranson is brought to Perelandra (Venus) by the will of God himself, Maledil, and through the operation of his eldila, but he does not encounter any eldila on the planet until the closing episode. Having climbed to the top of the great mountain where he perceives (dimly at first) the presence of the Oyarsa of Perelandra and the (visiting) Oyarsa of Malacandra. They are enormous in power and authority, and they are speaking of him:

“The small one from Thulacandra is already here,” [said one eldil].
“Look on him, beloved, and love him,” said the [other], “he is but breathing dust and a careless touch would unmake him. . . . But he is in the body of Maledil and his sins are forgiven.”

The Oyarsa of Perelandra tells how she created the planet:“I rounded this ball when it first rose from Arbol. I spun the air about it and wove the roof. I built the Fixed Island and this, the holy mountain as Maledil taught me.” Through such glimpses of the activity of the edila Lewis re-works our perceptions of the nature of the universe. He breaks down any sense we may have of space as terrifying and inhospitable. It is not empty and dark, but full of mighty and holy beings carrying out the purposes of God.

The two eldila are perceptible to human eye as uncanny alterations in the quality of the light, but they wish to appear in a more substantial form in honor of this momentous occasion—the handing over of the planet Perelandra to the King and Queen who are to rule over it. They ask Ransom to help them determine what would be a meaningful form in which to manifest themselves. First they appear to him as “darting pillars filled with eyes, lightning pulsations of flame, talons and beaks and billowy masses of what suggested snow . . .” (197). Ransom screams in horror, so they try something else—“rolling wheels . . . concentric wheels moving with a rather sickening slowness one inside the other” (198). The size is appalling, but beyond that this manifestation is inscrutable and lacking in significance to human perception. Ransom suggests they try again:

And suddenly two human figures stood before him. . . . They were perhaps thirty feet high. They were burning white like white hot iron. The outline of their bodies . . . seemed to be faintly, swiftly undulating as though the permanence of their shape, like that of waterfalls or flames, co-existed with a rushing movement of the matter it contained. . . . Whenever he looked straight at them they appeared to be rushing toward him at enormous speed: whenever his eyes took in their surroundings he realized that they were stationary. This may have been due to the fact that their long and sparkling hair stood out behind them as if in a great wind. . . . It was borne in upon him that the creatures were really moving, though not moving in relation to him. This planet . . . was to them a thing moving through the heavens. In relation to their own celestial frame of reference they were rushing forward to keep abreast of the mountain valley. Had they stood still, they would have flashed past him too quickly for him to see, doubly dropped behind by the planet’s spin on its own axis, and by its onward march around the Sun. (198-99)

Again, the absolute goodness of the angelic beings is placed in the context of their terrifying reality. The changeless expression of their faces is charity—archetypal charity—arising from “pure, spiritual, intellectual love” (199). Yet simultaneously these eldila are the true embodiments of the mythic Mars and Venus, part of the “celestial commonwealth” (201). Ransom recognizes, in awe, that “our [earthly] mythology is based on a solider reality than we dream” (201)—a mythology that though contaminated by “filth and imbecility” retains its gleams of “celestial strength and beauty” (201).

The strength and beauty of God’s nature as depicted through angels is explored in two other fictional works of Lewis. That Hideous Strength further develops the connection between the classical idea of superior spiritual beings (the gods and goddesses of mythology) use of angels in the Christian myth. In The Great Divorce angels appear in several forms: a bus driver gloriously charged with light and color, a speaking waterfall that pours himself perpetually down . . . with loud joy, and a flaming being who deals ruthlessly with the lizard of lust.

It is through angels, more than any other imaginative motif (other than Aslan himself) that Lewis conveys the divine majesty. Though (as the Oyarsa of Malacandra tells Ransom) there are eldila in our own air (142), they are manifestations of celestial majesty to which we are usually completely oblivious.

The nineteenth century poet Francis Thompson speaks of our blindness to angelic presences, asserting that the Kingdom of God is not distant from us in a strange far away realm, (Malacandra or Perelandra?) but is as close as our breathing. The movement of angels’ wings, “the drift of pinions,” we so long to hear are right alongside us, but we cannot hear the sound because we have our doors shut so tight against the supernatural. The guardian angels have not forsaken us, they keep their ancient divinely appointed places. The Psalmist speaks of angels protecting us from striking our foot against a stone (91.12). Here Thompson depicts a scene of stumbling a little, turning over a stone in the path , and the angels lurching forward their wings outspread protectingly. The fault lies with us; it is our estrangement from the holy, that causes is time and time again to “miss the many splendored thing (“The Kingdom of God”).

Lewis, like Thompson, is saying “Listen, hear ‘the drift of pinions’.” He does not allow us to miss the splendor of these mighty beings who accomplish God’s purposes, but who may be so easily mistaken “for a sunbeam or even a moving of the leaves” (76).
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Janice Brown is a professor of English at Grove City College.

Supernaturalists Stand Up

2011-05-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
For anyone familiar with Lewis, seeing the newness of God's creation runs deep. When it captures us, it's landing on a new shore; it's walking from inside a wardrobe and pushing out into belief, to imagine what is from what truly is.

For Lewis, imagination is attached to faith, is attached to miracle. In order to see Nature in a most complete way, Lewis says we must distance ourselves from her and turn around and look back. "Then," he says, "at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature's current."

The challenge for the moderns and the post-moderns alike is to think nature is God, and it is this fallacy that keeps science digging in the soil and shooting rockets to fish out planets and stars and blackness. Why are we here? and How are we here? they ask, rather than, Whose are we? and Whose place is this?

In the end, whether by human error or by something unknown, the pundits and scientists tell us the Earth is dying. "How could we ever have thought this was the ultimate reality?" asks Lewis. ""Offer her neither worship nor contempt." Instead, the "cure" comes when we see her as a created thing - "this half-shy and half-flamboyant creature, this ogress, this hoyden, this incorrigible fairy, this dumb witch," says Lewis.

There is nothing independent, neither us nor the world we inhabit. So, we could say that all of it -from the rules that we recognize as controls for nature and the occurrences that break the "normal," are all equally miraculous. And this is when the supernaturalists stand up and say that the latter explains the former - it is by the miracle that we know the natural, the resurrection that we know the life. And, why do we love? Because he first loved us. And it is this that ultimately answers whose we are and whose place is this.

There is much more here. See "A Chapter Not Strictly Necessary" in Miracles for reference to the quotes above and the whole text for much more on the subject of miracles.

Tom-Foolery

2011-05-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

by Zach Kincaid
"I know that many wiser and better Christians than I in these days do not like to mention Heaven and hell even in a pulpit," says Lewis (The Weight of Glory). He goes on to say that nearly all the references in the New Testament about both destinations come from Jesus himself, and, "If we do not believe them, our presence in this church is great tom-foolery. If we do, we must sometimes overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them."

The Christian calendar defines seven Sundays in the season of Easter before we reach Pentecost, or the act of transposition, as Lewis refers to it. Easter is the heightened period where the eternal meets the temporal in the resurrected Christ, and in this resurrected truth it seems an exaggerated time to reflect on heaven and hell and their more revealed reality post the crucifixion.

The question of afterlife garnered revived attention of late. Take the recent hub-bub about whether hell exists (See the cover of TIME a few weeks ago, for example and then read the book it references). Is it simply the woes of trying to market a book? Perhaps it's an outgrowth of a more settled way of church work with many pastors feeling more compelled to appeal for a "seat at the table" as one institution among many in the culture. Perhaps it's a reaction to a zealous way of offering Christianity wrapped in the bonds of choosing heaven or hell, eternal bliss or damnation. No matter, I'm sure that Lewis and Chesterton before him (and the many who pushed back against the pull toward modernity) would want us to make sure we're at the right table - the one God sets in the presence of our enemies (Ps. 23). Whether a marketing tease, a fight for acceptance that endorses a less orthodox approach to Gospel truths, or a segmentation away from less "enlightened," more directly focused evangelical folk, Lewis offers some good advice.
First, he advocates in The Weight of Glory that we are always inching toward Heaven or Hell and we should always ask the question, "How can you be so frivolous and selfish as to think about anything but the salvation of human souls." For those who are thinking that this lends itself to obnoxious behavior, Lewis suggests that Christians need to define every duty as a religious one. It's a "new organisation," he says, that reorders our human activities and pursuits. "The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly 'as to the Lord.'" This is not a mere biting of the lip and leaning into "lifestyle evangelism," as some call it. Rather, it's the attitude of Jesus to seek first the kingdom of God.

Second, he offers an example of purpose and clarity of who's who. There are many occasions in Lewis's work that point to this intentional Christianity and accurate labeling. One that I recently came across was in a letter he wrote to Griffths in 1937. He explains that he was talking to an "intelligent infidel" who hung his hopes in humanity's ability to eternally adapt and progress:

When I said that it was overwhelming improbable, he said Yes, but one had to believe even in the 1000th chance or life was mockery. I, of course asked why, feeling like that, he did not prefer to believe in the other and traditional 'chance' of a spiritual immortality. To that he replied - obviously not for effect but producing something that had long been in his mind - 'Oh I never can believe that: for if that were true our physical existence wd. be so pointless.' He's a nice, honest chap, and I have no doubt at all that this is one of the things standing between him and Christianity. (Vol II, 216).

Intentionality is something that is both corporate and individual. The church needs to provide an orderly way to know the Gospel (something that is sadly driven by postmodern drivel today), and our individual lives must also reflect a sincerity that is at once humble and thoughtful. The need to define the community of the saints from pagans is one that promotes love above simple tolerance. If church becomes a mere social organ that weds royals and our brides, buries our dead and entertains itching ears, we have become a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal.

A third point that Lewis brings out is a recognition that we're in an active war for peoples' souls - one that engages demons and angels, powers we cannot see. The Screwtape Letters puts imaginative flesh on the accounts of demons and angels fighting over the bones of Moses, in the life of Job, and in the temptation of Jesus. Screwtape explains that, "the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Lewis unpacks many ideas for demonic manipulation in the life of Wormwood's subject. For example, Screwtape talks about the effectiveness of broadly addressing the "historical Jesus" because it helps distance followers from staring straight onto the "Founder." For, he says, "each new 'historical Jesus'... has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another... [and] We thus distract men's minds from who He is, and what He did."

In the end, the Gospels and the early creeds win: Christianity must teach Jesus crucified and bodily risen from the dead, his descent into Hell and ascent into Heaven. In the end, it's not about marketing the truth, it's about the truth; it's not about expanding the only way we know to the Father, but embracing the ridicule of a narrow way; it's not about exaggerating the next life and forgetting our life lesson to learn how to love Jesus and not to simply why we need to fear him.

Easter is a time where resurrection is retrieved as the linchpin fact of our faith. In it, we are redeemed from a physical Hell made for the devil and his angels; we are redeemed from self-righteousness that says we can harness more compassion (and love) than God; in it, we hold nothing of our own - virtue or vice - and depend solely on the grace of God, and though it sounds like tom-foolery, it is the foolishness that shames wisest ideas.

He is risen; he is risen indeed.

Journeys to the Underworld in the Aeneid and The Silver Chair

2011-04-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

by David C. Downing
One of the characters in Virgil’s Aeneid is named Polydorus, which means "many-gifted." That epithet might apply just as well to C. S. Lewis. Visitors to this site already know Lewis as the creator the Narnia Chronicles, as well as a distinguished literary critic, an influential Christian writer, and a gifted science fiction novelist. But a brand new book, C. S. Lewis’s Lost Aeneid (Yale University Press, 2011) introduces a side of Lewis that many readers don’t know—the sophisticated classicist and talented translator.

  Editor A. T. Reyes offers a thorough and masterly introduction, explaining Lewis's lifelong fascination with the Aeneid, his identification with its epic hero, and his eccentric, but mostly successful, attempts to capture the rhythms, imagery, and allusiveness of the original. Reyes convincingly shows that the Aeneid was never very far from Lewis's mind: his own translations of key passages show up in half a dozen of his books—even in his letters to children! Equally fascinating for many readers will be the parallels between famous scenes in the Aeneid and memorable passages in the Chronicles of Narnia.

The Aeneid, written by the poet Virgil in the generation just before the birth of Christ, tells the story of a noble warrior, Aeneas, who escapes the destruction of Troy carrying his father on his back, eventually settling in Italy and founding the city of Rome. The first half of the epic focuses on Aeneas’s many adventures at sea and in Mediterranean ports, while the second half tells about all the battles, hardships, and intrigues he must endure in order to establish a “new Troy” in Italy. Thus Virgil gave the Romans their own Odyssey and their own Iliad in an epic poem of about 10,000 lines.

Lewis first read the Aeneid in his schooldays, and he seems to have had in mind his own translation for most of his adult life. In his twenties, he amused himself by translating some of Virgil’s unusual rhythms into French. In his thirties, he translated a passage from Virgil for use in The Pilgrim’s Regress (an epigraph to Book 7). In his forties he read longer sections of his Aeneid translation to his fellow Inklings. Towards the end of his life, Lewis seems to have had in mind a complete new translation, but he left behind only fragments--long passages from books 1, 2, and 6, as well as numerous individual lines and brief quotations.

Lewis strongly identified with Aeneas, who he said was not just “an individual hero” but rather “the Rome-bearer,” a man with a destiny to fulfill. Shortly after his conversion to Christianity in his early 30s, Lewis even wrote a poetic fragment comparing himself to Aeneas, feeling that he too had put in at many harbors and endured much before finally reaching a place he could call home. Combining the classical ideal of pietas, doing one’s duty, with the Christian concept of vocation, Lewis spent the rest of his life seeing himself as a “Christ-bearer,” a destiny he believed all Christians should share.

Particularly intriguing is Lewis’s translation of Book Six, in which Aeneas visits the Underworld to consult with his father, Anchises, who had died during their sea voyage. Before undertaking this dangerous journey, Aeneas consults the Sibyl (oracle) at Cumae, who tells him the hard part is not going to the Underworld, but rather getting back out. Lewis’s fragment does not include the lines, but John Dryden’s famous translation makes this point abundantly clear:

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth is the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.

Who can read these lines without thinking of the oft-repeated warning in The Silver Chair?: “Many fall down, and few return to the sunlit lands.” (The lines from Virgil may also call to mind Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood that “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, with milestones, without signposts.”)

As the story continues, the Sibyl agrees to act as a guide to Aeneas on his visit to the underworld. As they approach the river Styx, Aeneas sees every sort of mythical monster—the many-headed Scylla, a snake-haired Gorgon, and a Chimera, who Lewis describes as “a fire-breathing drake [dragon]’” (141). Aeneas draws his sword to defend himself, but the Sibyl explains that these are only phantoms and nightmares—“chimeras” in the modern sense of the word. This encounter with frightening but ultimately harmless monsters seems to explain an odd detail in The Silver Chair. As Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum travel through the sunless lands of Underworld, they see “strange animals . . . of the dragonish or batlike sort.” Though unnerving, these seem to be asleep and pose no real danger, only adding to the macabre atmosphere of the scene. The same drowsy ambience infuses the Underworld of The Silver Chair and the underworld of the Aeneid, what Lewis translates as “the land of shadow and of slumber and oblivious night” (147).

In both stories, the travelers meet throngs of underworlders, a “ghostly multitude” (143) of disembodied spirits in the Aeneid, enslaved gnomes in The Silver Chair. In both tales they pass through a silent, underground wood and cross a dark body of water in a leaky boat. They both encounter rivers of molten fire and learn the secrets that will help them escape again to the world above. When Aeneas tells his trembling companions, “Solve metes,” other translators render the phrase, “Banish your fears” or “Forget your fears.” In Lewis’ translation, Aeneas simply says, “Courage!” As they are escaping a collapsing Underworld in The Silver Chair, Prince Rilian offers the exact same bracing word: “Courage!”

Lewis once said that the Aeneid was one of the two long poems he turned to most often (the other was The Prelude). This newly-released translation certainly seems to show its influence on his own imagination. One could even argue that Lewis’s attempts to render that difficult Latin rhythm (dactylic hexameter) into English helped him forge the melodic prose that is such a hallmark of all the Chronicles.

Lewis completed only about one sixth of his translation of the Aeneid, mainly passages about Aeneas’s ocean voyage (where editor Reyes shows striking parallels to a passage in The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”), his having to turn away from Queen Dido in order to fulfill his destiny, and his journey to the Underworld. One suspects that Lewis may have begun his translation with the passages that had the most personal meaning for him.

From the very beginning, Lewis seems to have conceived of Aeneas’s adventures as a kind of spiritual journey. John Dryden’s famous translation of the Aeneid (1697) begins “Arms and the man I sing.” Nearly all later translators use phrasing similar to Dryden’s. But Lewis makes a major departure from the very start: “Of arms and of the exile I must sing.” For Lewis, who called himself “an orphan” in his memoir Surprised by Joy, the defining fact for Aeneas was that he was a man who had lost his home and who was seeking a new one.

When Aeneas complains to Jupiter that his sufferings seem endless, another modern translator (Allan Mandelbaum) renders the Latin phrase, “Great King, is there no end to this ordeal?” Lewis gives the question a much more familiar biblical ring: “How long, Oh Lord, must they endure? How long?” (53). Similarly, Virgil shows Aeneas praying to Apollo to help him establish an “eternal city” at Rome (mansuram urbem). Lewis translates the term “abiding city” (174), borrowing a phrase from the book of Hebrews to suggest that, whether he fully knows it or not, Aeneas is on a spiritual quest.

Since Virgil painted such a vivid picture of the Underworld, Dante famously chose him to be his guide in The Inferno. Lewis also selected Virgil as one of his guides, not to found an earthly empire, but to seek out the true Eternal City—not ancient Rome but the New Jerusalem.

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David C. Downing is the R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis: Planets in Peril, The Most Reluctant Convert, Into the Wardrobe, and Into the Region of Awe. He serves as a consulting editor on Lewis for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Downing's most recent book is Looking for the King, a historical quest novel in which Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams figure prominently as characters. Visit Downing's college website.

C. S. Lewis on Christ’s Passion and our Shared Darkness

2011-04-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

by Devin Brown
Letters to Malcolm was the last book C. S. Lewis finished. Published posthumously in January 1964, three months after his death, it is one of Lewis’s best books though perhaps not one of his best known. Tucked away in letter number eight is one of the most poignant short mediations on Gethsemane and its aftermath to be found in modern writing.

Lewis starts the letter to his fictitious friend by expressing sympathy over the news that Malcolm’s son George must undergo tests for what seems to be a critical health concern. Lewis writes that his first inclination is to try to provide comfort with the standard reminders that a preliminary diagnosis by a non-specialist is often wrong and that people in similar situations sometimes live to “a ripe old age.” But then Lewis recalls his own loss of his wife, Joy, a few years earlier and decides not to, explaining: “If, which God forbid, your suspense ended as terribly as mine did, these assurances would sound like mockeries.”

So instead, Lewis simply offers his hope that “all may yet be well” and recognizes “meanwhile you have the waiting” and also—if Malcolm’s case is anything like Lewis’s was—a large share of anxiety and its “horrible by-products.”

It is here that Lewis seeks to extend comfort. While some people may feel guilty about having anxieties and regard them as a lack of faith, Lewis states it is his belief that anxieties should be viewed as afflictions rather than sins. This distinction is significant, as Lewis explains: “Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. For the beginning of the Passion—the first move, so to speak—is in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane a very strange and significant thing seems to have happened.”

Lewis suggests that while it is clear from his teachings that Christ “had long foreseen his death,” it is also clear from Christ’s request that the cup might pass that this knowledge must somehow have been taken from him before that night in the garden. Lewis imagines Our Lord’s anguish that evening as he went off by himself to pray:

Lest any trial incident to humanity should be lacking, the torments of hope—of suspense, anxiety—were at the last moment loosed upon Him—the supposed possibility that, after all He might, He just conceivably might, be spared the supreme horror. There was precedent. Isaac had been spared: he too at the last moment, he also against all apparent probability. It was not quite impossible.

“Doubtless He had seen other men crucified,” Lewis points out, “a sight very unlike most of our religious pictures and images.”

Lewis proposes that without this last and mistaken experience of “hope against hope” and its tumult of anxiety, the claim that Christ was not only “very God” but also “very Man” would have been undermined, for, as Lewis tells Malcolm, “To live in a fully predictable world is not to be a man.”
While in the end, an angel appears with comfort, Lewis speculates that it may have been cold comfort, perhaps merely providing renewed strength to face the renewed certainty that “the thing must be endured and therefore could be.”

“We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive,” Lewis writes Malcolm, “but the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God’s will and equally part of our human destiny.” Since the perfect man experienced it, Lewis states, we can expect to as well. In fact, Lewis points out, each of the successive movements in the Passion contain an element common to the sufferings of us all. He explains:

First, the prayer of anguish; not granted. Then He turns to His friends. They are asleep—as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied. Then He faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns Him. This also is characteristic. In every Church, in every, institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence. But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretentions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that very reason it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency…. But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People—the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He Himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood.

“You see how characteristic, how representative, it all is,” Lewis tells Malcolm. In Christ’s passion we find “the human situation writ large.”

Lewis also turned to Christ’s Thursday night anguish in a number of letters to real correspondents. To one he wrote, “Fear is horrid, but there’s no reason to be ashamed of it. Our Lord was afraid (dreadfully so) in Gethsemane. I always cling to that as a very comforting fact.” To another advice seeker he tenderly counseled, “You needn’t worry about not feeling brave. Our Lord didn’t—see the scene in Gethsemane.”

In one letter written in 1939 on the eve of World War II, Lewis stated that the horrors he had witnessed in battle had haunted his memories for years, and he expressed his gnawing fears about another global conflict. In Gethsemane, he wrote, he found consolation and was “daily thankful that that scene, of all others in Our Lord’s life, did not go unrecorded.” Two decades later, Lewis would again face great anguish during the period surrounding the illness and death of his beloved wife. In the Introduction to

A Grief Observed, Lewis’s record of this time, his step-son Douglas Gresham notes, “This book is a man emotionally naked in his own Gethsemane. It tells of the agony and the emptiness of a grief such as few of us have to bear.”

As his letter to Malcolm draws to a close, Lewis confesses that Malcolm’s turmoil has brought back all the memories of his own. He worries that instead of bringing light to Malcolm’s dark valley, he has been only a “Job’s comforter.”

“But on second thoughts,” Lewis concludes, “I don’t regret what I have written. I think it is only in a shared darkness that you and I can really meet at present; shared with one another and, what matters most, with our Master. We are not on an untrodden path. Rather, on the main-road.”

Lewis’s reflections serve as an invitation for us to meet Christ in his passion this Holy Week, to share his darkness with Him, as he shares our darkness with us. Lewis’s eighth letter to Malcolm reminds us that when we find ourselves in the dark valley of emotional anguish, we are not without help and abandoned on an untrodden path, though it may well seem like it. Our Savoir also walked this path. He knows it well. And he will walk it alongside us.

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Devin Brown is a Lilly Scholar and Professor of English at Asbury University where he teaches a class on Lewis. He is the author of Inside Narnia (2005), Inside Prince Caspian (2008), and Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).

Swallowing the Camel

2011-04-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

by Zach Kincaid
In 1959, Kenneth Carey invited C.S. Lewis to address the students of Anglican Theological College, Westcott House. Carey served as principal of the college and he would later become Bishop of Edinburgh. The subject of the talk was to be a response to the recent book by Alec Vidler called Windsor Sermons.

In it, Vidler "demythologizes" the Gospels, spinning them into a dance with modernity. Lewis, according to The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 2, thought it "quite incredible that we should wait nearly 2,000 years to be told by a theologian called Vidler that what the Church has always regarded as a miracle was, in fact, a parable.

In the paper that he presented to the students at Wescott House (titled "Fern-seed and Elephants") Lewis said:

A theology which denies the historicity of nearly everything in the Gospels to which the Christian life and affections and thought have been fastened for nearly two millennia - which either denies the miraculous altogether or, more strangely, after swallowing the camel of the Resurrection strains at such gnats as the feeding of the multitudes - if offered to the uneducated man can produce only one or other of two effects. It will make him a Roman Catholic or an atheist. (Collected Letters, Vol 2, 1076-77)

The last line is a quip to Vidler who was a Catholic and very much one who embraced modernity to the point of question. Lewis was not shy in asking, especially given the range of Vidler's influence as editor of the monthly journal Theology and author of a number of books. Lewis contributed work to Theology and this provided for natural correspondence with Vidler, at least by the late 1930s, so their relationship was long-winded. Yet, there is a temperance in Lewis that is not, for example, in Chesterton who calls out his heretical friends will a bolstering yell (Letters to Malcolm is one example as are The Collected Letters).

For Lewis, the death and resurrection of Jesus is the completion of that "black and scarlet cord" (as he says in a letter to Arthur Greeves) that weaves in and out of myth. This is a subject that Lewis embraces as a central interpretation of God revealed in the world. It also provides the assurance of our own resurrection.

Orthodox believers keep the Saturday before Palm Sunday as "Lazarus Saturday." It's perhaps because Lazarus's story is anchored with Jesus' own journey to Jerusalem in the Gospel of John. In fact, the religious leaders were out to find both Jesus and Lazarus since the crowds were collecting in larger and larger mass to celebrate (and use) Jesus as a result of the profoundness of resurrection. The Sanhedrin wanted both of them dead. "'What are we accomplishing?' they asked. 'Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation'" (John 11:47-48).

In the episode at Bethany, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die" (John 11:25-26).

Lewis echoes Paul's words in I Corinthians 15:12 when he writes to a friend, "Whatever you hold about the blessed in the state of separation, the resurrection either makes some change in it or none. If none, why does it occur? If change, then either for the worse or for the better" (Collected Letters, Vol 2, 217).

Believing in the resurrection is "swallowing the camel." Without it there is no Son of God, only a dead Jesus, and the sting of death that haunts a life which cannot be lived more abundantly. If modernity reasons out the miraculous and it is here that one hinges their hope, perhaps there are bigger things to swallow than camels.

You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. - Jesus, Matthew 23:24

The "Die-er" of the Universe

2011-04-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
The idea that Christ is the corn king - the fulfillment of the myths that thread through history - rings loud and often in Lewis's work. In Miracles Lewis presents the Incarnation as the greatest of all the signs of God.

What is meant by God becoming human? "In what sense is it conceivable that eternal self-existent Spirit... should be so combined with a natural human organism as to make one person?" asks Lewis. It is conceivable because we see in God's descent, our own.

Lewis famously said that none of us have met mere mortals (see Weight of Glory) because, whether we are dying to heaven's reward or falling for hell's charms, all of us will live eternally. And this eternal sense of being is formed inside our throw-away human structure that is our body. Lewis says it this way -

"We can understand that if God so descends into human spirit, and human spirit so descends into Nature, and our thoughts into our senses of passions, and if adult minds can descend into sympathy with children, and men into sympathy with beasts, then everything hangs together and the total reality, both Natural and Supernatural, in which we are living is more multifariously and subtly harmonious than we had suspected."

To Lewis, the truth of God is defined by dipping low into humanity- to become the "least of these." His omniscience is traded for suspended knowledge, his eternity for time and space, his immutability for flesh and blood, his privilege of heaven for the craftiness of earth. Lewis likens the descent of Jesus like a diver who goes deeper and deeper into the bowels of the sea, into "the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay." But the diver can't stay submerged. He must reascend.

The cycle of death and re-birth is not unique to Christianity, but Lewis argues that Christianity fulfills such myths because he alone is not inside it but the maker of it. "He is not the soul of Nature nor of any part of Nature," Lewis says. "He inhabits eternity: He dwells in the high and holy place: heaven is His throne, not His vehicle, earth is His footstool, not his vesture."

The early church knew this well. The Creeds of Nicea, and, especially Chalcedon, support this view of Jesus - "... begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably..." (Chalcedon)

The death and resurrection of Jesus is, therefore, more than the completion of a cycle. As the "Die-er" of the universe, he represents humanity in its absolute and complete death. "Because Vicariousness is the very idiom of the reality he has created," Lewis says, "His death can become ours."

And, as Lent leads to Easter, his resurrection can be ours as well.

A Tale of Two Temptations

2011-03-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

by Winn Collier
“Good could never come of such evil,” said the forlorn prisoner in Tale of Two Cities. Lewis, fond of Dickens, would have enjoyed a squabble with this character’s conclusion. While Lewis resisted any notion that God was the ultimate instigator of evil (some of his punchier lines are leveled at such ideas), he steadily insisted that human redemption hinges in part on this fact: God exploits evil toward good ends.

For Lewis, the incarnation tells us that God is not stoically distant from our devastation but enters the chaos, refashioning wasted remnants into something beautiful again. “The world is a dance,” said Lewis, “in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces.”[1] God does not ignore the wreckage. God subsumes it into himself.

Lewis’ posture coalesces with two of the texts for the first week of Lent (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11). These narratives provide us with a tale of two temptations: Adam and Eve’s temptation in a Garden and Jesus’ temptation in a wilderness. One is a tragedy; the other is a comedy (think: Shakespeare, not Modern Family). One tells of ruin; the other of redemption. One suggests evil wins; the other announces that evil has been forever wrecked.

To read the second tale apart from the first does injustice to the whole of Scripture as a narrative, but it also does injustice to Jesus’ decisive action against evil. Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness does not primarily sketch a moralistic story providing helpful hints on how we too, with a bit of Jesus-inspiration, can conquer the Tempter. Rather, Jesus’ hostile standoff with Evil was a reprisal for all humanity had lost in Eden and could never, on our own, regain. When Jesus emerged from the wilderness as Victor, his triumph signaled an end already sat in motion: evil doomed to obliteration and humanity destined for joy.

While numerous connections demonstrate how Jesus’ temptation also recapitulated Israel’s temptation and wilderness wanderings, the thread stretches back even further, to the Eden tragedy. As Eve listened to the serpent’s wily seduction, she began to look at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil anew, with eyes clouded by the illusion of self-will. Rather than refusing the tree God had warned them to resist, she gazed upon a tree she now considered to be “good for food…a delight to the eyes…and [something to be desired for gaining wisdom].” In other words, she had been snagged. The lust of the flesh. The lust of the eyes. The pride of life.

When the Tempter approached Jesus in the wilderness, he carried no original material. The Tempter prodded Jesus to provide food for himself, to set his eyes on kingdoms to possess and to force God’s hand by asserting his own rule in his own time. In virtual point-by-point fashion (lust, eyes, pride), another serpent came to Jesus. Only Jesus did not bite. Rather, Jesus decisively recaptured ground Eve and Adam surrendered.

Jesus went where we could never return (another original temptation) in order to accomplish what we have proved unable to manage (triumph over the incarnation of evil). In other words, Jesus would not merely wink and make evil disappear. Rather, Jesus walked into the bowels of evil and defeated evil on its own terms, first in a wilderness and then on a cross. Or as Lewis put it: “He who is without sin became sin for our sakes [and] plumbed the depth of that worst suffering...”[2] Jesus did not merely cover evil; Jesus, in his humble humanity, dismantled evil.

Lewis, I believe, would remind Dickens’ despairing prisoner that in God – and only in God – evil can always be made good.

Winn Collier is a columnist and the author of three books, most recently Holy Curiosity. Winn is also the pastor of All Souls in Charlottesville, Virginia. You may connect on his blog at winncollier.com.

[1] The Problem of Pain, p. 80.

[2] Reflections on the Psalms, p. 127.

Resurrection Involves Reversal

2011-03-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
Resurrection is a subject that is central to the Christian narrative. Lewis addresses the idea of resurrection in his stories (Aslan and Eustace come to mind, for example), in his theological works, and in his letters. In this simple series of articles during Lent, I want to point out several occasions where Lewis discusses resurrection with hopes that his take on the subject might better refine ours as we head into Easter.

In "Miracles" from God in the Dock, Lewis says that "resurrection involves 'reversal' of the natural process in the sense that it involves a series of changes moving in the opposite direction to those we see."* Death takes what was purposed for life and returns it to its place in the earth.

Lewis calls it the changing from "organic" to "inorganic."

What once breathed, then, will help the flowers grow. But, the surprise of resurrection is the reversal of what we know as natural.

What we know as "natural" is all most that people trust. Their economy is caught between the lost and the found. Lewis likens it to Humpty Dumpty falling from his wall. The majority of people say that life is married to death; that's simply the way it is. "I live and I will some day die," it is said. Scripture does teach us that we are appointed to live and then to die, but Christians realize that the story does not end. There are no mortal people, Lewis reminds us.

If resurrection involves reversal, as Lewis says, then it is the reversal of Humpty Dumpty's smash into the ground. But what happens next? Lewis doesn't bring it up, but if one is fortunate to be like Lazarus or Jarius's daughter, the return is back into a natural existence. But meditate on Jesus' resurrection, as Lewis does, and the reversal is into a state of being that is both physical and spiritual. His resurrected body has new conditions.

"It is frequently not recognized by those who see it, and it is not related to space in the same way as our bodies," Lewis says. But, Jesus, "emphatically insists that He is not merely a spirit and takes steps to demonstrate that the risen body can still perform animal operations, such as eating."

What is this? Our perception is in three dimensions and five senses. However, Jesus is mysteriously within the physical world as a physical being, yet can appear on the Emmaus Road or in the Upper Room and can also choose to ride out on a cloud (Lewis suggests that this is not allegory).

That means, perhaps, that resurrection for us, if we will be truly like him, involves reversal, as Lewis suggests, and not simply movement into something completely spiritual and altogether new. Lewis says that we possibly move into, "a world or worlds of super-sense and super-space."

The good news of the Gospel is resurrection. It is a reversal. Instead of Adam stammering from his hiding place and looking back at angels with flaming sword, we have a the Son of God thundering out and angels announcing the miracle as they had in the skies above Bethlehem. This is a new day.

(*Lewis says much more before this point in his essay about miracles and our ability to comprehend nature, use our senses, and define what is an outlying occurrence to the normalcy we know, but for the purposes of this short observation, I've left out his run up to resurrection in particular.)

The Ever-Expanding Lewis

2011-03-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

Lewis died in 1963. Most of his books were written in the 1940s and 50s. He was a popular author during his lifetime, but since his death his books have sold increasing amounts. This is most true of the last 10 years. Why the appeal? With the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of HarperOne publishing Lewis's works, Mickey Maudlin of HarperOne suggests that Lewis has a "range of unique traits:"

a rare combination of expert knowledge and a flare for popular writing;
a commitment to be “nontribal” so that Catholic, Protestant, liberal, conservative, and non-Christian all feel he was writing for them;
a commitment not to get caught up in lesser, inter-nicene squabbles that marginalize other writers in this world; and
his sheer creativity in communicating wonder and awe as he explains things that are true and beautiful.

"What I usually don’t say, but is probably the best answer, is," Mickey says, "I read Lewis thirty years ago, and he changed my life, and he is an author I routinely point others to."

Here's to a long legacy to come.

C.S. Lewis and The Man Born to be King

2011-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

by Joel D. Heck
In 1943, Dorothy L. Sayers’ script of twelve radio broadcasts was published by Harper & Brothers as The Man Born to Be King: A Play-Cycle on the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. She had written these dramatic episodes for the radio at a time when there was no precedent for such writing. Many deemed these broadcasts sacrilegious and some even considered them wicked. Far better, it was thought, to quote the Bible than to interpret it, especially on stage. But Sayers was a masterful writer, and her plays, though seldom read any more, must have won over most of her listening audience. Indeed, they won over this writer.

As she writes in her Introduction, “There were to be twelve plays, separated by intervals of four weeks” (Dorothy L. Sayers, The Man Born to Be King: A Play-Cycle on the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943, 13). Her object was “to tell that story to the best of my ability, within the medium at my disposal—in short to make as good a work of art as I could” (Sayers, 4). She wrote one Nativity story, six stories from the period of Jesus’ ministry, and five Passion plays beginning with Palm Sunday. Some characters had to be invented, such as Elihu, who was the captain of the guard at the tomb of Jesus, but Baruch the Zealot was the only main character of importance that she invented. Judas could not be a worthless villain lest Sayers cast a slur upon either the intelligence or the character of Jesus for choosing him as a disciple.

Sayers uses many direct quotations from the Gospels, then adds detail to the story for the flow of the narrative. Those details certainly could have happened, but they are invented for the sake of the story. For example, the Roman Centurion is Proclus (This name is not historical, nor is Claudia Procula), both serving with Herod the Great early in his life and appearing later as the Centurion at the cross. The wise men are kings, and Mary Magdalene is identified both with Mary of Bethany and the sinful woman of Luke 7. Neither identification is made by scholars today. Sayers’ portrayal of Judas, described by Sayers as having “intellectual idealism” and “rooted egoism,” makes sense of his betrayal (Sayers, 199). The wife of Pontius Pilate, named Claudia Procula, figures prominently in the plays. According to Christian tradition, she later became a Christian, and Sayers has the resurrection reported to her. Finally, in addition to being the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, her episodes comprise “first and foremost, a story—a true story, the turning-point of history, ‘the only thing that has ever really happened’” (Sayers, 22). Especially in the post-resurrection conversations between Jesus and His disciples the message and implications of the Gospel are thoroughly explained. For Dorothy L. Sayers, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Lewis and Sayers

C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) and Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) were friends, both Christians, both writers, and both residents of Oxford, England. The two corresponded with each other in spite of the fact that they lived in the same city. We have dozens of Lewis’ letters to Dorothy L. Sayers, four of them mentioning The Man Born to be King, and she must have written a similar number of letters to him.

He once wrote about how they became friends, “Dorothy Sayers, so far as I know, was not even acquainted with any of us [the Inklings] except Charles Williams and me. We two had got to know her at different times and in different ways. In my case, the initiative came from her. She was the first person of importance whoever wrote me a fan letter. I liked her, originally, because she liked me; later, for the extraordinary zest and edge of her conversation—as I like a high wind. She was a friend, not an ally. Needless to say, she never met our own club, and probably never knew of its existence” (Collected Letters, III, 1400. This letter to the editor of Encounter was published on Jan. 1, 1963).

Lewis enjoyed her play cycle so much that he read the plays in the year when her book was released and then every Holy Week thereafter. In fact, his first letter to her, on May 30, 1943, contained high praise:

Dear Miss Sayers—

I’ve finished The Man Born to be King and think it a complete success. (Christie the H.M. of Westminster told me that the actual performances over the air left his 2 small daughters with “open and silent mouths” for several minutes).

I shed real tears (hot ones) in places: since Mauriac’s Vie de Jesus nothing has moved me so much. I’m not absolutely sure whether Judas for me “comes off”—i.e. whether I shd. have got him without your off-stage analysis. But this may be due to merely reading what was meant to be heard. He’s quite a possible conception, no doubt: I’m only uncertain of the execution. But that is the only point I’m doubtful on. I expect to read it times without number again….

Yours sincerely

C.S. Lewis (Collected Letters, II, 577f)

He kept that promise, reading it “in every Holy Week since it first appeared” (“A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers,” in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, edited by Walter Hooper. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1966, 1982, 93). In the year it was published, on August 3, 1943, Lewis wrote to J.B. Phillips, reflecting the criticism of those who disliked any change from the Authorized Version, i.e. the King James Version, “I hope very much you will carry out your plan of doing all the epistles. Of course you’ll be opposed tooth and nail by all the ‘cultured’ asses who say you’re only spoiling ‘the beauty’ of the A.V (Authorized Version, i.e. the King James Version of the Bible) —all the people who objected to Green Pastures and The Man Born to be King and who are always waffling about reverence. But we must kill that” (Collected Letters, II, 586)!

Clearly he lent a copy or recommended a copy of Sayers’ book, perhaps several times, or he would not have written a couple of years later that the Porter at the “Bull” liked it (Collected Letters, II, 683. The letter is dated Dec. 14, 1945). Two years after that, on Nov. 7, 1947, he mentioned in a letter to Sayers that he was rereading The Man Born to be King and that it wore excellently.

Lewis didn’t have a lot to say about the content of the radio plays. His praise came primarily over the fact that she wrote them, wrote them well, and thereby brought the story of the life of Christ to light in a new way. But he also described the plays as having “architectonic qualities,” and he wrote that art and evangelism came together in her plays and that art and evangelism “turned out to demand one another” (“A Panegyric,” 93). That is, her proclamation of the Gospel in these plays not only presented the Christ of Scripture as the Savior of the world, but also did so powerfully and persuasively. No wonder he wrote to Miss Dell on Oct. 25, 1949 that he thought that “…D. Sayers’ Man Born to be King has edified us in this country more than anything for a long time” (Collected Letters, II, 989). The liveliness of her portrayal, even the humor, which he mentioned in a letter to Mr. Lucas, impressed him (Collected Letters, III, 815. The letter is dated Dec. 6, 1956). A few years later he would write to Mr. Aylard on Christmas Eve that drama, especially as used by Dorothy L. Sayers in her series of plays, “did a great deal of good” (Collected Letters, III, 1114. The letter is dated Dec. 24, 1959).

The Man Born To Be King became one of the books he would recommend, along with the works of Chesterton, Charles Williams, George MacDonald, St. Augustine, George Herbert, and others, which is high praise indeed! On May 9, 1961, he wrote to Mrs. Gray with his recommendations for her reading, which included Sayers’ radio dramas (Collected Letters, III, 1265).

The Twelve Dramatic Episodes

What do the twelve plays give us? In addition to the events of the birth of Jesus, His ministry, and the Passion Narratives, the plays give us Dorothy L. Sayers’ understanding of the story of Jesus “the only thing that has ever really happened” (Sayers, 22). Her ability to dramatize the life of Christ gives us new insight into many aspects of the life of Christ, for example, in the resistance on the part of the disciples to the fact that Jesus actually rose from the dead. The inclusion of the myrrh from the appearance of the wise men at Jesus’ birth in the embalming of Jesus’ body after His death ties together the Incarnation and the Crucifixion. The expansion of the role of Pilate’s wife, who sent Pilate a notice not to have anything to do with Jesus, is a welcome addition. The dismissal of the testimony of the women to the resurrection becomes more real, as does the doubting both of Thomas and, earlier, all the rest of the disciples. One is tempted to conclude that the devotion of the women to Jesus was better expressed by a female writer

We also receive from Sayers some of the thinking of C.S. Lewis. For example, in the description of characters for the eighth play, Sayers quotes from the last of The Screwtape Letters in regard to the death of Lazarus: “The gods are strange to mortal eyes, and yet they are not strange. He had no faintest conception till that very hour [of death] of how they would look …. but when he saw them he knew that he had always known them …. That central music in every pure experience which had always just evaded memory was now at last recovered” (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 173f. Cited in The Man Born To Be King, 200). This is what both Lazarus and the Patient in The Screwtape Letters saw at the moment of death. In her notes on the characters for the fourth play, she may be reflecting her familiarity with Lewis’ essay “The Weight of Glory,” when she writes of Judas, “He could have been the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, but he will be the worst” (Sayers, 101. See Lewis’ essay, “The Weight of Glory,” where he writes, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare”). But the reverse may also be true, since I detect the influence of Sayers on Lewis in The Last Battle when the dwarfs say, “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1956, 73, 119, 121, 126, and 148). Sayers has the crowd say, “Jewry for the Jews” (Sayers, 44)!

But we especially receive from Dorothy L. Sayers an impression of the devotion of Lewis to the person of Jesus Christ and the saving acts of His redemptive work.

Appendix

The contents of each play are summarized below in parentheses. The titles are the original titles given them by Sayers.

The First Play: Kings in Judaea (the Nativity; the wise men Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar; Herod the Great)

The Second Play: The King’s Herald (John the Baptist, Baruch the Zealot meets Judas Iscariot, the baptism of Jesus, the calling of the first disciples, the arrest of John the Baptist)

The Third Play: A Certain Nobleman (Jesus’ first miracle at Cana, the cleansing of the temple, the healing of the nobleman’s son)

The Fourth Play: The Heirs to the Kingdom (the Sermon on the Mount, Caiaphas meets Baruch the Zealot, the plot of the Jewish opposition, the choice of the twelve disciples, the healing of the Centurion’s servant)

The Fifth Play: The Bread of Heaven (the sending of the seventy to preach and heal and cast out demons, Baruch the Zealot meets with Judas again, the feeding of the 5,000, the stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the Bread of Life discourse)

The Sixth Play: The Feast of Tabernacles (Jesus delays going to Jerusalem, Jesus and disciples walk through a village in Samaria and James and John want to call down fire from heaven, Jesus prays on a mountain with the inner circle of three disciples, they come to Jerusalem, Jesus teaches in the temple, Caiaphas meets Judas, Claudia Procula [the wife of Pilate] sees Jesus, Jesus says “before Abraham was, I AM,” the Jews want to kill him)

The Seventh Play: The Light and the Life (Jesus with Mary and Martha at Bethany, the man born blind, the discussion of Judas’ handling of the purse, Jesus talks about going to Bethany because Lazarus has died, the raising of Lazarus at Bethany, a meeting of the Sanhedrin in which they vote to plan the death of Jesus, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea abstain)

The Eighth Play: Royal Progress (Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Mary anoints Jesus with perfume while Judas complains, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, Roman soldiers with Pontius Pilate and Claudia Procula march into Jerusalem and come upon Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Pilate and Procula observe Jesus’ entry, Jesus teaches in the temple, the Sadducees and Pharisees attempt to trick Jesus and fail, the meeting of Jesus with the Rich Young Man, Judas agrees to betray Jesus)

The Ninth Play: The King’s Supper (the beginning of the Passover celebration in the Upper Room, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, Judas meets with Caiaphas, Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, Pilate guarantees ratification of a Sanhedrin decision, Jesus predicts Peter’s denial, Pilate and Claudia discuss Jesus, prayer in Gethsemane, the arrest)

The Tenth Play: The Princes of This World (Peter and John follow the arresting party, Jesus’ interrogation before Annas, Peter denies Jesus three times, Judas and Baruch converse, the trial begins with Joseph and Nicodemus defending Jesus, Jesus admits He is the Messiah, Judas is remorseful and returns the money, the first trial before Pilate, Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, the trial before Herod, the second trial before Pilate, Pilate has Jesus flogged, Pilate condemns Jesus to be crucified)

The Eleventh Play: King of Sorrows (three Marys leave for the cross with John, the three to be crucified carry their crosses, “Father, forgive them,” the three are nailed to their crosses, Caiaphas converses with Joseph and Nicodemus, the three Marys and John are allowed to come closer to the cross, Proclus and four soldiers are assigned to relieve Marcellus and his four soldiers at the cross, the sky grows dark at noon, Claudia relates her dream about the phrase “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” Balthazar arrives at the cross by reading the stars and recognizes Proclus, the darkness lifts, Joseph comes for the body of Jesus, the burial, guards are placed at the tomb)

The Twelfth Play: The King Comes to His Own (John, Mary Magdalen, Salome, and Mary Cleophas converse about the burial with King Balthazar’s gift of myrrh saved for thirty-three years; Salome, Mary Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen go to the tomb and meet the angels Raphael and Gabriel who say “He is risen”; Peter and John run to the tomb; the Sanhedrin hear the report from the soldiers at the tomb about the earthquake and meeting an angel; John and Peter arrive at the tomb; Mary Magdalen meets the angels and then Jesus; the Sanhedrin accuses Joseph of staging a “fictitious miracle” while Nicodemus comes to his defense; the Sanhedrin bribe Elihu the guard at the tomb; the disciples hide behind locked doors at the home of the Zebedees; Cleophas and his wife Mary Cleophas report on the walk to Emmaus and then Jesus appears; Eunice gives flowers to Claudia Procula as she and Pontius Pilate are about to leave Jerusalem and tells her that Jesus is reported as risen from the dead; Jesus appears to the disciples with Thomas; Jesus appears at the Sea of Galilee while the disciples fish and Peter swims to shore; Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him; the episode ends with the Great Commission, the Ascension, and a quotation from John 20:31 and 21:25)

The Journal of Inklings Studies

2011-02-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

For many of CSLewis.com readers, the announcement of a new journal on Lewis means additional scholarship and opportunities to learn through the works of Lewis. The C. S. Lewis Society of California reported in a recent article about the launching of The Journal of Inklings Studies.

This new, peer-reviewed, semi-annual journal will provide a forum for rigorous academic engagement with the thought of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and their intellectual and literary peers and forebears. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the reception of these thinkers in theology, philosophy, and literary studies worldwide. The journal is a collaboration of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society, Charles Williams Society, and Owen Barfield Estate.

The first issue of the journal will be March 2011, and print and online, individual and institutional subscriptions can be obtained here. In addition, single issues of The Journal of Inklings Studies and the C.S. Lewis Chronicle are available as well. The editors for the journal are as follows:

Executive Editors:
Dr Judith Wolfe, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
B.N. Wolfe, Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Subject Editors:
Jane Hipolito, Emerita, California State University
Judith Wolfe, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
B.N. Wolfe, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
J.G. Bradbury, Milton Abbey School

Reviews Editors:
Cole Matson, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
Dimitri Phillips, Stanford Law School, Stanford University

Lewis and the "Pursuit of Happiness"

2011-02-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

by Robin Baker
Quite by accident, I came across a short article by Lewis that he wrote just prior to his death, entitled “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” (Saturday Evening Post, December 11, 1963). In it, he writes about an emerging issue in culture and even offers thoughts on the American Declaration of Independence. In this short essay, Lewis takes on a growing concept in the West in the mid-20th century that human beings have a “right to sexual happiness.”

In the essay, Lewis conveys that he is having a discussion with a female friend, Clare, who is convinced that men and women, even though they are married, have a basic right to separate from their spouse if they are no longer experiencing sexual fulfillment in the marriage relationship. Clare argues that they have a moral and legal right to separate to seek out sexual fulfillment in another relationship. According to Clare, all people have a right, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, to the “pursuit of happiness.” Men and women are not “bound” by their marriage vows if they cease to experience happiness; they are free to pursue fulfillment elsewhere.

Lewis disagrees with Clare, and he decides to examine the Declaration of Independence to discover what the American Founding Fathers meant when they agreed to accept the wording, “the pursuit of happiness.” Lewis suggests that they obviously did not mean that everyone could pursue happiness by any means available. People are limited by the Law of Nature and the laws that nations agree to sanction. He suggests that the Declaration of Independence was primarily a denial of the political principles that had long governed Europe; “whatever means of pursuing happiness are lawful for any should be lawful for all; that ‘man,’ not men of some particular caste, class, status or religion, should be free to use them.” Thus, according to Lewis, the Declaration of Independence did not guarantee any particular form or ideal of “the pursuit of happiness” but that the law related to that pursuit would be applied to all.

Keep reading the entire article.

A Look at David C. Downing’s New Novel "Looking for the King"

2011-01-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

by Devin Brown
Anglophiles, mystery lovers (particularly those who prefer the brainy rather than the bloody type), and Inkling fans everywhere are sure to find something to truly enjoy in Looking for the King, the recent novel written by Lewis scholar David Downing.

Here’s how the description on the jacket flap begins:

“It is 1940, and American Tom McCord, a 23-year-old aspiring doctoral candidate, is in England researching the historical evidence for the legendary King Arthur. There he meets perky and intuitive Laura Hartman, a fellow American staying with her aunt in Oxford, and the two of them team up for an even more ambitious and dangerous quest. Aided by the Inklings—that illustrious circle of scholars and writers made famous by its two most prolific members, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien—Tom and Laura begin to suspect that the fabled Spear of Destiny, the lance that pierced the side of Christ on the cross, is hidden somewhere in England.”

Downing weaves a romance (of sorts), a mystery, and a quest with a series of conversations with Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams and throws in a spiritual journey along with the mix. For anyone who ever wished they could have been a fly on the wall of the Eagle and Child during a meeting of the Inklings, Downing masterfully recreates what one of their gathering must have been like by using real quotes from their letters and essays as the basis for his dialogue.

I recently and had the chance to ask David a few questions about his delightful “Inklings novel.”

Brown: It’s probably safe to assume that most readers of Looking for the King will be Inklings fans. Still, there may be some for whom your book serves as their first introduction to this distinguished group of friends and writers. How did you first encounter these figures, and what was your own reaction?

Downing: I first read both Lewis and Tolkien during my college years. Someone recommended the Narnia Chronicles to me in high school, but I thought I was far too sophisticated and mature at the age of eighteen to be reading "kid stuff"! When I finally dipped into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe one summer, I was so captivated that I read all seven Chronicles in a month. Then I sat down and re-read all seven of them again the next month.  I casually picked The Lord of the Rings one afternoon during my junior year of college. I must confess, I neglected my homework for at least a week or ten days, because I couldn't put it down. I recall reading in bed one night about 2 a.m. when Gandalf was pulled into the abyss by the Balrog. I almost had an anxiety attack, thinking, "Now we'll never find our way out of the mines of Moria!" Later in the story, when Gandalf reappears, I had a sense of relief and elation that seemed some small tincture of the joy of that first Easter morning.  

Lewis said that Charles Williams had a special gift for portraying good characters. But I think that is equally true of Lewis himself and also of Tolkien. So many contemporary novelists excel in their portrayals of troubled people—selfish, neurotic, brutish, and downright depraved. But only a handful of twentieth century novelists, including the Inklings, have the power to show us what good people look like—characters with integrity, compassion, courage, and a willingness to sacrifice for others. I'm sure this ability to portray good characters convincingly is derived from their Christian worldview, a sense that ultimately, it is not evil or chaos, but Goodness that reigns in the universe.

Brown: Your cover tells us this is “an Inklings novel.” We quickly discover that (1) the Inklings themselves appear as characters, and (2) you drew upon their actual words in shaping their dialogue. Your character Laura Hartman, while not sharing the developmental arc we see in Jane Studdock or Pauline Anstruther, does have the visionary dreams they do. Are there other aspects of your novel which show this homage to the Inklings?

Downing: I think those are the most important dimensions of the story which make it “an Inklings novel.” Of course, the notion that the Spear of Destiny might be hidden somewhere in England calls to mind Williams’ War in Heaven, in which the Holy Grail turns up in an obscure country church north of London.

The character of Tom McCord suggests Mark Studdock somewhat, in that his worldly ambitions lead him to embark on a spiritual journey which he had not anticipated. Tom’s movement from spiritual lethargy to an awakening of faith is also intended to echo Lewis’s own pilgrimage in his teens and twenties. No one has commented on it yet, but I also embedded a hidden pattern in the names of several key characters in the story. That may or may not be in the style of an Inklings story, depending upon which critics you read!

Brown: How did you first come up with the overall concept for Looking for the King?

Downing: My wife and I visited Somerset and Cornwall in 2005, and we were fascinated by all the legends that Joseph of Arimathea (the rich merchant mentioned in the Gospels) had traveled all the way to England in the first century, perhaps bringing with him the Holy Grail and the Spear of Longinus (the traditional name of the Roman soldier who thrust his lance into Christ's side). Around Glastonbury, one meets people who talk about "Old Joe" or "Big Joe" as if they just spoken with Joseph of Arimathea in a pub last week!

That same summer I was re-reading the letters of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, and thinking how often their perceptive observations and witty remarks in their correspondence would make for great dialog in a novel. Soon afterwords, I read Matthew Pearl's literary detective novel, The Dante Club, in which a circle of American poets and scholars (Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell) help the local police solve a series of Dante-esque murders occurring in 19th century Boston. I enjoyed the unusual combination of mystery and literary biography, and I thought the Inklings would make an even livelier group to help some young adventurers on their quest. So my interest in the Spear and my interest in the Inklings merged into one storyline.

Brown: You have stated that half the fun of writing this novel was looking through the primary documents for elements to use in creating the dialogue. What did you learn in your research that was new to you?

Downing: I had read all the standard biographies and collections of letters before. But my earlier readings had focused on the Inklings as thinkers and writers more than as people. Instead of looking this time at Charles Williams as an author, I began to pick up on details such as that he lectured so energetically you could hear the coins clinking in his pocket as he paced back and forth. And that when he waxed philosophical, he would look off into space, as if gazing at something beyond the screen of the physical world.

For Tolkien, I had forgotten that he was an expert horseman in his youth, breaking untamed beasts that no one else was willing to mount. (No wonder his portrait of the Riders of Rohan is so sympathetic and so convincing!)

For Lewis, the main thing I noticed this time around was his robust sense of humor. Lewis’s lifelong friend Owen Barfield says that too many critics overlook Lewis’s ever-present sense of fun, his ready wit and love of hearty laughter. I think it is easier to bring out that side of Lewis in a novel than in studying him as a “literary artist” or as a “man of ideas.” Lewis’s letters are full of one-liners that you could almost turn into a stand-up comedy routine if you had a mind to. (Though I don’t have a mind to! Lewis’s humor usually bubbled over during serious discussions, not simply to provoke a guffaw for its own sake.)

Brown: As the author of a number of scholarly books about Lewis, you have had to deal with the problem of including extensive quotations from his original works. Were there any permissions issues with using so many actual words of the Inklings, and, if not, how do you get around them?

Downing: Just to be on the safe side, I did vet this project with both the C. S. Lewis Company and the Tolkien estate. My actual quotations from Lewis, Tolkien, and others fall well within the limits of “fair use,” borrowing only a small fraction of quoted material from any one book. Both of these authors’ representatives are very concerned about novelizations that might invent new details or episodes far beyond the known facts as set down in their biographies. So I portray the Inklings mainly as consultants and mentors to my young adventurers. You won’t find Tolkien or Lewis themselves out hunting for lost relics or trying to elude Nazi spies.

Brown: You have said elsewhere that tensions among the Inklings are often overstated. This is a position which Douglas Gresham has also repeatedly taken. To what extent does your novel help set the record straight on this issue?

Downing: My novel is set in the spring and summer of 1940, which I believe was the beginning of the “golden age” for the Inklings. A few years later, Tolkien began to feel that he was being overshadowed somewhat by Charles Williams, whose encyclopedic knowledge, quicksilver mind, and saintly demeanor clearly made a deep impression on Lewis. But Williams was always a great supporter of Tolkien’s unfolding Rings epic, and Tolkien sometimes consulted with Williams on his own, apart from meetings when Lewis was present. So I wanted to portray the prevailing good will among these men, not to magnify this issue or that one.

In sensationalized journalism, the saying is, “If it bleeds, it leads.” That is, anything to do with controversy or conflict takes precedence over dull stories about friendship, lively conversation, or a community of shared faith and values. I think an imaginary scene, such as may be found in a novel, can sometimes offer a more authentic picture of a historical moment than the “factual” reconstructions of a biography or article that was written by someone with a tabloid mentality.

Brown: Finally, can you say something about the critical and commercial reception your novel has received; about what, if anything, you have been surprised by; and about your plans for a sequel or other future book projects?

Downing: Both my publisher, Ignatius, and I have been very pleased with the response to Looking for the King. The novel has received generous reviews, and it has nearly gone through its first printing in less than three months. Its Facebook site attracted over 2000 followers in just a few weeks. I think readers must enjoy imaginatively climbing into a time machine and getting a sense of what it might have been like to meet Lewis and Tolkien back in the early 1940s or to be a “fly on the wall” at an Inklings meeting.

As I was writing this novel, I began to get ideas for a follow-up story, so I made sure to leave room for a sequel. Near the end of the story, Tom McCord says that if he returns to England, he will probably be in uniform. And Laura Hartman says she hopes to pursue at masters degree, perhaps at one of the women’s colleges in Oxford.

I have already started working on a sequel, a tale in which Tom and Laura are reunited in Oxford, but are again menaced by sinister and secretive foes. Once again they must enlist the aid and counsel of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. I just discovered recently that Lewis sometimes sponsored informal discussion groups in his rooms at Magdalen College, occasionally inviting both men and women to attend. I am very optimistic that Laura Hartman will be granted that privilege!

I also have in mind a rousing debate between C. S. Lewis and a acid-tongued atheist at a meeting of the Socratic Club. But as Treebeard might say, “There, there. Let us not be hasty . . .”

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Devin Brown is a Lilly Scholar and a Professor of English at Asbury University where he teaches a class on Lewis. He is the author of Inside Narnia (2005), Inside Prince Caspian (2008), and Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).

__________________________________________________

David C. Downing is the R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis: Planets in Peril, The Most Reluctant Convert, Into the Wardrobe, and Into the Region of Awe. He serves as a consulting editor on Lewis for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Downing's most recent book is Looking for the King, a historical quest novel in which Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams figure prominently as characters. Visit Downing's college website.

Through the Wardrobe

2011-01-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

by Will Vaus
The back cover of Through the Wardrobe (2010, by Herbie Brennan) invites the reader to: “Step through the wardrobe and into the imaginations of 16 friends of Aslan as they explore Narnia—from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to The Last Battle, from the heart of Caspian’s kingdom to the Eastern Seas. Unlike some books, this one delivers on its back-cover advertisement. Though I had never heard of any of these authors before, I enjoyed almost every one of their essays.

Since I wrote a book on the spiritual themes in the Narnia stories (The Hidden Story of Narnia), I think it is important to note that this collection of essays is not about the spiritual themes in Narnia at all. However, these essays do remind us why The Chronicles of Narnia are, and should be, valued by people of all faiths, as well as those of no faith at all.

I can’t agree with editor Herbie Brennan when he writes in the Introduction: “When stuffy academics discuss the influence religion had on Lewis, they talk of something profoundly unimportant.” However, I can agree with him when he says, in the next sentence, that Lewis’ archetypal, mythic spirituality “enabled him to reach out across every culture and creed to the children of the world.” That Lewis has done this, I think, is undeniable. It is also significant.

In reading these essays I was reminded of the words of the character, C. S. Lewis, played by Anthony Hopkins in the movie, Shadowlands: “We read to know we are not alone.” If I didn’t know it before, now I am certain that when I was reading The Chronicles of Narnia as a pre-teen, growing up in 1970s suburban Southern California, I was definitely not alone. What, in one sense, is more solitary than the act of reading? And yet, the authors of these essays clearly remind us, that reading good literature unites us with many people of many cultures and many times.

Thus, I totally identified with the experience expressed by Deb Caletti in her essay, "Just Another Crazed Narnia Fan." I was delighted to discover that Caletti walked through the wardrobe at almost the same age, probably during the same decade and in the same state where I did. I also agree with what Caletti states as the reasons for the lasting appeal of The Chronicles. You’ll have to read the book to find out what those reasons are! What I most enjoyed about Caletti’s essay is that she tells us what she loves about Narnia. I get very tired of reading literary criticism that tells me mostly what is wrong with certain books. For the most part, this collection of essays avoids that error.

Brett Hartinger in his essay, "Forgotten Castles and Magical Creatures in Hiding," shows us how Narnia stimulates in the reader a hunger for the supernatural while at the same time returning us to a joy found in the world of nature.

Diana Peterfreund gives us countless reasons to believe that Edmund is the best character in all of the Narnia stories. Whether you agree with Diana in the end or not, I think you will be entertained by her argument along the way. Her essay, like all the essays in this book, is jargon-free—another plus about this collection.

Ned Vizzini’s essay on "Reading the Right Books" provides an excellent summary of the themes in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Sara Beth Durst in her essay, "Missing the Point," reminds us that reading a good story is better than reading about a good story. So why, you might ask, do some people keep writing and others keep reading books about Narnia? We do it because it’s another way to enter through the wardrobe again into Lewis’ delightful creation.

In his essay, "The War of Light and Darkness," Herbie Brennan tells us practically nothing new about Narnia, but he does tell us some fascinating stuff about the time-period in which Lewis wrote the Narnia books. Specifically, Brennan reveals to us some fascinating anecdotes about the evil backdrop of WWII, Hitler and the Nazis.

If you are a foodie like me then you will devour with watering mouth the longest chapter in this collection: "Eating in Narnia" by Diane Duane. The only thing better than reading her chapter is actually concocting some Narnian fare using Doug Gresham’s now out-of-print Narnia Cookbook.

A lot of ink has flowed in recent years attempting to cover the topic of Lewis’ supposed sexism, especially as that relates to the Narnia books. Kelly McClymer offers a fresh perspective in her essay—"Serious Action Figures: Girl Power in the Chronicles of Narnia."

Another hot topic recently has been Lewis’ supposed racism as expressed in his creation of the kingdom of Calormen. Lisa Papademetriou provides a nuanced outlook on this troublesome subject.

Another essay of note in this collection is Susan Juby’s "Waking Up the Trees;" Juby highlights Lewis’ environmentalism.

Then, just when I thought the essays in this book couldn’t get any better along came Orla Melling with her contribution: "Being Good for Narnia and the Lion." Her essay was autobiographically intriguing as well as being a top-notch reminder of how reading great literature can help to make us better people. Melling also serves up her own personal reasons why she thinks Lewis is not a sexist or a racist.

While I don’t agree with everything that every contributor to this collection says about Lewis and/or Narnia, my margin notes in my copy of Through the Wardrobe attest to my thorough engagement with almost every one of these essays. I think every adult lover of Narnia and serious student of Lewis will find something, and perhaps a lot, of value here.

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Will Vaus is the author of Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis, The Professor of Narnia: The C. S. Lewis Story, The Hidden Story of Narnia: A Book-by-Book Guide to C. S. Lewis’ Spiritual Themes and Speaking of Jack: A C. S. Lewis Discussion Guide (to be published by Winged Lion Press, Spring 2011). He may be found on the web at www.willvaus.com.

A Review of The Narnia Code

2011-01-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

by Charlie W. Starr
Scholars are required to write lengthy, heavily footnoted tomes, carefully and logically presented, with not even the slightest minutiae left uncovered. In the case of Michael Ward’s first book, Planet Narnia, the task was made more difficult by his need to prove a radical and controversial claim: that there is a secret third level of meaning in the Narnia books which Lewis intended and which no one has seen until now. Ward argued logically and with encyclopedic detail that he had indeed made such a discovery. This first book did the hard work, the work of a scholar. Now Michael Ward is back with The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens to take us on the adventure of his amazing discovery, to show us Lewis’s secret third level of meaning, and to explain why it matters to the Narnia books and to Christian lives.

When I first learned from Michael that he was writing a popular version of his scholarly book, I wondered how he was going to pull it off. What I have found in The Narnia Code is a readable, refreshing summary, application, and crystallization of his key ideas (with a few new arguments and evidences thrown in as well). I was immediately impressed by Ward’s ability to shift from an academic style (his is quite readable even then) to an engaging, almost narrative style. I found myself drawn in on the first page of the book and felt like I was reading a story rather than a non-fiction discussion about stories. I was next impressed by the pace of the book—having read Planet Narnia, I could see Ward whizzing through what were pages of material (in the first book) in a matter of paragraphs in The Narnia Code.

And so, in chapter one, I got an immediate reminder—a highlight of significant points (which never felt like a cursory summary)—of the questions and issues which make Ward’s discovery of the Narnia Code so important. To be sure, I wondered if Michael were going a little too “pop” with this popular version of his earlier work given the painful puns in several of the chapter sub-headings throughout the book (for example, “Give Father Christmas the Sack!”), but I never experienced a sense that content, if simplified, was presented in a patronizing fashion. As I said, in chapter one I was reminded of key problems which find their solution in Ward’s discovery: how does Father Christmas fit into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Why do some of the Narnia books seem to have strong biblical parallels while others don’t? Are the flaws which critics (beginning with Tolkien) talk about really there? Did Lewis just write the books for a lark, or is it possible that their popularity stems from having been far more carefully worked out than critics have so far acknowledged or discerned? Ward tells us succinctly in chapter one why what he’s going to reveal in the rest of his book matters.

In chapter two, Ward’s narrative style continues as he offers us clues from Lewis’s own writings which suggest the existence of a Narnia Code and Lewis’s reasons for placing it secretly into his books. Here and throughout the book, Ward does what he did so well in his first book: he offers and then proves his arguments out of C. S. Lewis’s own writings. His best argument, from Lewis’s concept of the “Kappa Element” in literature, is more clear and forceful here in The Narnia Code than (my memory recalls it to be) in the first book. It’s one of many solid proofs of Ward’s claim.

And that claim is revealed in chapter three of The Narnia Code where the book inspires the kind of interest we’d find reading the climax of a mystery novel. The code which Ward discovered is that Lewis purposely organized his seven Narnia books using ideas and themes, images and symbols associated with the seven planets of the medieval cosmos: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with Jupiter, Prince Caspian with Mars, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with the Sun (considered a planet in medieval astronomy) and so on. And after revealing this code to us, Ward smartly turns to the question, “So what?” He tells us why we should be interested in the planets and the heavens, even making biblical connections to them and concluding with Lewis’s own belief that the qualities of the planets as envisioned in the past “have a permanent value as spiritual symbols.”

What follows then are seven chapters in which Ward shows us how the Narnia Code is played out in each of the seven books, one planet governing each book. Ward offers many of the same solid proofs of the code’s existence which he offered in his first book. He gives answers to critical questions like the place of Father Christmas in Wardrobe (he is a symbol of Jupiter) while offering biblical and spiritual applications for the new meanings revealed by the Narnia Code. Among my favorite revelations from the Code are:

An explanation for the unity of the two major motifs in Prince Caspian of war and nature—Mars draws them together because he is not merely a god of war but a nature god as well: “Mars Silvanus.”
An explanation for the presence of so many dragons in Voyage of the Dawn Treader—the Sun god, Apollo is known as Apollo the “lizard slayer” (I also like Ward’s revelation of the theme of sanctification in Lewis’s use of alchemy in this book).
The Mercurial connections in The Horse and His Boy which give a strong interpretation for the unity of the various plot elements in a book which otherwise seems almost random in its plot and its place among the other Narnia books.

The Venus and Saturn chapters were the only ones which did not engage me as much their counterparts in Planet Narnia, though I’m not exactly sure why; I would not, however, call them weak.

If I were to find weakness in Ward’s book, it would only be after the fashion of a book critic who feels the compulsory need to say something bad about a book in order to appear fair, objective and haughtily sophisticated. Yes, I would’ve liked to have seen more of Ward’s references to the significance of colors and metals from the first book which do not make it into this one, and yes I would’ve like to have seen more of Ward’s explanation from Planet Narnia about the significance of “the wood between the world” in the new book, but I don’t call these criticisms, just preferences.

The closest thing I can get to a negative critique is to point out that Ward didn’t say anything about how controversial his discovery is among Lewis critics. In explaining Lewis’s plan for the books, for example, Ward writes as if the evidence of Lewis’s process were quite clear (when, for example, there are some letters from Lewis which several scholars offer as proof that Lewis had no grand design for the Narnia books). But then I answer my own critique: That’s not what this book is for. Ward, answered the questions in his previous book, responded to the evidence (like the letters above) with sound arguments (both in Planet Narnia and since then on the internet), and has effectively answered the questions of scholarly critics since the last book was published. He’s earned his stripes and earned the right to release a book which explains his discovery and its significance without getting bogged down in the questions of doubters. Like its predecessor, The Narnia Code reveals greater unity among the Narnia books, reveals greater meaning in them, answers critics who thought they found flaws in the books but really just couldn’t read the code, and shows us for the time just how great a literary achievement the Narnia books are.

In the remaining chapters of The Narnia Code, Ward shows us how all seven of the Narnia books are about Christ, something critics have struggled to show for decades. He explains that our love for the books—their constant popularity—stems from Lewis placing deeper and more Christian meanings in them than we realized, but meanings which nevertheless have an impact on us. And he explains (without quite putting it in the words I’m using) how our modern approach to knowledge and truth (an approach even Christians have adopted without knowing it) has missed the mark. Lewis shows us a better (and I would argue more biblical) approach to knowing and truth, not by telling us what it is, but by showing us in an example—the subtle, deep meaningful, semi-conscious (even archetypally unconscious) method of storytelling according to a code never revealed until now.

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Charlie Starr is a professor of English and Humanities at Kentucky Christian University

Two Free Movie Tickets and the Complete Narnia...

2010-12-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

Check this out - BookPerk.com is giving away two free movie tickets to any movie + Complete Chronicles of Narnia hardcover and poster (For $32.99, value $90+!).

Here's what the site says - "Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil -- what more could any reader ask for? Enjoy the book of the complete works and, should you decide to watch it, the latest movie: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third of the series."

Thoughts on the Third Narnia Film

2010-12-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

by Devin Brown
“It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved.”

These words—written by J. R. R. Tolkien in the Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings—remind us that when it comes to individual preferences, there is no pleasing (or displeasing) everyone. What one person really likes, another will insist was a flaw. As evidence of this fact, we might look at the fourth essay in the recent critical anthology Through the Wardrobe, where the author finds fault with the names Lewis gave to Reepicheep and Peepicheek, names which the rest of the world finds irresistible.

Certainly most Lewis fans have a list of things they would have done differently if they had been brought on as a consultant for the first two Narnia films, and I am no exception. And I am firm believer that a film adaptation cannot be (or at least should not be) just anything the filmmakers want it to be. But is it possible to get beyond mere statements of preference—where one person finds a blemish and another expresses approval, statements which have a way of being uttered as if they were absolute truth? (“Opening with the bombing of London was a total mistake.” “The bombing scene was a brilliant way to begin the film.”)

One way to do this might be to distinguish between thematic changes—Do the films say what the books say?—and cinematic changes, changes made in order to adapt a book to a different medium.

The greatest of these cinematic changes in the film adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has to do with the quest to find the seven lords who were exiled by the evil King Miraz, a mission which Lewis completes in chapter thirteen when the final three lords are found asleep at Aslan’s Table where they had threatened violence to each other there. Lewis has Caspian haltingly suggest, “I think our quest is at an end.” This scene works well on the page but is not exactly the makings of a great cinematic climax. It has certainly never been on anyone’s Top 100 Most Dramatic Moments in Narnia.

In Lewis’s original, only four of the lost lords return home in the end: the three quarrelers and Lord Rhoop who is broken and half-mad from his ordeal at Dark Island. Lord Bern, the only one of the seven who might have made much of a contribution back in Narnia, decides to stay in the Lone Islands because he has married a girl there. These details, told in summary on the final page, fit in well with other loose ends Lewis ties up, but again are not exactly the makings of a great cinematic finale.

In addition, Lewis gave The Voyage of the Dawn Treader an episodic structure composed of a series of independent adventures. Each episode—from the run-in with the slavers to the near escape on Deathwater Island to the encounter with the Dufflepuds—is largely self-contained, like beads on a string. While this makes for terrific reading because we can finish an entire adventure each night before going to bed, it lacks the three-act structure which today’s two-hour films are based on. Since audiences will watch the film all in one sitting rather than seeing a bit each night, the filmmakers have made it somewhat less of a series of separate adventures and given it more of an overall rise and fall. This was done by adding a quest for the seven swords these lost lords were given.

But does the film say what the book says? The best way to answer this is to turn to the book’s central characters: Lucy, Edmund, Caspian, Reepicheep, and Eustace. Their film counterparts convey every bit of spiritual truth that Lewis’s original did—messages about courage, sacrifice, temptation, steadfastness, envy, pride, real beauty, real friendship, duty, and our eternal destiny. About these vitally important topics, the film tells us just what the book tells us.

Visually the film is breathtaking and does justice to Lewis’s great imagination—which is saying a lot. The wonderful ship alone is reason enough to see the movie. Audiences will love the film versions of Lucy, Reepicheep, and Eustace (as boy and as dragon) as much as they do Lewis’s originals—and this is really saying a lot. An entire essay could be devoted to the extraordinary way that these three beloved characters—the real highlights of the third Narnia book—have been brought to life and developed in the film.

What about some of my personal preferences? Do I think Eustace’s undragoning should have seemed a little more painful? Yes. In the book Eustace tells Edmund, “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.” People who have undergone a fundamental transformation in their life, and Lewis was one of them, know that the process of dying to old ways can be agonizing. Having said this, it should be noted that if Eustace’s transformation back into a boy had been shown on screen in the same way it was told about in the book, the film would have been too intense for young audiences and a PG rating. That’s how these things work.

Do I think the quest to lay the seven swords on Aslan’s Table—the cinematic change added to give more unity to the episodic stops the crew makes—should have seemed a little less arbitrary? Again, yes. But this may be something that is not as important to young audiences.

In both these instances the film could have more powerfully said what the book said. But these are differences in degree not in kind. Is the film as good as the book? In my mind, only The Wizard of Oz can undisputedly make this claim. One thing undisputable about the film adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is that it will lead many young people to read the book who never would have otherwise—kids who would never have set a foot in a library or Sunday school class. And in today’s culture, anyone would agree that this is a great achievement.

Three final thoughts to keep in mind during discussions about the third film which are bound to take place (or about anything when personal preferences mean that people are going to disagree).

First, even Lewis and Tolkien disagreed on a number of aspects of each other’s writing. In a letter to Tolkien after having read the finished manuscript of The Lord of the Rings—which he overwhelmingly approved of—Lewis went on to note: “There are many passages I could wish you had written otherwise or omitted altogether.” For his part Tolkien objected to the presence of Father Christmas in Narnia. Readers everywhere rejoice that Lewis did not follow his advice. It would have been a poorer world without Mr. Tumnus’s line that in Narnia it is “always winter but never Christmas.”

Secondly, here is a post which an ardent Tolkien fan made after the film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring came out, a fan who did not make my distinction between a thematic change and a cinematic change: “The film must be judged SOLELY by a standard of absolute fidelity to the book, any deviation whatsoever constituting conclusive proof the very creation of the film was indefensible. No, I don't expect to get through to you. But I'm RIGHT.” This is probably not how you want to sound.

Finally, here is the short poem which Tolkien wrote about individual taste and the widely varying responses his work evoked, depending on whether it matched or did not match the personal preferences of his critics:
The Lord of the Rings
Is one of those things:
If you like you do:
If you don’t, then you boo!

I liked the new film adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader very much. It is exceedingly moving at times and also at times very funny. It has kept all that was essential to Lewis’s original while still opening up the story to be adapted to a different medium. I am convinced that Lewis fans—young and old, new and longtime—are going to like it very much as well. As one of the countless readers who have been comforted, inspired, and challenged by Lewis over the years, I would like to offer my congratulations and my thanks.

I heartily encourage you to see the film and afterwards to add your own thoughts in a comment here. This forum is a great place for the kind of lively “hammer and tongs” discussion that Lewis and his friends loved.

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— Devin Brown is a Lilly Scholar and a Professor of English at Asbury University where he teaches a course on C. S. Lewis. He is the author of Inside Narnia (2005), Inside Prince Caspian (2008), and Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).

A Review of The C.S. Lewis Bible

2010-12-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

by Salwa Khoddam
The C.S. Lewis Bible is a unique, rich work by dedicated editors and scholars well-versed in Lewis’s works. It is first and foremost the New Revised Standard version of the Bible. However, the fact that it is interspersed with carefully selected readings from Lewis’s works, 600 to be exact, makes it a valuable source on Lewis for three reasons.

First, this work explains and attempts to link Lewis’s “great gems of wisdom” which fill his works with their biblical sources, sending the delighted reader back to re-read and enjoy the biblical text. Some of the most common images in Lewis’s works are revealed to have their sources in the biblical text. The ubiquitous image of light in his works is linked to Ps. 36: “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light” (593). These lines echo Lewis’s memorable passage: “We cannot see light, though by light we can see things” in Four Loves. One passage from an essay in God in the Dock explains Lewis’s understanding of the word “rich” in Mark 10:23 ( “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”) (1123) as an essential state for training or correcting humans in this world. The river of the water of life is linked to Lewis’s image of “God’s creative rapture implanted in matter” from The Weight of Glory. At every step Lewis’s lines illuminate the Biblical verses and shine a light on his own beliefs in a creative way.

Second, The C.S. Lewis Bible shows, sometimes indirectly, that Lewis was inspired, nay enamored, not just with the words of the Bible, but also by the Maker of all texts, the Creator, a feeling that Lewis readers encounter in his works again and again. The scholars/editors intersperse the psalms with Lewis’s reflections on the beauty of the world created by God and the need to appreciate this beauty for the sake of God and send it back to Him. This method of interweaving reveals one of Lewis’s beliefs that the goal of the soul is to praise and unite with God. The editors include Lewis’s reflection on Ps. 42 in Letters to Macolm to illustrate his belief that “The soul that has once been waked, or stung, or uplifted by the desire of God, will inevitably (I think) awake to the fear of losing Him” (599).

Third, and most importantly, by using this unusual device of interweaving Biblical passages with readings mostly from Lewis’s apologetic works and his letters (not so much from his fiction), the editors and scholars have achieved a more significant purpose, i.e. to show both the syncretistic and typological cast of Lewis’s mind, interpreting past events in Old Testament history as prefiguring later events in the new dispensation. The device of juxtaposition assists in this purpose, revealing how a Christian in a modern Anglo-Saxon culture can apprehend the Hebraic ancient culture of the Old Testament through his understanding of the New Testament and vice versa. Several texts are involved in this method of linkages: The Old Testament, the New Testament, and the interpretations of Lewis and the scholars/editors of each of these texts. Universal issues are pointed out in this complex manner and explained: fear, doubt, wickedness, trust in God, prayer, beauty, collaboration of God with his creatures and the created world of Nature (reminding readers of Aslan here), and the like. For example, the intense fears of David in Ps. 27 are presented side by side with a passage from Lewis’s Present Concerns on the modern fear of the atomic bomb and ways to transcend this fear (584). The editors/scholars indirectly suggest that Lewis interprets the fear in the ancient text as prefiguring a modern fear, which parallels Lewis’s typological thinking. Through the method of syncreticism, they tie these two events together in order establish the connection between the Bible, Lewis, and the readers. This is a good example of the major purpose of this work: to bring the Biblical text to modern readers via Lewis’s works.

Not being a Biblical scholar myself, I cannot comment on the controversy regarding the use of the NRSV. I do believe, however, that Lewis’s main purpose is to attempt to focus on the common doctrines in all denominations, i.e. “mere” Christianity. He states that in comparing all versions of the Bible (at least by reformed authors), he found that there are “a very small percentage of variants” made for stylistic or even doctrinal reasons (The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version 11). Although he found the Authorized Version to have a literary impact on subsequent writers, to him the Bible is a sacred book primarily. And thus, as he writes in the Afterword to The C.S. Lewis Bible, excerpted from Reflection on the Psalms, we must “receive that word from it not by using it as an encyclopedia or an encyclical but by steeping ourselves in its tone or temper and so learning its overall message”(italics mine). Accuracy of intent, appropriateness of tone, added with usability to a modern audience, all make this work acceptable for the study of Lewis.

Though some books of this Bible seem to drag on without any inclusions of readings from Lewis, as in Genesis, making this work seem like any other Bible, the editors have succeeded, on the whole, in making this Biblical text engaging and enriching for Lewis readers because it gives them a window into Lewis’s Christian beliefs and his ways of thinking and reading the Biblical text. Furthermore, this work has an index and a concordance for the hurried reader. The parallel passages are laid side by side helping the reader make the link between Lewis’s works and the Biblical text. It also has a beautiful cover and helpful notes.

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Salwa Khoddam is Professor Emerita of English at Oklahoma City University.

The Art of the Thank You Note

2010-12-01T22:24:00.000-08:00

by David Downing
On the subject of thanksgiving, C. S. Lewis believed we should be grateful for all the fortunes that come our way, both good and bad. It is easy, of course, to be grateful for the good things in our lives. But Lewis felt that we should be equally thankful for bad fortune, for that is what “works in us patience, humility, the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country” (Collected Letters 2, 869).

Lewis’s own fortune was certainly mixed in the years after World War 2. Though Britain could count itself among the victors of the war, the economic strain on the country left its people hardly better off than those in nations that had been vanquished. In the late 1940s, Lewis began receiving gifts from his American admirers--commodities hard to come by in England such as ham, cheese, tobacco, stationery, and even canned juices. These gifts became so frequent and so plentiful that Lewis was compelled to cultivate the art of the thank you note as a minor literary genre.

Anyone who has ever written the Acknowledgements section for a book knows how hard it is to come up with new ways to say thank you. After the words thankful, grateful, indebted, acknowledge and all their variants have been used, one begins to reach for a thesaurus or to peek at the acknowledgments sections of other books to see how authors have tried to avoid repetitious phrasing. (Usually they do not succeed.)

But Lewis always seemed to find new ways to say thank you for the many gifts he received in the post-war years. At first he seemed to content himself with conventional ways of saying thanks, using phrases such as “deeply grateful,” “hearty gratitude,” and “thank you very much.” But as the gifts kept coming, often from the same generous donors, Lewis developed more creative ways to express his thanks. Though no two thank-you notes are alike, one might classify some of his favorite techniques for his “Art of the Thank You Note.”

1. Expressing the inexpressible. Lewis begins one letter “I am completely at a loss when it comes to thanking your for your last parcel.” In another he exclaims, “the arrival of that magnificent ham leaves me not knowing what to say.” In a third he writes, “How am I to thank you for your constant kindness? The answer appears to be it is not possible, and that you must just take my word for it I am still most gratefully yours, C. S. Lewis.”

2. The humorous hyperbole. In one letter, Lewis says that his benefactors have been so kind, and so varied in their gifts, that he doesn’t know what else he should ask for: “A tin of peacock’s brains? Some frozen lark’s tongues by air mail?” In another letter Lewis claims that he will someday have to give his American donors credit for his entire body. After saying that he’s heard that the human body renews itself every seven years, Lewis explains: “If the apparently unceasing flow of your generosity continues, I shall, in common gratitude, have to put a placard on my back stating that ‘This body has been reconstituted entirely by the generosity of Edward A. Allen, Esq., of Westfield, Mass., USA.’” Elsewhere Lewis claims with feigned anxiety that if others knew all the valued gifts he’d been receiving, burglars would be sure to break into his house or the authorities would suspect him of being a black market distributor.

3. The outrageous pun. Some of the most treasured gifts Lewis received from America were hams, and occasionally he couldn’t resist punning in his letters of thanks. He signs one such note, “Ham-icably yours.” In another, he explains that he has been sharing his gifts with his fellow Inklings, wondering if they should start calling themselves the “Hamsters.”

4. Noting the aesthetics of the gift as well as it usefulness. In several letters, Lewis notes not only how valuable are the contents of the gift but how artfully they have been packed and wrapped. He notes that however generous he might be feeling, he would never have had the skill or patience to send a gift so “admirably packed.” In another thank you note for a ham, he concludes, “We’re boiling it tomorrow. Meantime I go and have a look at it every now and then for the mere beauty of it—the finest view in England!”

5. The collaborative thank you note. Surely the most elaborate thank you Lewis ever sent to a benefactor is sometimes called “The Ham Testimonial.” In March 1948, Lewis and his fellow Inklings made a dinner out of one of the more massive hams they had received from America. With his usual letter of thanks, Lewis appended a testimonial. Beginning in his own hand, Lewis wrote, “The undersigned, having just partaken of your ham, have drunk your health.” Then he signed it himself, giving his military unit in World War I and his position at Oxford. He then passed the paper around, so that everyone else present could sign their names, and mention their military duties and/or their positions at Oxford. Among the personal signatures on the “testimonial” are those of H. V. “Hugo” Dyson, Lord David Cecil, W. H. Lewis, Colin Hardie, Christopher Tolkien, R. E. “Humphrey” Havard, and J. R. R. Tolkien. (CL 2, 838).

Lewis once described the giving of praise and thanks as “inner health made audible.” He felt that it was the most “balanced and capacious minds” who found it easiest to praise others, while it was misfits and malcontents who found it hardest to offer praise and thanks--to others or to God (Reflections on the Psalms, 94-95). If his observation is correct, then Lewis’s frequent, sincere but often highly amusing, thank you notes sent to his benefactors must surely be a sign of his own inner health, and of his balanced and capacious mind.

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David C. Downing is the R. W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis: Planets in Peril, The Most Reluctant Convert, Into the Wardrobe, and Into the Region of Awe. He serves as a consulting editor on Lewis for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Downing's most recent book is Looking for the King, a historical quest novel in which Lewis, Tolkien, and Charles Williams figure prominently as characters. Visit Downing's college website.

The C.S. Lewis Bible

2010-11-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

by David Theroux
C.S. Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most thought-provoking and influential Christian writer of the modern era. For more than forty years, generations of readers have found insight and inspiration from his uniquely articulate view of God's interaction in the world and in our lives. To be released on October 26, 2010, The C.S. Lewis Bible is one of the most anticipated Bibles of our time.

This New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible includes additional readings comprised of selections from Lewis's celebrated spiritual classics, a collection that includes Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, The Weight of Glory and The Abolition of Man, as well as letters, poetry, and Lewis's less-familiar works.

Each reading, paired alongside relevant passages in the Bible, offers C.S. Lewis as a companion to a reader's daily meditation of scripture. As people engage in their Bible reading, they will also gain insight from his writings and spiritual journey as they invite Lewis into their spiritual discipline. Key features of this hardcover Bible edition include:

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) text—the most trusted, accepted, and accurate translation of the Bible available
Over 400 selections from C.S. Lewis for contemplation and devotional reading
Introductory essays on C.S. Lewis's view of Scripture
Attractive two-color interior (brown/black)
Double-column format, in a readable, classic design
Presentation page for gift-giving
Sample pages from The C.S. Lewis Bible can be viewed here.

C. S. Lewis and his Mice

2010-11-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

by Will Vaus
C. S. Lewis once wrote to one of his young readers: “I love real mice. There are lots in my rooms in College but I have never set a trap. When I sit up late working they poke their heads out from behind the curtains just as if they were saying, ‘Hi! Time for you to go to bed. We want to come out and play.’”

Is it then any surprise that the writer, C. S. Lewis, would make a valiant mouse one of the chief characters in The Chronicles of Narnia?

How It All Began

C. S. “Jack” Lewis loved mice long before he wrote the Narnia books. And he wrote stories about mice many years before he became a college professor.

Jack was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The year was 1898. Jack’s parents were smart people who loved reading books. They taught Jack and his older brother Warnie to love books too. Young Jack delighted in the stories of Beatrix Potter. He really liked dressed animals.

Soon Jack wrote his own stories. He told about dressed animals and knights in shining armor. He even drew pictures to go with his stories. Jack had a pet mouse. So of course he wrote of chivalrous mice riding out in full armor to kill, what else, but cats of course!

In 1907 Jack wrote to Warnie at boarding school: “I am thinking of writing a History of Mouse-land and I have even gone so far as to make up some of it, this is what I have made up. Mouse-land had a very long stone-age during which time no great things took place.”

Warnie had different interests from Jack. So he wrote different kinds of stories. Warnie loved India. So they could play together Jack and Warnie combined their two worlds. This combined world they called Boxen.

Even in his first stories Jack enjoyed writing about the middle ages. What boy doesn’t like knights in shining armor? But to keep Warnie happy Jack had to bring Mouse-land into modern times. Warnie had to have his trains and steamships! That’s why Jack wrote the history of Mouse-land. Jack even made a map of Boxen; it shows the relationship between Mouse-land and India.

In making maps and writing the history of Mouse-land, Jack was training himself to become a novelist. However, Mouse-land is different from Narnia. They both have dressed animals. But Mouse-land has no hint of magic about it.

How Narnia Came To Be

So how did C. S. Lewis get from Boxen to Narnia? Jack kept writing stories for the rest of his life. Many of these stories began with a picture in his mind. Narnia began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture was in Jack’s brain from the time he was sixteen. Then when he was forty he said to himself, “Let’s try to make a story about it.”

At first Jack had little idea of how the story would go. But then the great lion Aslan came leaping into the picture. Jack had always suffered from nightmares. Suddenly he was having dreams with lions in them. Once Aslan came on the scene he pulled the whole story together. And not just one story—it became a series—The Chronicles of Narnia.

It wasn’t until 1948 that Jack began writing the Narnia tales in earnest. But once begun The Chronicles of Narnia flowed quickly from Jack’s imagination, through his pen and on to paper. By the end of 1949 he finished writing the second Narnia tale: Prince Caspian.

Enter Reepicheep

In Prince Caspian we meet Reepicheep, the Talking Mouse. He is well over a foot high, when he stands on his hind legs, and wears a rapier at his side. Reepicheep and his army of mice offer great help in the battle against the Telmarines, jabbing many enemy feet with their swords, causing them to fall, and then finishing them off.

However, it is in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that Reepicheep becomes a major character. It is in this book that he travels to the world’s end and arrives in Aslan’s country. Of this part of the story Jack once wrote: “anyone in our world who devotes his whole life to seeking Heaven will be like Reepicheep.”

Young readers would often draw pictures of Reepicheep and send them to C. S. Lewis. One reader even made a statue of the Talking Mouse and sent it to him. Jack treasured the gift and placed it on the mantle in his study.

Now you know how the boy who loved mice grew up to be a professor who created one of the most beloved mice in all literature.

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Will Vaus, author of Mere Theology, The Professor of Narnia, The Hidden Story of Narnia, and The Hidden Story of Narnia: A Book-by-Book Guide to C. S. Lewis’ Spiritual Themes.

And the Winners Are

2010-11-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

Thank you so to everyone who participated in sharing your thoughts in the "Year with Aslan" contest. All of your comments show how these books are transformative and help to provide a narrative for a greater story - a deeper magic.

We picked three respondents: Sandy Smith, Johan and Narnianut. Please email the site editor at zkincaid(at)mac.com and include your full name and address. Thank you for participating in this contest and contributing to cslewis.com.

Contest: A Year with Aslan

2010-10-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

For more than fifty years, the world C. S. Lewis created in Narnia has captured our hearts and imaginations. Both children and adults have discovered that rereading the books leads to entirely new experiences and insights. In the midst of these breathtaking stories of adventure, betrayal, and discovery in a magical land are profound messages about the true meaning of life.

Whether it is Eustace struggling with his dragon skin, Digory debating obedience to Aslan versus saving his mother, or Edmund facing his shame after his rescue from the White Witch, the questions and dilemmas facing the characters are surprisingly relevant to us today. By pondering the world of Narnia, we better understand our own.

In the first book of its kind, A Year with Aslan offers 365 of the most thought-provoking passages from all seven books, paired with reflective questions that get at the heart of what matters most. An unprecedented way to experience the magic of Narnia every day of the year, A Year with Aslan allows us all to go “Further up and further in!”

Contest: Is there a passage from one of the books that you continually reflect upon or has held in your memory over time? Share it with us. Leave a comment below or email Zach Kincaid at zkincaid(at)mac.com. (The contest will be open from 10/6 through 10/21 and three winners will be chosen. No purchase necessary, estimated prize value $23. Don’t forget to read the rules.)

How C. S. Lewis “Prefutes” Stephen Hawking

2010-09-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

by David Downing
Last summer Sarah Palin accidentally coined the word refudiate, apparently an amalgam of “refute” and “repudiate.” I would like to propose a kindred word, prefute, which means to neutralize someone’s arguments before they have even been proposed.

In a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 10, 2010), physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow try to explain “Why God Did Not Create the Universe.” I would argue that, more than half a century ago, C. S. Lewis had already prefuted the central claims of Hawking and his associates.

Hawking and Mlodinow begin by explaining that the Vikings thought eclipses were caused by great wolves catching the sun or the moon. The authors contrast this almost comically erroneous notion with contemporary methods for seeking truth: “Today we use reason, mathematics, and experimental test—in other words, modern science.”

For readers of C. S. Lewis, the stark contrast of the primitive superstitions of yesteryear with those cutting-edge words “today” and “modern” may well call to mind the advice of the senior devil, Screwtape, to an apprentice tempter: “Don’t waste time trying to make him [a human subject] think that materialism is true! Make him think it is . . . the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about” (12).

Hawking and Mlodinow go on to discuss the ways in which our solar system, our whole universe, seems fine tuned in order to allow for matter and for life, including human life. They list an impressive array of cosmic variables that if altered only by infinitesimal amounts would have eliminated any chance of living beings in our universe. At first glance, this would seem to suggest a Cosmic Architect who custom-designed this universe to permit our existence on this planet. But the authors go on to note that there are perhaps billions of solar systems in this universe. And theoretical models in mathematics would allow for countless parallel universes, all with their own laws and their own evolution. We exist then, not because of a Creator, but because we won a cosmic lottery, beating nearly infinite odds amid billions of other planets, and perhaps billions of other universes, where the cosmic parameters would not permit life as we know it.

Hawking and Mlodinow conclude, “As recent advances of cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fireworks fuse] and set the universe going.”

That conclusion seems to require a breath-taking logical leap from one sentence to the next. First we learn that the laws of physics would allow for a universe to arise ex nihilo. Then suddenly we are informed, as surely as night follows day, that this is what happened. The theoretical possibility becomes an unarguable reality. Some might not call this a logical leap at all, but rather a leap of faith.

Over half a century ago (in “The Laws of Nature,” 1945), C. S. Lewis asked readers to consider more carefully what we mean by the laws of physics. He noted that there are observed regularities in nature. If billiard ball A strikes billiard ball B in a certain way, then the second ball will move off at a predictable angle and rate of speed. But it was not any law of physics that set the second ball in motion; it was presumably the player who shot the first ball. As Lewis concludes, “In the whole history of the universe, the laws of Nature have never produced a single event” (God in the Dock, 77).

When Hawking and Mlodinow observe that “the laws of gravity and quantum mechanics allow universes to appear,” they are surely not asserting intention or agency, as if laws of physics allow universes to appear the same way parents might allow their children to go outside and play. But they seem to beg the prior question: from whence arose the laws of gravity and quantum mechanics? Who passed those laws?

Ironically, C. S. Lewis was not an early proponent of Intelligent Design. His book The Problem of Pain (1940) begins with one of the most forceful cases for atheism that has ever been made. After describing the universe as understood by contemporary science, Lewis concludes: “All stories will come to nothing: all life will turn out in the end to have been a transitory and senseless contortion upon the idiotic face of infinite matter. If you ask me to believe this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotent spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit” (1-2). Lewis goes on to build his case for faith not upon unexpected features of the physical universe but rather upon nature of human consciousness and the revelations of the Divine that have emerged in human history.

Lewis was not content to define God simply as a First Cause, a tradition that goes back at least as far as Aristotle and which apparently continues in the background thinking of Hawking and Mlodinow. Lewis noted that you can read all the plays of Shakespeare and never meet a character named Shakespeare who compels the others to act as they do. As Lewis concludes, “If God exists, he is related to the universe more as an author to his play than as one object in the universe is related to another. If God created the universe, he created space-time, which is to the universe as the metre to the poem or the key to the music.” In this way of thinking, it is pointless “to look for Him as one item within the framework which He himself invented” (Christian Reflections, 169).

Hawking and Mlodinow make the tools of modern science--our methods for discovering truth--sound simple and straightforward: “reason, mathematics, and experimental test.” To Lewis, the trained philosopher, this would sound woefully naïve. He would steer the discussion away from cosmology toward epistemology. Anticipating Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Lewis noted that new models of the cosmos emerge when “the mental temper” of an age demands them. He observes that new models are “not set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up when the inner need becomes sufficiently great. It will be true evidence. But nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her” (The Discarded Image, 168-169).

Hawking and Mlodinow are renowned physicists who write on abstruse issues with admirable clarity. But Lewis almost seemed to have them in mind when he wrote a half a century ago that our external observations should always be supplemented by some alert inward gazing: “If you take nature as a teacher, it will teach you exactly the lessons you had already decided to learn.” (The Four Loves, p. 35).

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Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis. He currently serves as a consulting editor for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Downing's next book Looking For the King: An Inklings Novel will be published by Ignatius Press in October 2010. His college website may be found at http://users.etown.edu/d/downindc/)

Corkscrews, Cathedrals, and the Chronicles of Narnia

2010-09-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

by Devin Brown
C. S. Lewis opens “A Preface to Paradise Lost” with an imperative for all would-be critics: "The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew to a cathedral is to know what it is—what it was intended to do and how it is meant to be used. After that has been discovered the temperance reformer may decide that the corkscrew was made for a bad purpose, and the communist may think the same about the cathedral. But such questions come later. The first thing is to understand the object before you: as long as you think the corkscrew was meant for opening tins or the cathedral for entertaining tourists you can say nothing to the purpose about them."

Lewis goes on to note that regarding Paradise Lost, the first thing we need know is “what Milton meant it to be,” a need which he argues is “specially urgent in the present age because the kind of poem Milton meant to write is unfamiliar to many readers.”

Lewis concludes that we can know we have misunderstood an author’s intention when we “regard as faults … those very properties which the poet labored hardest to attain and which, rightly enjoyed, are essential to its specific delightfulness.”

Perhaps—now sixty years after the initial publication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—we have come to a point in time where similar claims could be made about the Chronicles of Narnia. The first qualification before judging Lewis’s classic fairy stories is to be sure we understand what they were intended to do, a need which could similarly be argued is “specially urgent in the present age.” Why does this need exist? Because the kind of story Lewis set out to write in the summer of 1948 is unfamiliar to many modern readers since the general intention of many writers today has become so different from that of Lewis.

In an essay titled “The Judgment of Memory” Joseph Bottum describes how in recent years fiction writers have become better and better at serving up finer and finer observations about objects which get smaller and smaller, better and better at writing prose that takes the form of revelation but which in fact does not intend to reveal anything. Gone is the sense that the author intends to use these details to say something which goes beyond them—that all these exquisite details are supposed to add up to something. Gone, Bottum writes, is the sense that we live in what he calls “a universe of intelligibility,” a world which can to some extent be understood, a world with purpose and meaning.

“One way to tell the literary history of the twentieth century,” Bottum states, “is to follow the progression of an extremely bookish people who grew more and more uncertain, more and more diffident, more and more self-conscious about the entire idea of telling a story or using the narrative finality of stories to convey unified judgments about society, history, or even themselves.” If past writing was story-driven, contemporary literature has become more and more detail-driven, and while details are critical to storytelling, a mere catalog of details does not satisfy the soul.

In several of his essays, Lewis explains that he wrote fairy stories because they were the form that could say best what he wanted to say. One kind of critic of the Chronicles of Narnia fails to understand Lewis’s underlying intention, fails to recognize that Lewis intended his fiction to go beyond mere observations and to say something. Even A Grief Observed, although beginning in observations, does not stop there but ends in conclusions and truths that Lewis works his way through to.

If one kind of critic fails to understand the Chronicles’ basic intention because it differs radically from that found in many current works, a second kind of critic is well aware of their intention and derides all books with such a goal.

Lewis describes this second type of critic in his essay “On Science Fiction,” arguing: “Many reviews are useless because, while purporting to condemn the book, they only reveal the reviewer’s dislike of the kind to which it belongs. Let bad tragedies be censured by those who love tragedy, and bad detective stories by those who love the detective story. Otherwise we shall find epics blamed for not being novels, farces for not being high comedies, novels by James for lacking the swift action of Smollett.”

Lewis goes on to say that he himself did not like detective stories and so if he attempted to write a review about one detective story in particular, he would “infallibly write drivel.” Lewis’s point about “criticism of kinds” is not that it is worthless but that “it should not masquerade as criticism of individual works.”

“Who wants to hear a particular claret abused by a fanatical teetotaler?” Lewis asks. One might look at these two types of critics and echo: “Who wants to hear the Chronicles of Narnia abused by people who either fail to understand Lewis’s intention or, understanding it, detest it?”

J. R. R. Tolkien makes a similar point about critics who attempt to evaluate a specific work of a type they dislike in general. In the Foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien states: "Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."

Lewis intended the details in the Chronicles of Narnia to add up to something. Lewis’s storytelling in the Chronicles of Narnia, and in all his fiction, was intended to provide insight into the human condition—penetrating insight, I would claim—and to reveal truths about life, our life. In a world were fewer and fewer works seek to do this, and fewer and fewer critics find merit in those that do, I would argue that perhaps one reason these books and their film adaptations are so widely popular is because they are so widely needed.

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Devin Brown is a Lilly Scholar and Professor of English at Asbury University, where, among other duties, he teaches a class on Lewis. He is the author of Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Baker 2005) and Inside Prince Caspian: A Guide to Exploring the Return to Narnia (Baker 2008). His third book on Lewis and Narnia, Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will be released next month.

Operation Narnia

2010-08-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

We found an interesting partnership recently between the Narnia film projects and Samaritan's purse, a nonprofit organization that works with the very poor around the world. This blurb is from the website.

Operation Narnia is a partnership with the Samaritan's Purse program, Operation Christmas Child, to bring the joy of Christmas to kids all over the world! This is the perfect opportunity for your family and friends to spread cheer and hope to needy boys and girls in over 130 countries. With your help, our goal is to deliver more than 8 million shoe boxes, filled with items that will be meaningful to a child – toys, stuffed animals, school supplies, hard candy, and hygiene items. These boxes are then delivered to local collection centers around the country and shipped in time for the Christmas season.

The site also has a trailer of the new Narnia film that is due out in December.

Growing up with C.S. Lewis (And Staying Young With Jack)

2010-08-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

by Malcom Guite
A great paradox at the heart of Christianity is that Christians are called to be both child-like and mature! On the one hand Jesus says “whosoever shall not receive the kingdom as a little child, he shall not enter therein (Mark 10:15) on the other hand Paul reminds us: ‘That we henceforth be no more like children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine … but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.’ (Ephesians 4:14-15)

This paradox also goes right to the heart of C.S. Lewis’s vision of life and a reading of his works helps us to ask and answer the questions raised by this strange double command that we should grow up and at the same time remain children; what is the difference between the childish and the child-like? what is true maturity?

Phillip Pullman has famously accused Lewis of preaching an infantalising religion and refusing to let his characters grow up, but this is very wide of the mark, for the Narnia stories are in fact a profound and subtle exploration of what it means to grow up, of how we find true maturity without abandoning or despising the gifts and insights of our childhood.

That Lewis could write immortal children’s tales in late middle age, and weave into those tales such truth and vision that the children who first read them at 8 or 9 keep returning to them in adult life and finding more and more, is a sign that he retained to the end, 'the child within', to borrow George Macdonald’s phrase. And yet in those very stories he provides for both children and grown-ups some very searching truths about what it is both to be a child and to grow up.

For though they are stories for children they are, in a profound sense, stories about growing up. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the story of a journey to a coronation, the profoundly symbolic moment when a prince becomes a king, a princess becomes a queen, always symbols, in the world of fairy tales, of becoming adult. Though in Lewis’s handling, the coronation is also a profound symbol of our ‘royal priesthood’ and of maturity in Christ. Both the witch and Aslan promise a coronation, but offer very different visions of what it means and how it is to be achieved. What the witch pretends she can offer Edmund is the childish wish-fulfilment fantasy version of adult power, to 'wear a gold crown and eat Turkish delight all day long’. Her offer of ‘adulthood’ plays on and exaggerates exactly what is most childish in Edmund; the childish desire to be 'grown-up'. This desire has its place in the young but as Lewis observes in his essay "On Three Ways Of Writing For Children" the sign of true maturity is a freedom to reconnect with the child in oneself:

“To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grownup because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence...but to carry on into ...early manhood a concern about being adult is really a mark of arrested development. When I was 10 I read faity tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so now that i am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things; including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." (In C.S. Lewis Essay Collection; Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories ed. Lesley Walmsley Harper Collins 2000 p.99)

Parallel, and contrasted with the scene in which the witch tempts Edmund with fantasy kingship, is the scene in which Aslan shows Peter a glimpse of Cair Paravel in the distance, the castle in which he is to be king, and the way in which, far from infantalising Peter, as the witch does Edmund, Aslan allows Peter to face his wolf and win his spurs and so grow into his kingship. In the end Edmund too leaves the false path of childish 'maturity, the fantasy of lording it over others.

Learning, and so growing, by bitter experience, he comes at last to join the others at their coronation. But the coronation, itself the sign of their maturity, is preceded in Lewis's narrative by the glorious playful and child-link romp with Aslan and the little vignette in which the children paddle in the sea and get the sand between their toes, signs that they have accomplished that true growth in maturity which includes, rather than abandons the child within. As Lewis comments a little later in his essay on writing for children "A tree grows because it adds rings" (ibid p.100) and in that image touching as it does on the first psalm, that sees us as a tree planted by the water, he gives us a picture of what it might mean to fulfil both halves of the paradox, to be like Christ's ‘child in the midst’ and yet also to grow up into the fulness of His stature.

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Born in Nigeria and raised in Africa and Canada, Malcolm Guite is a poet and singer-songwriter living in Cambridge, where he also works as a priest and academic. He has published two collections of poetry; Saying the Names (2002) and The Magic Apple Tree (2004) and has also published poems in Radix, The Mars Hill Review, Crux, Second Spring and the Ambler. He has played in rock’n’ roll band The Crocodiles, trad jazz outfit Ecu-Jazz, and is currently front man for Cambridge rockers Mystery Train. He has collaborated and recorded with Kevin Flanagan on the Rip-Rap jazz-poetry project and also Flanagan’s Oratorio The Ten Thousand Things for which he wrote the libretto. His CD The Green Man is out on Cambridge Riffs and iTunes.

His book Faith Hope and Poetry is published by Ashgate in September 2010 and he has contributed the chapter on Lewis as poet to The Cambridge Companion to CS Lewis. Read more

News & Pews Resource

2010-08-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

HarperOne, publisher of this blog and the C. S. Lewis books you know and love, wants to better serve the Christian community. We’ve been talking to our authors and friends in the Church and one of the suggestions we’ve repeatedly received is the need for a timely online newsletter that would keep church leaders abreast of new books, special offers, authors in the news, trends, ideas, and resources for ministers and other church leaders.

Today we are excited to announce the launch of New & Pews, a free monthly e-newsletter born out of these discussions. The first issue releases in early September. Please visit www.newsandpews.com to subscribe and learn more about it. We also invite you to join the News & Pews page on Facebook. It is our hope that News & Pews will help Church leaders in their work and worship by highlighting the authors, books, and ideas that matter most today. We hope you’ll help us by inviting your colleagues, friends, and peers to subscribe (for free!).

Thank you for helping HarperOne become a more thoughtful, responsive publishing partner to the Christian community.

“The Sound and Savor” of Words: Lewis on the Art of Writing

2010-07-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

by David Downing
I recently received a student essay explaining that “immigration, taxation, and economic exploitation have contributed to polarization across our nation.” Apart from its broad generalizing, the essay was clearly not written to be read aloud. Its rat-a-tat prose assaults the ear as if it were composed by an unlikely committee of bureaucrats and hip hop artists. I think if this student delves into the works of C.S. Lewis, it will not only stimulate his intellect and enrich his imagination; it will also improve his writing style.

C. S. Lewis published nearly forty books in his life-time, most of which are still in print. Apart from his Narnia Chronicles, which continue to sell millions of copies a year, Lewis distinguished himself in many genres—memoir, essays, poetry, allegory, literary criticism, philosophical analysis, fantasy, and historical fiction. So when Lewis took time to comment on the art of writing, his observations are well worth considering.

As he became increasingly renowned in his later years, Lewis was inundated with letters on just about every topic imaginable—from spiritual direction to Spinoza to spelling. He did his best to answer as many letters as he could, though this became an onerous task. Lewis explained to one correspondent that he had answered 35 letters that day; on a different occasion, he noted that he had spent 14 hours that day catching up on his correspondence (CL 2, 509; 3, 1152).

Lewis was a diligent reader of writing samples submitted to him, both from close friends and from complete strangers. He offered general evaluative remarks, but also comments on specific lines and particular word choices. Sometimes he replied by offering a quick primer on the art of writing. To a little girl from Florida he offered these five principles:

“Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean, and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.”
“Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t say implement promises, but keep them.”
Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘more people died,’ don’t say ‘mortality rose.’
“Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing.” Under this heading, Lewis goes on to say that the writing should delight readers, not just label an event delightful; or it should make them feel terror, not just to learn that an event was terrifying. He says that emotional labeling is really just a way of asking readers, ‘Please, will you do my job for me?’
“Don’t use words that are too big for the subject.” Lewis illustrates this point by saying if you use infinitely as an intensifier instead of the simple word very, you won’t have any word left when you need to describe something that is truly infinite. (CL, 3, 766).

Lewis recommended these same principles to many other correspondents. He frequently emphasized that one’s writing should be simple, clear, concrete, and jargon-free. He also reiterated that one should Show, not Tell, that writers should capture sensory impressions and evoke emotions instead of simply offering an emotional label for what the reader is supposed to feel.

Lewis also believed that one should always write for the ear as well as for the eye. He recommended that a piece of prose be read aloud, to make sure that its sounds reinforce its sense. In discussing Greek and Latin texts, he said it wasn’t enough to work out the literal meaning of the lines; the translator should also recognize the “sound and savor of the language” (CL 1, 422).

Most certainly, Lewis felt the same way about English prose. To his friend Arthur Greeves, for example, he defined style as “the art of expressing a given thought in the most beautiful words and rhythms of words.” To illustrate, he offered first this phrase: “When the constellations which appear at early morning joined in musical exercises and the angelic spirits loudly testified to their satisfaction.” Then he gave the actual phrase as it appears in the King James Bible: “When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:70).

Lewis’s advice on writing is worth studying partly because he was so eminently successful in practicing what he preached. Lewis’s reputation shows no sign of diminishing nearly a half century after his death in 1963. His Narnia Chronicles continue as perennial best-sellers, and they have been hailed in The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature as “the most sustained achievement in fantasy for children by a 20th-century author.” Lewis’s books of popular theology continue to enjoy widespread influence and appeal. And, to this reader, turning to most contemporary critics after reading Lewis’s scholarly work is like (in his own phrase) “tinsel after diamonds.” (CL 2, 247).

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Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis. He currently serves as a consulting editor for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Downing's next book Looking For the King: An Inklings Novel will be published by Ignatius Press in October 2010. His college website may be found at http://users.etown.edu/d/downindc/)

The Screwtape Letters On Stage: Review of the Show

2010-07-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

A Review by James E. Como
From the opening moment – as His Abysmal Sublimity, Screwtape, proposes a toast at the Annual Dinner of the Tempters’ Training College for young devils – our fears are set aside and we realize how nice it is to see this particular devil back in full raging form, and that there is nothing out-dated or quaint about him; the passage of time has diluted neither his virulence nor his relevance.

Recall that this is a play set in Hell and concerns a senior devil – Screwtape – writing letters to his nephew, an apprentice tempter whom he guides in his attempts to lure a mortal towards eternal damnation. One false move in terms of tone, and the play would fail, but, thankfully, Max McLean as Screwtape hits all the right notes. (The set design, bringing to mind a Lovecraftian ossuary designed by H.R. Giger, contributes greatly to the play’s success as well).

As Screwtape, McLean is appropriately sardonic and world-weary (or would that be Hell-weary?). Droll and eloquent, he is at times languid and self-satisfied, like a sated predator; when excited, McLean uses his stentorian voice to great effect (one can’t help but to compare him to the great British actor Brian Blessed, he of the deep, booming voice and stately carriage, crossed with the sly mischief of Rip Torn), especially during one of his vitriolic, red-faced rants. It is during these volcanic, rambuctious, half-screamed, all-proselytizing effusions that we realize we are in the presence of a riveting, charismatic form of evil -- the very worst kind, but also the most entertaining. Thus McLean captures the essence of what makes Lewis’ novella (first published in 1942) so effective: due to his silver tongue, Screwtape enthralls us, and we overlook the fact that Lewis is speaking directly to us, without preaching and without judgment. It is through Screwtape and his correspondence that Lewis urges us to take our Faith seriously, and to take seriously all that might undermine our Faith and our Hope – a rallying cry during the darkness of World War II, and no less potent a cry today during these grim and troubled times, as all times tend to be.

In all, seventy minutes of wonderful, timely, refreshing, and unsettling theatre, upstairs at the Westside Theatre, thanks to the Fellowship for the Performing Arts -- and to Jack, who still does not disappoint.

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One of CS Lewis’ most influential works, The Screwtape Letters, has been adapted into a critically acclaimed theater production. After completing a successful national tour selling out theaters in major cities such as Chicago and Washington DC, the play opened Off-Broadway in April and tickets are currently on sale through September 5.

If you’re in the New York area don’t miss this opportunity to see one of the great works brought to life on stage. For tickets and more information visit the website at www.screwtapeonstage.com.

A Cancer in the Universe

2010-07-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

by David Naugle
"I agree Technology is per se neutral: but a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the Universe. Certainly if he goes on his present course much further man can not be trusted with knowledge." - C. S. Lewis, responding to a letter from Arthur C. Clarke

My back was turned completely to the classroom. I sat atop a stool behind the lectern, with trademark white wires fashionably dangling from each ear-bud in route to my iPod. I was also scanning a book, obviously multi-tasking!

Outwardly absorbed in the music and the text before me, I pretended not to notice as about thirty-five students shuffled incrementally into to my introduction to philosophy class on the first day of a new spring semester. Though I knew the lecture hall had filled up, I turned around on my seat and pretended to be surprised by a classroom full of students. I was too electronically pre-occupied to notice!

With a newfound presence of mind, I proceeded with regular, first-day formalities: a cordial welcome, a Scripture reading and prayer (I teach at a Christian university), then the class roll, followed by an overview of the syllabus… only to be interrupted by a planned call and a bogus text message on my cell phone, the advent of both signaled by appropriate electronic sounds. My wife was texting me to remind me about the delinquent electric bill, and a friend phoned me up to talk about Tiger’s miraculous triumph at a PGA event the day before. At least that’s what I told the class, fingers crossed behind my back!

In my effort to stimulate interest and get students’ attention, I was trying to demonstrate how technology affects our lives and impacts our relationships, often without our awareness. They began to catch on to my antics, slowly but surely. At a propitious moment, I passed out a one-page handout on a philosophy of technology with a succinct definition and few themes briefly summarized, as I explained that a chief goal of our class was to move from a state of pre-reflectivity to reflectivity, from unexamined to examined lives! The response, I must say, was gratifying!

Perhaps it’s megalomania, but I think C. S. Lewis would have appreciated this pedagogical gimmick of mine and here’s why: he believed that the most significant line of division in Western history occurred between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the reason was because of the rising prevalence of science and the application of technology to everyday life!

This was a main point Lewis made in his Cambridge Inaugural Lecture titled De Descriptione Temporum (Latin: “A Description of the Times”) when he was installed as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University in 1954. Lewis was suspicious of dividing history into time periods, even though he saw them as useful historical tools. Quoting Cambridge historian G. M. Trevelyan, Lewis declared: “Unlike dates, periods are not facts” (DDT, p. 2). Thus, Lewis disputed with those who wanted to draw the thickest line of demarcation in occidental culture in the seventeenth century “with the general acceptance of Copernicanism, the dominance of Descartes, and (in England) the foundation of the Royal Society” (DDT, p. 6-7). To be sure, science and its technological offspring were making great strides during that transitional century, but had yet to become socially pervasive. Science, Lewis stated, was “like a lion-cub whose gambols delighted its master in private; it had not yet tasted man’s blood” (DDT, p. 7). Up to this point, science dealt mostly with lifeless nature and slung out a few technologies. However, it was not yet the business of humanity because humanity was not yet the business of science (DDT, p. 7, paraphrased). But when human persons became the scientific target — between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — everything changed: “When Watt makes his engine, when Darwin starts monkeying around with the ancestry of Man, and Freud with his soul, and the economists with all that is his, then indeed the lion will have got out of his cage. Its liberated presence in our midst will become one of the most important factors in everyone’s daily life” (DDT, p. 7).

Point well taken! But is this progress?

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Why Read Old Books: History and Its Relevance

2010-07-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

by Dan Hamilton
An Introduction is a signpost - pointing not to itself but to the pages that follow. While “On the Reading of Old Books” is usually reprinted (and presented) as a stand-alone essay by Lewis, it is actually the introduction to a book written by someone else: "The Incarnation of the Word of God: Being the Treatise of St. Athanasius DE INCARNATIONE VERBI DEI, Newly Translated by a Religious of C.S.M.V. St. Th."

This book appeared in 1944 from Centenary Press/Bles (in England) and later from MacMillan (in the US); it has been reprinted at least twice since then in paperback form.

There is a progression here: to talk intelligently about the Introduction, we should first talk about the book it introduces. But to talk profitably about the book, it is enormously useful to talk first about the friendship behind it. (And one suspects a friendship, because the book is dedicated to Lewis!)

The self-effacing “religious” was actually Ruth Penelope Lawson, who was born in 1890 and had entered the (Anglican) convent of the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin (at Wantage, near Oxford) in 1912. Sister Penelope studied theology and church history, and expressed her practical delight in Greek and Latin by translating numerous works from the early church fathers. She had already written several books of her own by 1939, including Scenes from the Psalms and Leaves from the Trees.

Sister Penelope read and admired Out of the Silent Planet, a book that had appeared in 1938 – written by C. S. Lewis, a don at Magdalene College in neighboring Oxford. Sister Penelope wrote a letter to Lewis in August 1939, and praised his book for (among other things) being thought-provoking, delightful, and scripturally-based. She pronounced it “more lovely and more satisfying than anything I have met before” and inquired if he planned a sequel to the story. She also enclosed a copy of her own recent book, God Persists: A Short Survey of World History in the Light of Christian Faith.

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Announcement: Screwtape on Stage

2010-06-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

One of CS Lewis’ most influential works, The Screwtape Letters, has been adapted into a critically acclaimed theater production. After completing a successful national tour selling out theaters in major cities such as Chicago and Washington DC, the play opened Off-Broadway in April and tickets are currently on sale through September 5.

If you’re in the New York area don’t miss this opportunity to see one of the great works brought to life on stage. For tickets and more information visit the website at www.screwtapeonstage.com.

C. S. Lewis & Three Wars: 1941 (Pt 2)

2010-06-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

by Joel Heck
[Read Part 1] The university church, St. Mary the Virgin, where Lewis spoke on at least two occasions, held a weekly Sunday evening service. Lewis delivered his famous talk, “The Weight of Glory,” at St. Mary on Sunday evening, June 8, 1941, at a time when the Second World War was in full swing. In that talk, he held up the infinite worth of the individual human soul and our responsibility to care for it and to witness to it. Beauty turns out to be a pointer to something not yet experienced, an expression of a desire for heaven. There are no ordinary people. Since heaven is the ultimate goal, we need to recognize that every moment of every day, we are helping people toward that goal or away from it.

(Photo: Lewis with Paddy Moore during the War) “The Weight of Glory” was delivered less than a month after the end of the London Blitz. During World War Two, the London Blitz of 1940-1941 was Germany’s attempt to bring England to its knees. In July 1940, Hitler had given Hermann Goering the task of destroying British air power before invading Britain. In August the Battle of Britain began, and on September 7 German bombers struck London. The Blitz struck London for fifty-seven consecutive days and then off and on until May 10 and 11, 1941, the worst part of the Blitz, just a few days after Lewis had his microphone test in preparation for his first series of BBC broadcasts. Beginning in April, Lewis had begun to lecture on weekends for the RAF, giving theological talks to pilots on a lay level, a practice which continued through July 1945. These pilots were crucial to the defense of the British Isles, and Lewis helped maintain their morale.

Lewis began his BBC radio talks on August 6. Lewis had been invited by Rev. James Welch, Director of Religious Broadcasting for the BBC. Welch had been so impressed by Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain that he concluded that Lewis was the clear voice he had been seeking to champion Christianity. Welch wrote to Lewis on Feb. 7, 1941 to ask him to consider a series of radio talks on the BBC. Lewis agreed and gave five talks under the title “Right and Wrong: A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.” The second series “What Christians Believe” was arranged in 1941 and given in the following year. These two series were published together under the title Broadcast Talks and later as the first half of Mere Christianity.

In the fall of 1941, Lewis’s essay “Religion: Reality or Substitute?” again took aim at Freud’s theories. Lewis admitted that the psychologists appeared at first glance to have a good case. But a closer look at realities and substitutes suggested that it was often difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the substitute. His own experience as a boy with the gramophone, in comparison to a live orchestra, taught him that musical miseducation could lead one, as it did him, to think the reality to be a substitute and the substitute to be a reality. A father could just as easily be a substitute for God, who is the reality, instead of Freud’s view that God is a substitute for a father figure. One must learn from one of three sources—authority, reason, or experience—and link that source to faith.

On Dec. 1, 2, and 3, 1941, Lewis gave the Ballard Matthews lectures at the University College of North Wales in Bangor, Wales (now Bangor University). If World War Two was the first war going on at this time and theology was the playing field for the second war, this was Lewis’s third war, the one that was taking place in the field of English literature. These lectures were later published as A Preface to “Paradise Lost.” Lewis had been lecturing on Milton for some time, so this series of lectures in Wales was a revision of those Oxford lectures.

In these lectures, Lewis challenged the notions that Satan was the hero of Paradise Lost (as Blake and Shelley held), that Adam and Eve were naïve in Eden, and that Paradise Lost was a monument to dead ideas (as Sir Walter Raleigh thought). In addition, Lewis further responded to I. A. Richards. Richards taught that literature produced “a wholesome equilibrium of our psychological attitudes,” and Lewis agreed, and Richards regarded literature that drew out stock responses as bad literature, but Lewis disagreed. Lewis said that certain stock responses were “the first necessities of human life,” coming from “a delicate balance of trained habits, laboriously acquired and easily lost.” Those stock responses are a part of the education that young people need, because they develop trained emotions, virtue, and morality, something that Lewis especially encouraged in The Abolition of Man. In The Abolition of Man Lewis later defended the value of classical literature and philosophy, thereby supporting traditional ideas of the Beautiful, the Good, and the True (all characteristics of the Tao) and opposing the errors of Richards and others that would lead to men without chests and, indeed, to the end of man as we know him.

In A Preface, Lewis also expressed his dissatisfaction with the quest for the historical Jesus, which created a Jesus completely different from that of the Gospels. In addition to agreeing with parts of the writings of Richards, Lewis also wrote affirmatively of David G. James (1905-1968). James agreed with Richards, that poetry produced a wholesome equilibrium of our attitudes, and offered his own idea that poetry produced a secondary imagination, which gives us a view of the world.

One of Lewis’s chief objections to the interpretation of Paradise Lost came in Prof. Denis Saurat, who had suggested that it was necessary to disentangle Milton’s thought from “theological rubbish.” You wouldn’t have John Milton, claimed Lewis, if you removed his theology from his poetry. Saurat was apparently unhappy with the profound Christian theology that appears in Paradise Lost, as also was Dr. F. R. Leavis, whom Lewis mentioned later in the book. Lewis and Leavis differed on the nature of man, Lewis wrote, rather than the properties of Milton’s poetry. Lewis also mentioned Henry More six times in this book for his belief that the writings of the Pagans contained a good deal of truth and that aerial spirits or daemons, which appeared in Paradise Lost, existed. More, a seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist, was the philosopher about whom Lewis had at one point entertained the possibility of writing a doctoral dissertation.

In A Preface, Lewis also gave a passing reference to several authors. First, he wrote favorably about Charles Williams’s Introduction to the 1940 work, The English Poems of John Milton, which helped readers to understand Milton’s Messiah. Williams wrote that we should see the Messiah in Milton’s work as a cosmic Son rather than the incarnate Lord. Secondly, he mentioned James Joyce’s novel Ulysses for its popularity based on its disorganized stream-of-consciousness technique, stating that Milton must not be criticized for failing to write in Joyce’s manner. In Chapter II, he also disagreed with Eliot’s position that only poets can judge poetry. Thirdly, he mentioned T. S. Eliot’s dislike of epic poetry, stating that Eliot must not conclude that all poetry should have the qualities that Eliot’s has. Finally, Lewis mentioned Mr. Brian Hone (1907-1978), a Rhodes Scholar of New College, Oxford (1932) approvingly for his comment about needing notes for reading Milton much like Milton would need notes if he read a modern book. Hone, later a teacher and schoolmaster, had been tutored in English by Lewis.

Lewis’s short essay, “Edmund Spenser,” later retitled “On Reading The Faerie Queene,” first appeared in Fifteen Poets from Oxford University Press (1941). In it, he discussed the young reader of The Faerie Queene (Lewis first read Spenser as a young reader), the mature reader, and the ideal reader. Spenser was the last of the medieval poets, even though The Faerie Queene was not really medieval, and the first of the romantic medievalists. His hope was to encourage the modern reader to read Spenser, even though it differed greatly from the usual reading fare. By encouraging the reading of Spenser Lewis was helping to rehabilitate the attitude of the Middle Ages with its old school values, including chivalry, the love of God, courage, honor, and hospitality.

The year 1941 was the second most prolific year in Lewis’s life up to this point in his career. Little did he know that in future years he would surpass this total of nine publications in one year twelve times and match it twice. While World War Two would end in 1945, the wars being fought about the Christian faith and various aspects of the academic discipline of English would continue to the end of Lewis’s life.

Appendix I: Lewis Publications: 1941 (nine published pieces in approximate chronological order)

“Meditation on the Third Commandment” from The Guardian on January 10, 1941 (Christian Reunion and Other Essays, 15; also God in the Dock)

“Evil and God” in The Spectator, Vol. CLXVI, on February 7, 1941 (Christian Reunion and Other Essays, 15; also God in the Dock)

“‘Bulverism’” (as “Notes on the Way”) in Time and Tide, Vol. XXII, on March 29, 1941 (God in the Dock, 16)

“Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism” was published in Essays and Studies, Vol. XXVII (1941, probably June; originally delivered on Jan. 28, 1940 to the English Adventurers Society) (Selected Literary Essays, xix) Originally read to a literary society at Westfield College and elsewhere.

“The Weight of Glory” was preached in St. Mary the Virgin Church, Oxford, on June 8, 1941 (The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 18)

Broadcast Talks (‘Right and Wrong: A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe’ and ‘What Christians Believe’, given on August 6, 13, 20, and 27, and Sept. 3, 1941) (Bles 1942; as The Case for Christianity, Macmillan 1943) (in Mere Christianity)

“Religion: Reality or Substitute” (Christian Reflections, xiii) appeared in World Dominion (September-October 1941)

A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’ (“Being the Ballard Matthews Lectures Delivered at University College, North Wales, Dec. 1, 2, and 3, 1941, Revised and Enlarged”) (Oxford 1942)

“On Reading The Fairie Queene” first appeared in Fifteen Poets under the title “Edmund Spenser” (Oxford University Press, 1941) (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, ix).

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Since 1998, Rev. Dr. Joel D. Heck has served Concordia University at Austin as Professor of Theology. He teaches courses in Old Testament, New Testament, Reformation history, and the life and writings of C. S. Lewis. Read more about Dr. Heck.

Duty with a Stamp: “Half My Life is Spent Answering Letters”

2010-06-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

by Andrew Cuneo
When the third volume of C.S. Lewis’s Collected Letters came out in 2006, it did not receive nearly the attention it deserved. Its publication, however, marked the summit of assembling and editing which Walter Hooper almost single-handedly accomplished in the space of eight years. But where were the mainstream reviews or the critical assessments, and what might be said of the Letters’ benefit to Lewis scholarship?

To be fair, three volumes of over a thousand pages each take some digesting. Volume I provides the portrait of a man in intellectual formation: here is the Romantic, the poet, the Idealist, the classicist, the tutor in English, the son of Albert, and the friend of Arthur Greeves. While the contents of this volume are some of the most lengthy and detailed, they are also often not as satisfying as the letter-writer of Volume II who encountered a larger world. Indeed, Volume II marks the crest of the wave. Successes on many literary fronts in Lewis’s late 30’s and 40’s brought his formidable mind into contact with the scholars and laity interested in Lewis’s academic, fictional, and apologetic contributions. From the security of the routine – the routine of typing letters with his brother Warren, the routine of Oxford terms and vacations, and the routine of camaraderie with the Inklings – flowed rich creativity and epistolary encounters.

By the time one reaches Volume III, which picks up Lewis’s correspondence at 1950, Lewis is already doubting his powers. Worse still, his successes do burden him with an ever-increasing number of correspondents and requests. The long and delicious letters of Lewis to his father or Arthur or Warren or Ruth Pitter or Owen Barfield increasingly give way to the compact theological response, the honest “thank you” letter, or mere secretarial scheduling. The structure of a letter to Edward Dell in 1950 is typical, for it show how almost all of Lewis’s letters begin in medeas res. In this example, after noting the place and date of composition, Lewis very first sentence runs, “I had not thought of it before but it might be, as you say, that the decay of serious male friendship has results unfavorable to male religion.” (April 6, 1950). No pleasantries or small talk. More importantly from a moral point of view, no rancor, no intimidation, no bullying – none of the mischaracterizations that have slipped into descriptions of C.S. Lewis, especially by A.N. Wilson. I cannot think, out of over the 3400+ letters I have read by the author, of one that is rude, beery, or vicious.

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Religion and Rocketry

2010-05-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

by Joel Heck
What did Lewis think of the possibility of discovering life on other planets? What implications might such a discovery have for Christian theology? Originally published in the Christian Herald and entitled “Will We Lose God in Outer Space,” Lewis’s essay on the subject was first published in 1958 and later became titled “Religion and Rocketry.” (1) The essay was written in partial response to the writings of Professor Fred B. Hoyle, the Cambridge astronomer and founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge.

In 1958, Hoyle was Plumian professor of astronomy at Cambridge and engaged in thestudy of the structure and evolution of the stars. Even though he coined the phrase “Big Bang,” Hoyle rejected the ‘big bang’ theory of the origin of the universe in favor of the steady state theory, which claimed that the universe has always looked as it does now. Martin Ryle, however, held to the big bang theory for the creation of the universe in a moment, the theory that eventually held sway.(2)
Some of Hoyle’s writings, including science fiction and plays, popularized astronomy.(3) Christopher H. Derrick of Geoffrey Bles publishers, presumably in 1963 and before Lewis’s death, wrote a proposal for a book that was to include “Religion and Rocketry,” stating that “This essay seems to have been written in rebuttal of an argument which is only likely to be brought forward by a rather silly minority (though an academically distinguished one)…”(4) Hoyle would have been part of that academically distinguished, but silly, minority.

Lewis also mentioned Professor Hoyle (1915–2001) in his essay “The Seeing Eye” (1963). In “The Seeing Eye,” Lewis challenged the conclusion of the Russian cosmonauts, who concluded that there was no God, since they did not find Him in outer space. In that same essay, Lewis claimed that Hoyle and many others were saying that life must have originated in many, many times and places, given the vast size of the universe. He was referring to a series of broadcast talks that Hoyle had given in 1950, later published as The Nature of the Universe, a series of talks that argued against a Christian view of origins and the uniqueness of the Christian faith. Later, in 1977, Hoyle championed the ancient theory of panspermia, supported these days by Richard Dawkins, that life on earth originated with the importation of living cells from space.

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C. S. Lewis & Three Wars: 1941 (Pt 1)

2010-05-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

by Joel D. Heck
The Second World War had begun in 1939, and the world was turned upside down. As normally happens during a war, people began to think more frequently about ultimate issues, life and death, good and evil, suffering and eternity, and the nature of reality. C. S. Lewis was not immune to such thinking, and during 1941 he addressed some of those ultimate issues in his writings. The Second World War began a year before the publication of The Problem of Pain (1940) and three years before the publication of The Screwtape Letters (1942). Justin Phillips commented, “But what is transparent is the parallel of Lewis writing his most convincing books dealing with evil, pain and the devil and all his works at the moment in the war when Britain was taking its biggest battering and was most at risk of enemy invasion.”

Lewis did not cease to be an English Fellow, and, as he had advised in his essay “Learning in War-Time,” he continued his academic pursuits in the area of his discipline. Like all of the war years, Lewis published a significant number of pieces this year, including two books and seven essays, in part, because the number of students dwindled, especially during the later part of the war. The papers or talks that Lewis gave which were most directly related to the Second World War were “The Weight of Glory,” “Evil and God,” and the first series of BBC talks which later became part of Mere Christianity. But Lewis waged two other wars at the same time, one within the larger circle of the Christian faith and one within the circle of his academic discipline of English.

Since some were advocating another political party through letters to The Guardian, Lewis wrote his brief essay, “Meditation on the Third Commandment,” for the January 10, 1941 issue of The Guardian. Some wanted a Christian political party, but Lewis cited Jacques Maritain’s Scholasticism and Politics (translated in 1940) against this idea because of two problems. First, Christians were not united on the means to accomplish various ends, some seeing democracy as a monster, others as the only hope, and still others seeing the need for revolution. Such a party could not speak for Christianity, but only for a part of Christianity. Then, by calling itself the Christian Party, it would claim to represent all Christians. The second problem was that a Christian Party would be tempted to justify whatever it wanted to do, utilizing its theology to justify even treachery and murder. Far better, Lewis argued, for Christians to influence politics by writing letters to Members of Parliament, and, best of all, by witnessing to their neighbors. The timing both of the letter and of Lewis’s article and the mention of both Fascists and Communists in the article suggests that the war heightened the issue in the minds of many Christians and resulted in this exchange of letters and article in The Guardian.

Lewis’s article for the Feb. 7, 1941 issue of The Spectator, “Evil and God,” carried the same title as that of Dr. C. E. M. Joad, whose article had appeared the previous week on January 31, 1941. In the face of the evil of Nazi genocide, the reality of evil, previously underestimated by Joad, came to the forefront of British life. In his article, Lewis anticipated some of the arguments that he would deliver over the BBC and that would later appear in Mere Christianity, such as the attraction of monotheism or dualism above creeds and the emergent evolution of Henri Bergson, both of which Joad had rejected in his article. Evil is parasitic, a corruption of the good and therefore not on the same level as good. Therefore, dualism should be rejected also. Although a rationalist and a socialist who once rejoiced that clergymen would be extinct by 1960, Joad himself later returned to the Christianity of his youth. That happened in part due to the influence of Lewis, including this exchange of articles in The Spectator.

Lewis carried on his own war against Freudianism in his March 29, 1941 essay in Time and Tide, “Bulverism,” or “The Foundation of 20th Century Thought.” With an allusion to “looking at,” which he later articulated more fully in his essay, “Meditation in a Toolshed,” Lewis challenged the perception of the Freudians, who “discovered” that people were bundles of complexes; the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who “discovered” that religion was mere subjective feeling; and Karl Marx, who “discovered” that people were simply members of an economic class. Each of these three thinkers rejected the existence of God without offering any evidence for their position. These are the ones who “have had it all their own way,” as Lewis later wrote. They made these discoveries, including the assumption that they knew the real story behind the story, without refuting the systems of thought they challenged. From these discoveries, they proceeded to explain the errors of Christianity without demonstrating logically and rationally the alleged errors of Christianity. Bulverism, named after an imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, is the name Lewis gave to this system of thought that assumed, without proof, the error of another position. Lewis argued that before you can explain someone else’s errors, you must show that he is wrong. Bulverists don’t do this.

On Friday, May 2, the first Screwtape letter appeared in The Guardian. For thirty-one consecutive weeks one letter would appear every Friday through November 28. That these letters, imaginatively portrayed as letters of advice on the art of temptation from a senior devil to a junior devil, appeared during the war is no accident. One is tempted to say that the battles being fought on the Continent between the Allied powers and the Axis powers brought to the minds of many people another battle, a spiritual battle, that was daily being fought in the minds and hearts of every human being.

(Continued next month.)

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Since 1998, Rev. Dr. Joel D. Heck has served Concordia University at Austin as Professor of Theology. He teaches courses in Old Testament, New Testament, Reformation history, and the life and writings of C. S. Lewis. Read more about Dr. Heck.

A Way Into Till We Have Faces

2010-05-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

by Bruce Edwards
Till We Have Faces is heavily motivated by Lewis's longtime interest in the cupid/psyche myth, but now influenced by and filtered through his courtship and marriage to Joy Davidman and mature Christian faith, and interwoven with several complementary writing projects of the roughly same period (Surprised by Joy; The Four Loves; An Experiment in Criticism).

It represents a nuanced spiritual conversion story vaguely autobiographical but also comprising the singular narrative of every journey from bondage to freedom, from cavelight to sunshine, both painful and telling, demanding and piercing. It is daring, experimental, and unlike anything before or after it in Lewis's published work.

Lewis intends its world, like Narnia's, to stand on its own, offering no convenient Wardrobe entry point, demanding of its reader the patient, slow, respectful invasion by which he or she willingly becomes incarnate, submerged in a strange and forbidding new world where all the usual modern and familiar Lewisian signposts are absent; where one must learn page by page, monologue by soliloquy, what is happening, to whom, and what the "culture" of Glome is like, much in the fashion of Lewis's famous, "Meditation in a Toolshed" essay (found in God in the Dock).

In this manner, the reader experiences firsthand the incremental and gestalt-like appearance of truth, wisdom, and, eventually, revelation.

But only by dying to self. "Die before you die," is the central, most important recognition in the work. Lewis forces the reader to accept this principle even to get to the work's last pages. Thus, TWHF demands--and rewards--multiple readings. "For him who eyes to see and ears to hear," that is the motive and the message.

The Four Loves' treatment of "devouring love" must be seen as a crucial backdrop (not to mention the path to Sehnsucht in Surprised by Joy), noting both the fact of its composition in roughly the same period but also their commonalities of theme. This too is a characteristic of Lewis: to produce "duets," to have a prose version of fictional text to accompany each other in time (e.g., think of Problem of Pain and Great Divorce with Screwtape; Preface to Paradise Lost and Perelandra; Abolition of Man with That Hideous Strength; Miracles and The Chronicles of Narnia).
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Bruce L. Edwards is Professor of English and Africana Studies, and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Technology at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, where has he been a faculty member and administrator since 1981. He has served as a C. S. Lewis Foundation Fellow at the Kilns in Oxford, England; a Fulbright Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya (1999-2000); a Bradley Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC (1989-90); and as the S. W. Brooks Memorial Professor of Literature at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (1988). Bruce and his wife, Joan, live in the mighty metropolis of Bowling Green, Ohio, and have four grown children, ranging in age from 24 to 34.

His C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy (4 volume encyclopedia) was published by Praeger Press in 2007. Bruce’s other books on Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia include: Not a Tame Lion (2005) and Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis’s Defense of Western Literacy (1988) and The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer (1988). He has since 1995 maintained a popular web site on the life and works of C. S. Lewis at www.cslewisblog.com.

Heaven and Hell as Idea and Image in C. S. Lewis

2010-05-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

by Peter J. Schakel
C. S. Lewis was deeply interested in heaven. In his nonfiction prose he frequently discussed the nature of heaven (and, less frequently, the nature of hell) and explained how to take part in it. In his works of fiction he created several striking descriptions of what heaven (and, in less detail, hell) might be like. Many writers have either discussed or depicted heaven and hell; few have done both well. It can be illuminating to compare the two approaches, to see how Lewis’s discussions of the idea of heaven shape and clarify the images of heaven he created.

It should be noted first that Lewis had not always been interested in heaven and hell. That must have been true during the years (roughly 1913-1929) when he was, or considered himself to be, an atheist. But even when he returned to belief in a divine being, he did so without initially believing in life after death. In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he says of his conversion to theism that it “involved as yet no belief in a future life. I now number it among my greatest mercies that I was permitted for several months, perhaps for a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question” (chap. 15, par. 2). In Reflections on the Psalms, he expands that idea to the early Hebrews, who had no belief in a future state of any sort; only later, after the people had learned “to desire and adore God” selflessly, could the hope of Heaven and fear of Hell be revealed to them, “as corollaries of a faith already centred upon God” (chap. 4, par. 17). Lewis regards it as a mercy that he became a Christian without believing in heaven because it reassures him about his motive: he did not return to God to obtain a reward, to gain a blissful afterlife in heaven; he did it solely out a desire for God as the source of goodness and truth. Lewis had little sympathy with those who urge people to become Christians in order to avoid hell and instead attain a blissful existence after death (“too often, I am afraid, [heaven is] desired chiefly as an escape from Hell” – Reflections on the Psalms, chap. 4, par. 18).

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C. S. Lewis: His Literary Achievement

2010-04-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

by Will Vaus
I have a confession to make: I do not often read secondary works on C. S. Lewis. This may sound strange, coming from someone who has now written three books on Lewis. However, one reason I don’t read more secondary works on Lewis is because it is almost always more fun reading Lewis himself.

And so, with fear and trepidation, I began reading the updated edition of Colin Manlove’s book: C. S. Lewis: His Literary Achievement soon to be released by Winged Lion Press. The fact of the matter is: I was immediately delighted. Manlove writes jargon-free prose that I think would delight Lewis himself. Also, with so many books written about Lewis by Americans, like myself, it is a pleasure to read a work on Lewis by a Brit.

Manlove, as the title of his book suggests, approaches Lewis from the literary angle. What could be more appropriate, since Lewis was a Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature? At the same time, Manlove is not shy of dealing with the vibrant core which motivates all of Lewis’ fiction—sehnsucht, the seemingly unquenchable desire for something or someone completely out of this world. Manlove does not avoid the theological contentions of Lewis’ fiction but faces them head on, most often with great respect.

Each of the chapters is relatively brief, while covering a good bit of ground. This makes for easy reading of each chapter in one sitting—something highly valued, I think, by today’s busy readers. Manlove takes us on a chronological journey through Lewis’ fiction beginning with Lewis’ first creaky attempt at theologized fiction in The Pilgrim’s Regress and ending triumphantly with Lewis’ greatest masterpiece, Till We Have Faces. By the end of the tour we realize how much Lewis’ literary development was like Dante’s struggle from hell, through purgatory, finally breaking through to paradise. My favorite chapter is the one dealing with the Narnia books. Manlove tells us much about the possible literary antecedents of these marvelous books and offers keen insight as to why these are such enjoyable stories for people of all ages.

Though this is a second edition it is a most welcome one. Manlove’s re-worked introduction is almost the best part of the book. Professor Manlove also debunks some of the common myths about Lewis and his work:

That he was chauvinistic. If so, then why so many female characters, especially one as strong as Orual?

That he was Anglo-centric. If so then why does Lewis take so much delight in his creation of Calormen?

Manlove says of Orual, the main character in Till We Have Faces: “It is only when she gives her self away that she gains it: and the self that she gains is no fixed thing but has many faces, not excluding Psyche and Ungit. At that point the self is another kind of ‘nothing’, not an empty void on its own, but a thing without boundaries, merged in the natures of all others.” In this revealing book of literary criticism Manlove unveils that what he has said of Orual could also be said of Orual’s creator, C. S. Lewis.

However, for all its diversity, Manlove clearly demonstrates how Lewis’ fiction was all of a piece. And he shows, marvelously, how Lewis came, full-circle as it were, by the time of writing Till We Have Faces. In every chapter Manlove conveys, even to the lifelong reader of Lewis’ works, fresh insights, new angles from which we can perceive the many-faceted jewel which is the work of this twentieth century literary great. In this book we are re-introduced to the writer, as well as the great reader of literature who was C. S. Lewis, the man who wished he could smell the world through the nose of a dog or see the world through the eyes of a bee. And it is as if we are meeting the man and his work for the first time.

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Will Vaus, author of Mere Theology, The Professor of Narnia and The Hidden Story of Narnia.

C.S. Lewis and Kurt Vonnegut on “Egalitarian” Tyranny

2010-04-06T03:48:00.000-07:00

by David Theroux
The remarkable and haunting, independent, 2009, science fiction short film, 2081: Everyone Will Finally Be Equal, is based on the Kurt Vonnegut short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” from his book, Welcome to the Monkey House, and is now available on DVD. Vonnegut’s powerful and incisive story critiques egalitarian statism in which “equality” is the only legal standard and all individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the rule of law are eliminated.

Government “social control” is used to collectivize and penalize anyone who may in some way be more intelligent, healthy, beautiful, etc., creating an incoherent, dysfunctional, totalitarian nightmare. Here is the trailer for 2081, and as the film’s website notes...

"2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is “finally equal….” The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything,

"Featuring an original score performed by the world-renowned Kronos Quartet (Requiem for a Dream) and narration by Academy Award Nominee Patricia Clarkson (Far From Heaven, Goodnight and Good Luck), 2081 stars James Cosmo (Braveheart, Trainspotting), Julie Hagerty (Airplane!, What About Bob?) and Armie Hammer (The Social Network)."

Vonnegut is among the precious, few, modern writers who have adequately explored egalitarian tyranny. Another is C.S. Lewis, whose similar insights are found repeatedly throughout both his fiction and nonfiction, based on his devotion to Christian natural law insights. For example, in his essay “Equality” (from his book, Present Concerns), Lewis notes the following:

"A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people—all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumours. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

"This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent, I don’t think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it. . . .

"But medicine is not good. There is no spiritual sustenance in flat equality. It is a dim recognition of this fact which makes much of our political propaganda sound so thin. We are trying to be enraptured by something which is merely the negative condition of the good life. And that is why the imagination of people is so easily captured by appeals to the craving for inequality, whether in a romantic form of films about loyal courtiers or in the brutal form of Nazi ideology. The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values: offers food to some need which we have starved.

"When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget but as an ideal we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked."

And in “Membership” (from his book, The Weight of Glory), Lewis states that:

"I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.

"That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen, Filmer would be right, and patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin), but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused. . . .

"Do not misunderstand me. I am not in the least belittling the value of this egalitarian fiction which is our only defence against one another’s cruelty. I should view with the strongest disapproval any proposal to abolish manhood suffrage, or the Married Women’s Property Act. But the function of equality is purely protective. It is medicine, not food. By treating human person (in judicious defiance of the observed facts) as if they were all the same kind of thing, we avoid innumerable evils. But it is not on this that we were made to live. It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then it is nonsense. If it means that all are of equal value as immortal souls, then I think it conceals a dangerous error."

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David J. Theroux is the founder and president of The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.; founder and president of the C. S. Lewis Society of California; and publisher of The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy. You can contact him at dtheroux@independent.org.

Grace Outlasts Pain

2010-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

by Ed Derby
The eternal cause of pain is not clear; it wears a mask. But because God is good, we have hope of a ‘good’ eternal cause to our temporal conflicts. The Apostle Paul writes that we should not mourn like those that have no hope. Lewis says that this command must certainly be “addressed to our betters,” because, “What St. Paul says can comfort only those who love God better than the dead, and the dead better than themselves.”

Perhaps the difficulty of pain gives way to God’s reason for it. Lewis says that it’s not that God comes with consolation for us, but rather, “the necessity to die daily: however often we think we have broken the rebellious self we shall still find it alive… and this process cannot be without pain.”

We know that God is the giver and sustainer of life and that our life and breath are borrowed from him.

Yet, pain was not originally part of human life, says Lewis. It came as a result of the Fall. It’s also not our choice, most of time. Pain comes by way of our environment or our genes but we often stand unaware until it produces a crisis. No matter if it’s our own making or one we’ve fallen into, the gravity of death is something we can’t fix. Lewis, in fact, talks about pain as a gift from God because it spurs us toward reconciliation with him.

In A Grief Observed, Lewis relates God to a surgeon, dentist, and vet, using pain to awaken his creation to dependence on Him. Labeling pain as a gift is something that we can do if we believe that God is orchestrating our life for a higher good. Lewis believes that God does not project our neediness without filling the void. He quotes George MacDonald in The Problem of Pain, “The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” It’s not easy to swallow but suffering, then, is a shared experience with God himself, through Jesus. Depending on your view of the crucifixion, Jesus suffered to pay the penalty and open the doors of heaven to us. Perhaps our suffering ushers forward the same sort of consciousness. That’s what Lewis seems to be saying.

Lewis asks, “What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, ‘good’?” His answer: “We set Christ against it.” In another place he says, “The crucifixion itself is the best, as well as the worst, of all historical events…”

We’re left with the truth that God knows our pain. Christ’s death and the dark afternoon that followed it are proof that the universality of pain climbs above the stars and skirts close to God himself. Even with this familiarity, a stubbed toe hurts and our hope still appears hollow at times. That’s the point.

Lewis learned the truth of the two sides of Psalm 23. King David starts out, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Up to this point, the perspective is arm’s length. The pronouns suggest it, but as Lewis experiences with the death of his wife, when the salt of life gets mixed up in its wound, it becomes personal. The remaining part reads, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

God may not fix the pain when the rope breaks and we fall into valleys as thick as thieves, but he will commune with us in our suffering and hope that it helps to fit and form us into dependent souls - dependent on his grace as Lewis so often returns to on both The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed.

C. S. Lewis: A Mentor To Ponder

2010-03-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

by N. T. Wright
Author of the new book, After You Believe
My mother once asked me, in my teens, which historical figure I would like to have met. Unhesitatingly I said, ‘C. S. Lewis’. He didn’t count as ‘historical’, I was told; only recently dead, he was in any case younger than my grandparents. But to me he was already a powerful formative influence. Once you started reading Lewis it was hard to stop – whether it was the Narnia books, Screwtape, his literary essays, or his still important works on theology and ethics.

I have come back to his ethics more recently. Lewis, like me a classicist, had grasped more than I did Aristotle’s notion of ‘virtue’, of character formation, of the thousand small and difficult choices which make the thousand and first, when it really counts, a matter of ‘second nature’. There was an easy transfer from this to specifically Christian virtue, a line I have tried to pursue in my own new book, After You Believe.

Lewis would have been the first to declare his own imperfections. Certainly I don’t agree with everything he said (on the historical Jesus, for example). But his clarity of mind, his breadth of reading (and photographic memory), his deep, thought-out faith, and his lucid, luminous prose, make him a mentor for all who write about Christian faith for the ‘ordinary person’. When I’m on the spot in a discussion, I often go back to a passage of Lewis, even though I usually can’t recall which book it comes from. The memorable phrase, the pithy example . . .

One such passage has been a guiding principle for me all my adult life. Candidates for Christian ministry, Lewis said, should have to translate a passage of heavyweight theology into ordinary vernacular English. If you can’t do that, he said, either you don’t understand it or you don’t believe it. I have spent my life trying to rise to that challenge.

Early on in my writing career, my godfather, a thoughtful Archdeacon, said to me that we needed apologists to do for tomorrow’s world what Lewis did for yesterday’s. I used to agree with him without realising he was trying to tell me something about myself. Only gradually have I dared to imagine I might attempt that task. Lacking several of Lewis’s gifts, I limp along behind him, grateful for his courage, clarity and commitment, hoping to follow as best I can.

The Problem of Pain

2010-02-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

by Ed Derby
C.S. Lewis puts his wages on a God who holds goodness and pain in a paradox. The Problem of Pain demonstrates a more distant, less emotional reaction to humanity’s situation, while A Grief Observed reads like a psalm of lament from within pain itself. The two texts compliment one another by identifying parts of our struggle, the intellectual and physical difficulty life will bring, and how pain can bend us toward a loving God if we let it.

The Problem
From the loss of his mother at a young age to the untimely death of his wife Joy, Lewis experienced pain as God’s megaphone, as he says, to rouse a deaf world. Pain leads us somewhere - to something. That something is a life of faith. Just as there is importance placed in a strong rope when you’re dangling from a precipice, faith is the only way to pull ourselves out from a life of desperation, a life of anxiety and need, a life of doubt and insecurity.

But how can faith be present if we don’t realize we need something beyond our own person? How do we believe unless we recognize how frail our efforts have become to maintain everything just so?

Lewis says that we must understand our fallenness. He interprets the fall of humanity not only as an opportunity for evil to thrive, but also the choice to ignore the purpose of pain. Christianity creates the problem of pain because it provides hope for righteousness and love. Without the revelation that God loves us, the painful world would make sense. Pain would have no cause. Let’s face it: it’s much easier to dismiss God or to regard him only as an airman regards his parachute, as Lewis says, there only if he needs it but he hopes he never does.

When we run headlong into God, Lewis contends that pain is demanded. Why? “How impossible it is to enact the surrender of the self by doing what we like,” he says. The truth is that at the heart of God’s love is a suffering Messiah and followers who take up crosses and follow in like fashion.

“If I knew any way of escape I would crawl through sewers to find it,” Lewis writes. “I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made “perfect through suffering” is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design.”

The Reality of Pain

2010-02-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

by Ed Derby
Lent opens this week and it’s a reminder of suffering and pilgrimage. C. S. Lewis wrote two books on pain, The Problem of Pain in 1940 and A Grief Observed in 1961.

In The Problem of Pain Lewis says, like Chekhov, there is “so much mercy, yet still there is Hell.” In other words, no matter how you cut it, hell still exists and in our fallenness pain will always be present.

In A Grief Observed, Lewis agonizes that, “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer.”

Yet ultimately, in his writings, Lewis calls us to hope. When we die, a veil lifts and the reason for the horror is revealed (Pain), and in heaven “the notions will all be knocked under our feet. We shall see there never was any problem” (A Grief Observed).

How could Lewis be so confident that pain served such a noble purpose? Are there important differences in his approach to pain in The Problem of Pain - before his face-to-face encounter with Joy’s death - and A Grief Observed - after it occurs?

In the next several articles, during the Lenten season, we’ll explore these questions.

A Mentor by Mail

2010-01-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

by David C. Downing
In 1941 a former student of C. S. Lewis, then in her thirties, asked Lewis if he would become her confessor and spiritual director. Lewis politely declined, feeling that he didn’t have the proper credentials for the job (Letters, 2, 481). Yet he continued to write her letters of candid and perceptive advice about her spiritual journey, as well as issues of marriage and family, functioning virtually as what might be called a “mentor by mail.”

Lewis wrote nearly forty books in his lifetime, and one might think he would have little time left over for private correspondence. But actually Lewis’s letters, expertly edited by Walter Hooper, fill three thick volumes, filling over 3500 pages. Many of these letters, of course, are addressed to friends and family members. But a surprising number of letters were written to complete strangers who sent in questions after reading one of Lewis’s books or hearing him on the radio. (Readers who find Lewis’ three thick volumes of collected letters a bit daunting should consult an abridged volume, Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis.)

In his later years, letter-writing became a burdensome task for Lewis. In one note, Lewis mentions that he had composed 35 letters that day. In another, he mentions that he had just spent nine hours catching up on his correspondence. Yet for Lewis, answering letters and inquiries, even from children, was not just a courtesy; it was a part of his calling. Noting to one friend that many of those who wrote him were “in great need of help and often in great misery,” Lewis felt it a duty and a form of ministry to respond to individual inquirers (3, 109).

Having spent most of his teens and twenties as an atheist, Lewis was especially diligent in replying to readers with theological questions. To one inquirer who asked him “What is a soul?” Lewis answered succinctly, “I am.” Then he added by way of explanation, “A soul is that which can say, I am.” On the question of free will vs. determinism, Lewis agreed that it was indeed an enigma. But he noted that physicists had a similar paradox in trying to find models for light, which seems to behave both as a series of waves and as a stream of particles. Lewis felt that if scientists couldn’t solve basic riddles about the nature of the created universe, then it was only to be expected that there would be even more perplexing questions about its Creator. On the practical level, Lewis suggested that we assume Calvinism for other people, that their characters are fixed beyond our power to change them, while adopting an Arminian approach for ourselves, that we may exercise free will to make better choices (3, 355).

Lewis also devoted a great many letters to practical matters of spiritual formation. To several inquirers he suggested that they adopt an attitude of “cheerful curiosity,” not trying to force themselves to decide whether to believe or disbelieve. To one seeker, Lewis offered the apt analogy of someone rowing a boat. In order to propel the boat properly, you have to face backwards, so you can see is behind you but not what lies before you. Therefore you have to keep your eyes on the Helmsman, as he is the one steering the boat and the one who can see what lies ahead (2, 283).

Lewis’s advice to his correspondents often took the form of quotable epigrams. To a new wife who felt guilty over her mixed emotions about pregnancy, Lewis observed about guilt feelings, “You can’t help their knocking on the door; but you mustn’t ask them in to lunch” (3, 310). To a mother who asked Lewis to write a letter to her troubled daughter, Lewis answered prudently, “I think advice is best kept till it is asked for” (3, 320). On the same subject to the same correspondent, Lewis observed in another letter, “If few can give good advice, fewer still can hear with patience advice either good or bad” (369).

As already seen above, Lewis’s counseling letters often make use of vivid metaphors and analogies. To a friend who was worried that she didn’t have the proper religious feelings to support her convictions, Lewis answered that faith is a matter of intellectual assent supported by obedient action, not a matter of working up devotional feelings. Noting that “we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it,” Lewis offers the analogy of a reluctant swimmer. Even though she may feel that she will go right to the bottom, she knows intellectually that the water will support her, so she should go ahead and dive in (2, 507). To a young man who had to leave Oxford for academic reasons, Lewis offered the comforting thought that life is sometimes like a lumpy bed in a cheap hotel. When you first lie down, you find your situation intolerable and you’re sure that this is no place for rest. But after a bit of wriggling around and pillow-pounding, you do create a comfortable spot and you end up getting a good night’s sleep after all (3, 353).

One reader asked Lewis for a list of Christian books he would recommend for a friend of hers who was struggling emotionally and spiritually. Lewis replied that “where people can resist or ignore arguments, they may be unable to resist lives.” He added that his correspondent herself might be more pivotal in her friend’s spiritual healing than any book he might name. Ultimately, Lewis himself probably succeeded so well as a spiritual “mentor by mail” not so much because of the insights and arguments contained in his letters, but because of the character and the life of the man behind them.

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Downing has written four books on C. S. Lewis. He currently serves as a consulting editor for Christian Scholars Review, Christianity and Literature, and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review. His most recent book is A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy (Cumberland Press, 2007). His college website may be found at http://users.etown.edu/d/downindc/)

The Devil and Mr. Lewis

2010-01-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

by Bruce L. Edwards
The September 8, 1947 cover of Time Magazine improbably depicts the demure C. S. Lewis accompanied by a fiercely impish devil poised on his left shoulder, a caricature of his infamous fictional protagonist, Screwtape, AKA, Senior Tempter of Hell.

You can search Time’s cover stories 35 weeks forward and backwards and never see another religious figure or spiritual topic featured. Such was the notoriety and impact of Lewis, even 61 years ago.

Few people in 1947 were writing about demons and their ilk, and still fewer believed in them enough to bother speculating on this question: What if we could see what the temptation of our souls looks like through the eyes of the other side? In other words, what if we could interview a demon?

That was Lewis’s premise for one of his most durably popular works, perhaps his single most popular work among non-Christian readers; in an ingenious preface, Lewis purports to be beneficiary of the intercepted correspondence of diabolical counsel from a senior devil to an apprentice devil.

Screwtape had actually been published five years earlier, as part of a quartet of scintillating war-time works (including The Problem of Pain; Mere Christianity; The Great Divorce) that challenged battle-weary Britons and others around the globe not to give up hope or yield to unbelief in this world, specifically by turning their lively focus on the world to come. In so doing, Lewis established that those only those so heavenly-minded have a chance to be any earthly good.

Continue reading the whole article

My Dear Snubnose,

2010-01-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

by Sarah Arthur
My Dear Snubnose,
I note with great displeasure that the human females are planning to start up their little group again. What can you have been doing during their “holidays”? For many long decades our Department for the Promotion of Frenetic Materialism has slaved away to ensure that the season is more frantic, more anxious, more absurd and depressing than any other time of the human year—anything to distract them from that horrendous mistake called the Incarnation.

(The fact that the Enemy chose to become a poor human vermin, much less a human at all, is one of the reasons why Our Father Below withdrew his support. Such an opportunity lost! So much that could have been exploited! But we have done our best, for the better part of two millennia, to ensure that the Enemy’s birth has become more and more associated with wealth and power, with senseless spending—indeed, with enslaving debt—that we have not only succeeded in creating more impoverished humans than ever, but we have successfully alienated those very people from believing the Enemy takes their side.)

But back to my concern. Have you exhausted these women during the trials of Christmas to the extent that they feel entitled to relax, to rest up, to have a holiday from the holidays? This is a well-tested strategy to ensure that they will avoid commitments for awhile. And if that doesn’t work, have you reminded them of their annual inability to live up to their “new year’s resolutions” (an ingenious invention promoted years ago by my colleague Claptrap)? The guilt and shame accompanying such failure is enough to keep any self-respecting woman from seeking the company and accountability of other so-called believers. But of course many of these women are rather far gone in the Enemy’s service, long familiar with their own weaknesses, and disgustingly persevering.

So if that strategy does not avail, may I suggest the Heroine Syndrome? It is an ancient method aimed at women who are generally capable and who have an earnest desire to be useful in the Enemy’s service. Indeed, it is most effective on those who have been in the Enemy’s service for so long that they have forgotten it is not their work which keeps them close to Him. Remember Martha in the Gospels? That is the goal. In her earnest desire to serve the Enemy, she begins to believe that her work is indispensable to the Enemy’s mission—that, in fact, she herself is the reason anyone else can function at all. She is the glue that keeps her family together; she is the one that provides the practical foundation for their day-to-day survival; without her they would not eat, they would not live, they would not change the world.

See how subtly a woman’s desire to serve the Enemy can be twisted to our advantage? She will take on more and more obligations at work, at home, for the Church, until the very act of prayer will feel like a waste of precious time (and, quite frankly, we agree). She cannot enjoy communal worship or accountability because it requires attentiveness to things that cannot demonstratively be proven to help anyone. Before long she will be so well in hand that she cannot sleep, for fear that the world will grind to a halt without her. At this point your only task is to keep from her mind the simple, obvious fact that the job of Savior has already been taken.

Not only will the world continue quite well without her, but she is not, in fact, needed.

Once she realizes that, you have lost your prey. She will find it no huge trial to read the books her small group is discussing; she will find herself heading out the door to meet with the others without making a mental list of all the other, more important things, she should be doing. Indeed, she may even feel that there is nothing more important than “unproductive” fellowship with other servants of the Enemy. The moment she gets in her car, you’re done for. You might as well brace yourself for an Inquisition with the Lower Council; and you know quite well what that means.

But in the meantime, the group has not yet met in the New Year. Now is the perfect time to make your move—while you still can.

Your affectionate colleague,
Nitpick

PS—Make sure their hostess (that smug little scribbler) spends more time cleaning house in preparation for their arrival than she spends in prayer for their souls.

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Sarah Arthur has no intention of explaining how this correspondence fell into her hands, but merely that it materialized at around the time when her small group began reading The Screwtape Letters. She is the author of numerous resources and books, including Walking through the Wardrobe: A Devotional Quest into The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Tyndale, 2005) and The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry (Upper Room Books, 2007). www.saraharthur.com

Joy to the World: Lewis on Christmas Mirth

2009-12-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

by Devin Brown
“I send no cards and give no presents except to children.” So C. S. Lewis wrote to his American correspondent on November 27, 1953. In an essay titled “What Christmas Means to Me” published in December several years later, Lewis again made it clear he deplored the endless shopping and card-sending which dominated the holiday, but at the same time insisted, “I much approve of merry-making.”

For a look at the sort of Christmas merry-making Lewis may have had in mind, we might do well to look to chapter five of his Reflections on the Psalms which he opens with an epigram from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: “Now let us stint all this and speak of mirth.”

There Lewis asks us to imagine a pious farm worker at church on Christmas or the harvest thanksgiving. Lewis observes:

You would do him wrong by asking him to separate out, at such moments, some exclusively religious element in his mind from all the rest—from his hearty social pleasure in a corporate act, his enjoyment of the hymns (and the crowd), his memory of other such services since childhood, his well-earned anticipation of rest after harvest or Christmas dinner after church. They are all one in his mind.

The Psalmist, Lewis points out, did not separate the religious from the festal and so was able to capture this essential unity. Lewis concludes, “I want to stress what I think that we (or at least I) need more: the joy and delight in God which meet us in the Psalms.”

What does this joy and delight found in the Psalms look like? Lewis provides this catalogue of joyous expression:

Their fingers itch for the harp (43,4), for the lute and the harp—wake up, lute and harp!—(57,9); let’s have a song, bring the tambourine, bring the “merry harp with the lute”; we’re going to sing merrily and make a cheerful noise (81, 1, 2). Noise, you may well say. Mere music is not enough. Let everyone, even the benighted gentiles, clap their hands (47, 1). Let us have clashing cymbals, not only well tuned but loud, and dances too (150, 5). Let even the remote islands (all islands were remote, for the Jews were no sailors) share the exultation (97, 1).

Is it possible to celebrate with such exuberance today? With both honesty and optimism Lewis writes, “I am not saying that this gusto—if you like, this rowdiness—can or should be revived. Some of it cannot be revived because it is not dead but with us still. It would be idle to pretend that we Anglicans are a striking example. The Romans, the Orthodox, and the Salvation Army all, I think, have retained more of it than we. We have a terrible concern about good taste. Yet even we can still exult.”

But how can we exult in a world where there is so much to lament? Where can we find joy in a world where hate is strong, as Longfellow has written, and mocks any expression of peace on earth and good will to men? In the “jocund” Psalms—where music, festivity, and agriculture are not things separate from religion, nor is religion something separate from them—Lewis claims, “I find an experience fully God-centered, asking of God no gift more urgently than His presence, the gift of Himself, joyous to the highest degree, and unmistakably real.”

And so if Lewis were alive today, this might be his wish: That this Christmas we may each desire no gift more urgently than the gift of God’s presence.

That this Christmas we may each prepare our hearts to receive this gift of Himself, a gift which, if we will but make room for it, will be found to be unmistakably real. And that this Christmas we may each find our own fingers itching for the harp, for the lute and the harp, to celebrate our joy to the highest degree.

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Devin Brown is a Lilly Scholar and Professor of English at Asbury College, where, among other duties, he teaches a class on Lewis. He is the author of Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Baker 2005) and Inside Prince Caspian: A Guide to Exploring the Return to Narnia (Baker 2008). He is currently working on Inside the Voyage to the Dawn Treader to be released in fall 2010 in advance of the third film.

One Grand Miracle

2009-12-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

by Joel Heck
C. S. Lewis loved the story of the birth of Christ. In fact, he argued that the one Grand Miracle of Christianity is not the Crucifixion or the Resurrection, but Christ's birth. He saw every other miracle of Scripture as preparing for, demonstrating, or resulting from, the Incarnation.

Obviously our Lord would not have suffered the cross or led humankind from the grave if he had not been born.

Lewis calls a miracle "an interference with Nature by supernatural power." Thank God, he does interfere in our world! Left to our own instincts, we go our own way. God became one of us because he yearns to make us one with him. That's why God has been miraculously interfering for millennia. Just for starters, think of Abraham and Sarah becoming parents late in life, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, or the rescue of Daniel from the lions. Perhaps you have experienced a miracle in your own life. But none of these, remarkable though they were, were as important as the Incarnation.

While we believe that God is near, Christ is in us, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us, God remains hidden in these miracles. With the birth of Jesus, God becomes visible in a tiny body for a mother to hold, for shepherds to admire, for magi to worship. He Himself is the miracle! "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), Jesus said. The Word became flesh. He became one of us-his Grand Miracle! Let us-who recognize the Miracle-bow the knee.

Lord, give us a new appreciation of the Grand Miracle, your coming to Earth, this Advent season. Amen.

Lewis wrote "...the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left." ("The Grand Miracle," God in the Dock, 80)

Christmas Racket

2009-12-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

by Zach Kincaid
It seems to me that the Christmas season is not a time of hope, peace, joy, or love - not in the expectant sense of advent promise. C.S. Lewis says that he sent no cards out and gave no presents (except to children) because of the "commercial racket" that is Christmas. In another letter Lewis qualifies the season as a nightmare. Yes, Father Christmas does show up in Narnia to provide needed gifts for the journey, and perhaps Lewis uses this encounter to reclaim the senses even about the holiday.

It is the bastardization of "the season to be jolly" that discounts the lowliness of the manger and the truth that it should make us low also. Lewis points to this ridicule of the scene in "The Nativity:" "Among the oxen (like an ox I am slow)... Among the asses (stubborn I as they)... Among the sheep (I like sheep have strayed)."
Ridiculous in every way. And because the modern world can't sell hay they make hay about the production of a holiday wholly centered on humankind (at best) rather than on incarnation - the touching down of God on earth.

Lewis writes about the incarnation in Miracles. He names it as the central miracle, that, "every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this." In other words, the incarnation is the hinge that open the heavens. And they are opened (or reopened) in a way that completes the myths of old and reimagines the relationship of God to his creation.

Jesus, God incarnate, enters nature in order to reclaim her. God, Lewis says, is part of nature like the corn-king of old and more... "He is not the soul of Nature nor any part of Nature," Lewis explains, "He inhabits eternity: He dwells in the high and holy place: Heaven is his throne, not His vehicle, earth is His footstool, not His vesture."

So, the incarnation is God's claim on us, not ours on him. He is the invader, the thief, the wrestler of Jacobs. "It is not to tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God for, to, and about, Man," Lewis says.

Advent prepares us to encounter The Incarnation and to turn off the noise of the Christmas racket while we point square into the face of God.

The Nativity
by C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I'm slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox's dullness might at length
Give me an ox's strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Savior where I looked for hay;
So may my beast like folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baaing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!

Illustrated Screwtape

2009-12-11T21:07:00.000-08:00

by Will Vaus
When asked to write this review of The Illustrated Screwtape Letters I jumped at the chance. What was there to hesitate over? I love Lewis. I love books. This was a chance to get a free Lewis book. So I immediately said “Yes!”

Now, where to start in such a review? First of all, since The Screwtape Letters has been in print for sixty-seven years and is a classic of Christian literature and satire I see no need to review the text of one of C. S. Lewis’ greatest books. Therefore I shall confine myself to reviewing the illustrations. And to do that I think I shall start where Lewis would—by defining terms. Lewis often noted the importance of defining the meaning of words we think we understand. In fact, Lewis spent one whole book doing this: Studies in Words.

So I thought I would start by looking up the meaning of the word illustrated. According to Webster the English word, illustrate, comes from the Latin illustrare which means to make bright. And illustrare is related to the Latin word, lustrum, which means purification. Under the word, illustration, Webster’s third definition most pertains to our subject at hand: “Visual matter for clarifying or decorating a text."

These definitions lead me to the following questions regarding The Illustrated Screwtape Letters. Do the illustrations “make bright” the book? Do they offer “purification”? How well do they “clarify” or “decorate” the text?

First of all, there is no question that the illustrations by William Papas both “make bright” and “decorate” the text of The Screwtape Letters rather nicely. William Elias Papas was a political cartoonist, book illustrator and watercolor artist of Greek heritage born in South Africa. In the 1960’s and 70’s he worked for The Guardian, The Sunday Times and Punch. He was commissioned by Collins Publishers in England to illustrate The Screwtape Letters, and the original illustrated version was first released in 1979. Papas had previously done illustrations for books by Malcolm Muggeridge and Pope John Paul I. He also illustrated one of my favorite books, Mr. God, This is Anna by Fynn. So, there is no question that Papas was a great illustrator. His sketches for The Screwtape Letters are colorful, imaginative, displaying a great sense of humor and whimsy. Moreover, the new Illustrated Screwtape Letters, released in 2009, is a beautiful hardback edition with bookmarker and gilt edging. It is truly a fine looking book to have in one’s Lewis library.

However, secondly we must ask: Do these illustrations offer purification? Do they clarify the text? My answer to these questions is, unfortunately: “no”. In order to set forth clearly why I believe these illustrations do not clarify Lewis’ text I refer the reader to what Lewis himself says about artistic depictions of the devil. Lewis’ comments are very nicely supplied in the Postscript to The Illustrated Screwtape Letters beginning on page 231 and ending on page 233. Lewis writes:

a belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. Devils are depicted with bats’ wings and good angels with birds’ wings not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats. They are given wings at all in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form because man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all....

In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily degenerated. Fra Angelico’s angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish and consolatory angels of nineteenth-century art, shapes so feminine that they avoid being voluptuous only by their total insipidity—the frigid houris of a tea-table paradise. They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying “Fear not.” The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say “There, there.”

The literary symbols are more dangerous because they are not so easily recognised as symbolical. Those of Dante are the best. Before his angels we sink in awe. His devils, as Ruskin rightly remarked, in their rage, spite and obscenity, are far more like what the reality must be than anything in Milton. Milton’s devils, by their grandeur and high poetry, have done great harm, and his angels owe too much to Homer and Raphael. But the really pernicious image is Goethe’s Mephistopheles. It is Faust, not he, who really exhibits the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon self which is the mark of hell. The humorous, civilized, sensible, adaptable Mephistopheles has helped to strengthen the illusion that evil is liberating.

A little man may sometimes avoid some single error made by a great one, and I was determined that my own symbolism should at least not err in Goethe’s way. For humour involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside. Whatever else we attribute to beings who sinned through pride, we must not attribute this. Satan, said Chesterton, fell through force of gravity. We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives in the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. This, to begin with. For the rest, my own choice of symbols depended, I suppose, on temperament and on the age.

I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin”. The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

Now, once we evaluate Papas’ illustrations of The Screwtape Letters by what Lewis says above, several things become clear. First of all, Papas’ picture of Wormwood as having bat’s wings and a pointed tail (for example on page xii), while following what Lewis notes is a traditional way of depicting the devil, does nothing to illustrate the much subtler portrait Lewis gives us in words.

Secondly, Papas’ illustrations also follow, in a way, the tradition of Raphael’s chubby, infantile, nude angels. While, rightly, not being as pretty as Raphael’s angels, Papas’ devils are just a bit too cutesy. Again, this is not in line with the manner in which Lewis depicts the devils in his text.

Thirdly, Lewis notes that the “rage, spite and obscenity” of Dante’s devils are, perhaps, closer to the reality of what demons are really like than the depictions of Milton and others. But is there anything in Papas’ illustrations which reveals this rage, spite or obscenity? Again, unfortunately, the answer to my mind is simply “no”.

Lewis especially notes that humor is something absent from Screwtape’s makeup. Now there is no doubt that there are many passages in The Screwtape Letters which lead the perceptive reader to laugh, or at the very least, produce a wry grin. But is it fitting to illustrate Screwtape with an air of humor and whimsy as Papas does? Again, I think the artist misses the mark. His illustrations convey nothing of the deadly seriousness, the gravity of hell.

Finally, we come to the most important disjunction between Lewis’ text and Papas’ illustrations. Lewis specifically says he likes bats much better than bureaucrats and that he is deliberately depicting Screwtape and Wormwood as members of a bureaucracy. Lewis’ devils are great managers, members perhaps of a police state. One might even make the case that Lewis had in mind some of the nastier members of his own university when he set pen to paper to describe Screwtape. Again, none of this comes through in Papas’ illustrations. Papas’ Screwtape is naked and has horns. How much more in keeping it would have been with Lewis’ text if Papas had painted Screwtape like one of the most urbane, tweed-coated, pipe-smoking dons at Magdalen College! Of course, Lewis’ own illustration of Screwtape, which it is somewhat of a delight to see in this illustrated edition, does not approach much more closely what I have in mind. But then, Lewis never claimed to be a good illustrator for his own books.