Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

C.S. Lewis Revisited: The C.S. Lewis Society of California

Those who know me readily recognize my great debt to C.S. Lewis. Another time I must write about the many writers he has introduced me to, including George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams, Austin Farrer, and others.

But for now I will write once again about C.S. Lewis. I have posted various items related to C.S. Lewis before.  Today I discovered the website of the The C.S. Lewis Society of California.  There I learned the schedule of "Chronicles of Narnia" film production. I only knew it vaguely before.

With the enormous success of the first of these new Narnia films, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has grossed more than $740 million worldwide. The next film, Prince Caspian, is scheduled for release in mid-2008, with Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" planned for a mid-2009 release and The Silver Chair scheduled for release in mid-2010. In addition, other novels by Lewis are being made into films, including The Screwtape Letters which is underway for release in theaters for Christmas 2008, and efforts are being pursued for a film based on The Great Divorce. . .

For those unfamiliar with Lewis's work, the website offers a useful list of some of his books.

The scope of Lewis’s work is quite remarkable, including philosophy and theology—The Abolition of Man, Christian Reflections, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, The Problem of Pain, Miracles; literary history and criticism—The Discarded Image, The Allegory of Love, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century; fiction—The Screwtape Letters, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces; autobiography—Surprised by Joy, A Grief Observed; current affairs—God in the Dock, Present Concerns; poetry—Narrative Poems, Poems; and much more.

Not mentioned in the list above (among others) I note the omission of Reflections on the Psalms, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer,  and A Preface to Paradise Lost -- all of which have been important to me. 

The website offers a list of interviews with a great variety of people (not always about C.S. Lewis) including Francis Collins, Dallas Willard, Armand Nicholi, Jr., J.I. Packer, Rodney Stark, and many others.  Particularly stunning are the essays and articles. Again, many are about CSL, but many others are on a variety of subjects. The number, scope ,and quality of these articles blew me away.  I will return to this webpage again and again.  Do check it out!

Finally, the C.S. Lewis Society of California has collected comments on C.S. Lewis from various notables.  I offer a sample from a much longer list.

“Rarely is so much learning displayed with so much grace and charm.” “Lewis combines a novelist’s insights into motives with a profound religious understanding.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Lewis’s words appear often in my Mitford stories—where would the Christian thinker be without Lewis? He is pivotal.”—Jan Karon, author of The Mitford books

“Somebody pointed me towards C.S. Lewis's little book called Mere Christianity, which took all of my arguments that I thought were so airtight about the fact that faith is just irrational, and proved them totally full of holes. And in fact, turned them around the other way, and convinced me that the choice to believe is actually the most rational conclusion when you look at the evidence around you. That was a shocking sort of revelation, and one that I fought bitterly for about a year and then finally decided to accept.”—Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Human Genome Research Institute; author, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

“Learned, brilliant and lively, Lewis was always an artist with words, whether as a professional academic writing for colleagues in his own field; as an author of novels, fantasies and tales for children; or as a composer of didactic expositions, apologetic discussions, and journal and newspaper articles by the bushel, all seeking to commend and consolidate Christian faith.  He was fastidious and fair-minded (while sometimes satirical), probing and thoughtful, logical and magisterial, orthodox and arresting, and clear and compelling. . . . In short, he was never less than a first-class read. . . . The two lobes of our brain, left for the logical and linear and right for the romantic and imaginative, were both thoroughly developed in Lewis, so that he was as strong in fantasy and fiction as he was in analysis and argument. There is always a didactic dimension to his spiritual-life writing, just as there is always a visionary dimension to his apologetics. The combination made him in his day, and makes him still, a powerful and haunting communicator in both departments.”—J. I. Packer, Board of Governors' Professor of Theology, Regent College

C.S. Lewis Read Dorothy L. Sayers' "The Man Born to Be King" Every Year During Holy Week

For any who have not yet been introduced to Dorothy L. Sayers' wonderful dramatic sketches of the life of Christ (originally produced for BBC radio in 1943) titled The Man Born to Be King, this might be a good year to indulge yourself.  C.S. Lewis himself said, "I have re-read it in every Holy Week since it first appeared, and never re-read it without being deeply moved."

An Amazon.com reader wrote the following:

After reading this play cycle, you'll never look at the Gospels in the same way again. . .  I've been a Christian for many years, and I can still say that this book changed my life. If you have questions or doubts about Jesus of Nazareth, please give it a try.

C.S. Lewis's comments on The Man Born to be King are part of his panegyric for Sayers which he concluded saying,

"For all she did and was, for delight and instruction, for her militant loyalty as a friend, for courage and honesty, for the richly feminine qualities which showed through a port and manner superficially masculine and even gleefully ogreish--let us thank the Author who invented her."

(For those bibliographically inclined, Lewis's comments on Dorothy L. Sayers can be found in C.S. Lewis On Stories and Other Essays on Literature edited by Walter Hooper.)

** Update 3/10/08:  There's a preview of "The Man Born to Be King" available online from Google Books.

N.T. Wright Evaluates C.S Lewis

For a masterful theological evaluation of C.S. Lewis's works by a top-rated New Testament theologian, see N.T. Wright's Touchstone Magazine article available here.  If only I had more leisure, I would love to make specific comments on this article but time forbids.  (I know of no theological analysis of Lewis's work equal  to Wright's).  I apologize for the light blogging these days.  I hope that time constraints will allow more extensive blogging soon.  Best to all...

C. S. Lewis on the Limits of Apologetics

In an essay written in 1946 entitled "The Decline of Religion"  (found in God in the Dock), C.S. Lewis makes several interesting statements.  He notes, for example, that in one sense (in literature) the 19th century was quite as secular as our own. 

"The novels of Meredith, Trollope, and Thackeray are not written either by or for men who see this world as the vestibule of eternity who regard pride as the greatest of the sins, who desire to be poor in spirit, and look

C.S. Lewis and Praying for the Dead

I remember how surprised I was when I first read C.S. Lewis's views on praying for the dead in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. He says there (chapter 20):

. . . Which brings me to your question.  Of course I pray for the dead.  The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter men.  And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden.  At our age the majority of those we love best are dead.   What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?

On the traditional Protestant view, all the dead are damned or saved.  If they are damned, prayer for them is useless.  If they are saved, it is equally useless.  God has already done all for them.  What more should we ask?

THE DIVINE MOMENT IS THE PRESENT MOMENT

Andree Seu in an article  for World Magazine wrote,

A friend objected to my piety.   Not  "Lord, help me to trust in You" (quoth he) but "Lord, I trust in You!   Yea, by Your grace I trust in You!"    There's something psychologically different here, my chastened soul took note. . . 

Seu quotes Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life: 

Life is a series of problems.   Either you are in one now you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. 

She later adds:

The dog bites and the bee stings and you're feeling sad.   But blest are those who praise God in the midst of it, who praise Him when their heart is broken.   "As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs (Psalm 84). . ."

It is not tomorrow in which we should plan on praising God, but today, in the midst of our challenges.      Which reminds me of a wise statement I read long ago:   "The divine moment is the present moment."    Add to that the equally wise words of C.S. Lewis from Letters to an American Lady:

Yes--it is sometimes hard to obey St. Paul's "Rejoice".   We must try to take life moment by moment.   The actual present is usually pretty tolerable, I think, if only we refrain from adding to its burden that of the past and the future.   How right Our Lord is about "sufficient to the day".      (page 100 in my edition)

C.S. LEWIS SCHOLAR, LOUIS MARKOS

I am impressed with C.S. Lewis scholar, Louis Markos, Professor of English at Houston (TX) Baptist University.    He produced a vision statement on his website which I very much appreciate.

Although a devoted professor who works closely with his students, I am dedicated to the concept of the professor as public educator.  I firmly believe that knowledge must not be walled up in the academy, but must be freely and enthusiastically disseminated to all those "who have ears to hear."  As a specifically Christian professor, I also adhere to a second goal: to fuse into a single stream the humanist strivings of Athens and the Christian truths of Jerusalem.  Believing that “all truth is God’s truth,” I seek to measure all human knowledge against the touchstone of orthodox Christian doctrine (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Resurrection).  Believing further that Christianity is not the only truth but the only COMPLETE truth, I seek to discover in the cultures, mythologies, religions and philosophies of the ancient (and modern) world intimations and foreshadowings of the greater truths revealed in Christ and the Bible.  In pursuing this goal, my three principle mentors have been Plato, Dante, and C. S. Lewis, my central vision has been that of the Magi (whose pagan wisdom proved a partial guide to encountering the Christ child), and my core biblical passage Paul's address to the Areopagus at Athens (Acts 17). 

His book Lewis Agonistes:  How C.S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World is very much worth reading, as is his truly excellent  movie review of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.   His extensive treatment of the movie's shortcomings in its depiction of Aslan is one of the best and most comprehensive I have read.   He concludes by saying

Perhaps our modern age and cinema are not capable of fully conceiving and realizing a character like Aslan.   Perhaps Lewis was right that we have lost our ability to perceive of something as being both beautiful and terrible, that we have lost (really lost) our sense of the sacred.   "When they tried to look at Aslan's face," writes Lewis in Chapter XII, "they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly."   Does there lurk in this sentence a kind of real magic that our modern world, that not even the Hollywood Dream Factory, can capture or understand?

If so, we had better start reading our Lewis again. . . and our Bibles.

Markos will be a plenary speaker at the Taylor University conference on C.S. Lewis and Friends  in June of 2006

NEW YORK C.S. LEWIS SOCIETY ON THE WEB

I am happy to say that for many years I have been a member of the New York C.S. Lewis Society.    The requirement has been $10 a year (best bargain going!!) which gives you a monthly bulletin containing a highly literate article or two which you will want to file away.   I see that they have updated their website and have made available for purchase back issues of the Bulletin.    The Society has also conveniently listed all books written by CSL, plus secondary works (books about Lewis and/or his writings), all of them linked to Amazon.com.   And, of course, meeting topics are listed.  Meetings are held the 2nd Friday of each month in New York City.  Needless to say, most members of the NYCSLS live a distance from New York City and must content themselves with reading reports of the meeting in the Bulletin.

By reading the News link, I learned of a conference at Taylor University coming up the first week in June, a C.S. Lewis Summer Institute to be held at Williams College, and four free lecture telecasts titled "The Art and Faith of C.S. Lewis" made available by Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City.   All very intriguing finds!   

The lead article in the current (May-June, 2006) issue is by William J. McClain and titled "C.S. Lewis and the Reflective Christian."    He rightly states, quoting Gene McGovern (a founding member of the NYCSLS), that readers appreciate C.S. Lewis because

They find that he has encountered their difficulties and dealt with them, that he has anticipated their objections and has articulated them better than they could.  It is not too much to say that... he convinces his readers that however far they go he has been there before them and they are meeting him on his way back, back from having addressed these subjects that matter most and having thought them through to the end, to "the absolute ruddy end." 

C.S. LEWIS -- HERE IS A ONE-STOP RESOURCE SITE

Here's  a wonderful listing of C.S. Lewis quotes, bibliographies, and articles about C.S. Lewis.   How convenient and helpful!  And speaking of C.S. Lewis, here's a site that gives us an audio recording of C.S. Lewis speaking over the BBC using the text that would later become part of Mere Christianity.   The site also presents C.S. Lewis in his own voice reading the introduction to The Great Divorce.

Tilda Swinton played the White Witch in the latest movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.   In an interview she offers her perspective on how she sought to portray her character saying,

It's not always necessarily the most frightening thing for small children to be shouted at.  Children shout and get hot themselves all the time, and in my experience it's actually a relief if you shout back at them.  Whereas the thing that's really unfathomable for children is a kind of coldness and emotional detachment; that's the thing they don't do.  So it occurred to me it would be more frightening to be faced with something really unaffectable.  You can't affect the Witch; you can't appeal to her; she's incapable of any compassion. Someone who gets angry is emotional; I thought it would be fun to shake up that stereotype.

ISLAM AND THE LAW OF 'GENERAL BENEFICENCE'

Robert Spencer, an authority on Islam, has written many books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades),  The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, and  Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith.    In a recent article, Spencer makes a most interesting observation. 

In his landmark book The Abolition of Man, the Christian apologist C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) assembled examples of what he called the Tao, or the Natural Law: principles held by people in a wide variety of cultures and civilizations.  These principles include “Duties to Parents, Elders, Ancestors”; “Duties to Children and Posterity”; The Law of Good Faith and Veracity;” “The Law of Magnanimity”; and more. He illustrates the universality of these principles by quotations from sources as diverse as the Old Testament, the New Testament, Virgil’s Aeneid, the Bhagavad Gita, Confucius’ Analects, the writings of Australian Aborigines, and many others. But completely missing are any quotations from the Qur’an or other Muslim sources. 

Spencer goes on to say,

Lewis may have found that traditional Islam simply does not uphold what he calls “The Law of General Beneficence”; one is not to be charitable except to fellow believers. To be sure, Lewis could have quoted a hadith in which the Muslim Prophet Muhammad says: “Whoever wishes to be delivered from the fire and enter the garden should die with faith in Allah and the Last Day and should treat the people as he wishes to be treated by them” (Sahih Muslim 4546). This certainly appears to affirm the Law of General Beneficence.   But it is contravened by so many other passages in the Qur’an and Hadith that make such a sharp distinction between believers and unbelievers (the “vilest of creatures” according to Qur’an 98:6) that it becomes an essentially empty statement, or one in which “the people” to which Muhammad refers are understood as Muslims only. After all, “Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another” (Qur’an 48:29).

There's more.  Read the whole article.

THE EVER UNSETTLING C.S. LEWIS

C.S. Lewis has a way of unsettling habitual ways of thinking.   Here's food for thought - and grounds for making us feel uneasy:

He [Jesus] was not at all like the psychologist's picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen.   You can't really be very well "adjusted" to your world if it says you "have a devil" and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood.
                                           -  The Four Loves (chapter on "Affection")

PODCAST INTERVIEWS WITH C.S. LEWIS SCHOLARS

Jerry Brower, broadcaster and man of many hats, has interviewed many C.S. Lewis scholars during the past six months and has made the interviews available to us as podcasts.  I haven’t had a chance to listen to all them yet but look forward to doing so.

The Making of C.S. Lewis
Jerry interviews Alan Jacobs, author of "The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis" about the early life of Lewis, and his intellectual and spiritual progress from and atheist to a beloved theologian and author. -Aired on 01-13-2006

How Was C.S. Lewis Made?
Jerry interviews James Como, author of "Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis" about Lewis as a man, convert, scholar and friend, and they explore the qualities of character and circumstances of his life that led him to become the inspired author and theologian that he was. - Aired on 12-29-2005

What Would C.S. Lewis Say?
Jerry interviews Will Vaus, author of "Mere Theology: A Guide To The Thought Of C.S. Lewis", a topic-by-topic guide to C.S. Lewis's thought on many issues. -  Aired on 12-21-2005

C.S. Lewis' Step-Son Remembers His Life with Jack
Jerry interviews Douglas Gresham, step-son to C.S. Lewis and author of "Jack's Life: A Memory of C.S. Lewis," about the private life and character of the beloved theologian and author, and about his involvement as producer of the new movie, "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe."  - Aired on 11-23-2005

How C.S. Lewis Uses Imagination to Explain God
Jerry interviews Art Lindsley, author of "C. S. Lewis's Case for Christ: Insights from Reason, Imagination And Faith," about the spiritual journey of C.S. Lewis, and how his writings explain and justify God to ordinary men and women. - Aired on 11-22-2005

C.S. Lewis--Much More Than a Professor
Jerry interviews Lewis scholar David Downing, about his recent book: "Into The Region Of Awe: Mysticism In C. S. Lewis."  - Aired on 10-14-2005

A Field Guide to Narnia
Jerry talks with Colin Duriez, author of "A Field Guide to Narnia", about how the beloved author and theologian C.S. Lewis came to be a Christian and change his ideas of story-telling.  - Aired on 10-10-2005

C.S. Lewis – The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

The screen version of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe hit movie theatres nationwide Dec. 9^th, 2005.   Many good and important commentaries have appeared on the internet, and in due course I hope to make reference to at least a few that I think especially helpful or significant.

Yesterday I came across New Testament scholar Ben Witherington's blog.  I was delighted to see that he has offered some observations on the movie,  the first of which I hadn’t seen talked much about elsewhere.   Concerning his various observations, he wrote:

      The first is Lewis' profound conviction that "we are all in this together" by which I mean he stresses that the whole of creation is feeling the effects of the fall and all of it, including nature must be redeemed.  Romans 8 has a good deal to say about this if we would but listen-- "for the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice... but in hope, that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (vss. 20-21).  Lewis also stresses that humans are the crown of creation, meant to rule over it.  Though he loved an animated creation and creatures, he did not worship Mother Nature nor think that humans are merely a part of nature.

Good points, those.   Witherington continues:

      The second major theme, is that indeed there is a deep moral logic undergirding and overseeing the world, and that when the times are out of joint, they must be set right. But that which sets things right is a free act of sacrificial love, which while not setting things back like they were before the fall, instead carries creatures and creation to a whole new act of creation. . . Especially telling in this version of the Christian story is that Aslan dies in particular for Edmund-- Edmund the liar and betrayer.  Jesus himself reminds us in the 4th Gospel that while a person might die for their friends or for a good person, but who would die for a betrayer or liar or enemy?  The answer is Jesus would, showing that his love is pure grace--- unmerited favor freely bestowed, undeserved benefit freely given.

This is good, solid stuff.

      There are lots of Christian touches in the movie that the astute reader will pick out, like the fact that Aslan revives God's frozen people by breathing on them (see John 20) or like the moment at the end of the battle where Aslan kills the witch and says "It is finished" (see John. 19).  It becomes clear that this Christ figure owes most to the Gospel of John. Let us hope that the Christian themes of the movie are not so unobtrusive that audiences will largely be oblivious to them.  Let us hope they at least fall in love with true goodness and beauty and thereby with truth. Let us hope enough go to see this movie, that the next episode in the Chronicles of Narnia will be a lovingly and well filmed.

C.S. Lewis: A soldier's life

As we think about U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and elsewhere, the battles and deprivations they face are well described in a letter found inThe Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis  Volume II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949. (Edited by Walter Hooper [HarperSanFrancisco], 2004).    In his letter of May 10th, 1939 C.S. Lewis wrote his friend Dom Bede Griffeths OSB: “My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years.  Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil:  pain and death wh. is what we fear from sickness: isolation from those we love wh. is what we fear from exile:  toil under arbitrary masters, injustice and humiliation, wh. is what we fear from slavery: hunger, thirst, cold and exposure wh. is what we fear from poverty.  I’m not a pacifist.  It its got to be, its got to be. . ."    p. 259

Freedom in Narnia

I like this short essay by R. Andrew Newman on the role of freedom in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia.  After many Narnian illustrations, Newman concludes with  this comment:  “In an essay that deserves to be better known, 'Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State,' Lewis argued that the state no longer exists to 'protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something.  Hence the new name 'leaders' for those who were once 'rulers.'   We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals.   There is nothing left of which we can say to them, 'Mind your own business.' Our whole lives are their business."

"At least in Narnia, the state has its business and the subjects retain theirs."