"The more I read the New Age literature, the more I am struck by several facts. Almost none of it seriously wrestles with the historical and textual arguments put forward by serious Christians. New Age thought is insufferably fuzzy and inconsistent. Anthing it likes or can use, it rips out of its historic context and redeploys with new content, often made out of whole cloth. It almost never deals with evil, because it is most commonly pantheistic -- and religions that do not wrestle with the problems of human evil are blind beyond words. Worse, almost all of this multiplying thought is irremediably selfish. The aim of the exercise is self-fulfillment, self-actualization, serenity, productivity, power. God, if he/she/it exists, exists for me. And from a biblical perspective, it is this profound selfishness that lies at the heart of all human sin."
- D.A. Carson
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Most people know today as the day (46 years ago) that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But most people don't know that on the exact same day as Kennedy's untimely death -- November 22, 1963 -- across the pond in merry ol' England, an unassuming Oxford don passed on to his heavenly reward. His name was C.S. Lewis. (Philosopher Aldous Huxley also died the same day.)
I guess it's easy to overlook Lewis in this time. He wasn't a man who enjoyed the spotlight anyway, and he probably would think it just fine that the day of his passing be obscured by the Death of Camelot. But I say with complete confidence that the legacy Lewis left us is far greater than that of JFK.
Lewis was a poet, novelist, essayist, literary critic, professor, and "amateur" theologian-philosopher. His fiction manages to capture the mythic grandeur and eloquence he so loved as a child and the attention-grabbing wonder every lover of good stories covets. His non-fiction sparkled with an easy-going style. Lewis's illustrative method was remarkable. He was able to take difficult and complex concepts and somehow explain them in ways that made sense. He always favored simplicity even when discussing "big things." He never used a big word when a small one would have worked just as well.
C.S. Lewis's influence on modern Christianity is unmatched to this day. No other Christian has come close to rivaling his place at the summit of Christian literature. No other Christian has come close to influencing Christian thought in the 20th and 21st centuries more than he. That is why I believe Lewis has been the single most influential Christian of the 20th century. No one -- not even Billy Graham -- has left such a indelible mark on Christian culture. Graham may win the souls, but Lewis builds them up. You might not be able to get an atheist to read Graham's How to be Born Again, but I bet you could get him to read Lewis's The Abolition of Man. And he'd be better off for it.
It might be hyperbole, but the Thinklings may not have ever started were it not for Lewis. When high school Rod met high school Bird in high school gym class, we had little in common at first but our faith and an interest in Lewis. Most of my fondest early Thinkling moments involve Lewis. Before the Thinklings were the Thinklings, Bird and I used to go over to another friend's house to shoot hoops, shoot pool, and shoot the breeze. Theological debates were the order of the day. And many a theological debate or discussion was settled with "Well, what does Lewis say about it?"
I recall visiting Bird in college at Baylor one time. I remember it clear as day even though it was night, but Bird and I sat out by his apartment complex's pool, smoked stogies, and discussed C.S. Lewis. I remember a bunch of bats flying overhead. The romantic spirit of Inklings-esque camaraderie was in the air.
When I met Bill in the mid-90s on that fateful bus trip back from summer camp, we were both delighted to discover a mutual affection for Lewis.
I myself have a poor "reading memory." But for some reason, I seem to recall much of the C.S. Lewis I've read. His way with words sticks in my brain like no other writer. I have an odd ability to recall certain Lewis quotes and phrases, and he's really the only author for whom I can do this.
It was my father's dust-eaten copy of Mere Christianity that inspired my love of theological pursuit and passion for doctrine. It was the Chronicles of Narnia and the first book in the Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet) that inspired by particular approach to writing fiction.
Indeed, were Lewis writing his fiction today, he might not even make it on to the shelves of Christian bookstores. Not enough explicit Jesusness. Yet no Christian fiction has baptized childhood imaginations for future embrace of the Gospel more than Lewis's (except perhaps Tolkien's).
Lewis has been my influence and my inspiration. He's been my teacher.
Professor Lewis, if you can hear me, I am a better Christian because of you. When I get where you are, I'd love to shake your hand and share a pint.
---
This is a slightly edited rerun of the Thinklings' annual Lewis Memoriam post.
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Comments on "Cheers to Jack":
5. Bob Sacamento
- 11/23/2009 9:29 am CST
C.S. Lewis's influence on modern Christianity is unmatched to this day.
I have a hard time thinking of a post-war Chrisitan that we should be more influenced by. But I don't know that Jack is, in point of fact, the most influential. There are alot of evangelicals who (to their own detriment!) have never read him. And, as the influences of Osteen and TBN grow ever larger in these days, and as many of the youngsters who would have been reading him had they been born fifteen years ago are wandering off into emergent anti-rationalism, Jack's influence is crowded out all the more.
I am completely with you in your estimation of C.S.L. I can't quite see, however, that we evangelicals have been smart enough to give him the influence we need to give him.
6. Karl
- 11/23/2009 9:59 am CST
Bob, I'll still go to bat for CSL being the most influential Christian of the past century - at least among protestants. A couple of decades ago one denomination did a survey asking all of its clergy and missionaries to list the single Christian who most influenced their decision to be a pastor/missionary and the single Christian who most influenced their faith. CSL was the landslide winner, with nobody else even in the same galaxy. He appeared on over half the surveys returned, IIRC and the rest of the answers were just a grab bag plurality of various other leaders. I may have botched some of the details and can't recall which denomination but it was a large protestant one, active in missions. I remember hearing the anecdote at a C.S. Lewis related conference in the 1990's.
People in the pews may not have been influenced by CSL in nearly as large proportions as the missionaries and pastors, but the people in the pews have been influenced by their leaders, who in turn have been disproportionately influenced by CSL.
I agree that in this new century other mega-celebrities may currently be influencing more lay people or causing more of the current trends in evangelicalism. But IMO even the Osteens have a long way to go before they could claim to have left as deep, wide and long lasting a mark as CSL.
7. Bob Sacamento
- 11/23/2009 5:10 pm CST
Karl,
A couple of decades ago .... CSL was the landslide winner, with nobody else even in the same galaxy.
Well, that gives me hope. But it was a couple of decades ago.
People in the pews may not have been influenced by CSL in nearly as large proportions as the missionaries and pastors, but the people in the pews have been influenced by their leaders, who in turn have been disproportionately influenced by CSL.
True enough, something to think about. But ....
But IMO even the Osteens have a long way to go before they could claim to have left as deep, wide and long lasting a mark as CSL.
I wish I could agree, but, dang, just look at the size of the Osteen's church, and the sales of his books! I'm not very optimistic about North American evangelicalism. I think we had a good run from about 1948 until now. But ten years from now, I think we CSL/Billy Graham/Focus on the Family/NIV Study Bible/Inter-Varsity stalwarts might be reduced to annual reunions of a thousand or so people in Wheaton or Urbana or Dallas.
But I hope you're right and I'm wrong.
8. Karl
- 11/24/2009 8:37 am CST
Bob, you do make a good point. I'm sure the influence of CSL won't be as great (especially in a direct way) in the coming century as it was in the last, and it probably isn't as great now as it was two decades ago. But you still have someone like Tim Keller writing "The Reason for God", which is in some ways an updated for postmoderns, more accessible, version of Mere Christianity and who is influencing the heart of Manhattan for Christ, who lists CSL as one of his 2 major influences. And NT Wright who, while not a lockstep CSL follower, was hugely influenced in his youth by CSL. And the list goes on of leaders who are currently influencing a new generation of thoughtful Christians, including also people like John Piper and Alister McGrath and a host of others. I'm not saying the Osteens and their ilk won't have an impact too. But if you polled a broad cross-section of Christian missionaries and leaders today I bet you'd still find CSL at or near the top of the list of influences for more people than just about any other single person.
As far as "Billy Graham/Focus on the Family/NIV Study Bible/Inter-Varsity" goes, I'm not sure how many of those CSL himself would have wanted to be identified with. I'm not bashing them. Just sayin'.
9. Bill
- 11/24/2009 10:28 am CST
As far as "Billy Graham/Focus on the Family/NIV Study Bible/Inter-Varsity" goes, I'm not sure how many of those CSL himself would have wanted to be identified with. I'm not bashing them. Just sayin'.
CSL met with Billy Graham once, if I remember correctly. Yes, he was not your typical American evangelical (as a side note, am I supposed to spit after I say that? These days, I can't tell :-)
Other than the more controversial FOTF (which I think is fine but I know that's a minority sentiment), I don't see a thing wrong with BG, the NIV study Bible (not my fav version, but still good) and certainly not Intervarsity. I'll take your word that you weren't bashing, but I don't understand why every thread in this place ends up, somewhere, with a dig at "them".
In Mere Christianity, CSL made clear that, while Christians come in all different stripes, there are core beliefs that unify us. He confessed of his own arrogance toward those in the Christian family that weren't like him:
If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can’t do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit”.I think a lot of the Us versus Them within the Christian family in the blogosphere would have saddened Lewis.
10. Karl
- 11/24/2009 10:53 am CST
Bill, there's nothing wrong with the fact that CSL wasn't an American Evangelical, nor that American Evangelicals like him in spite of that fact. I have no interest in an us vs. them contrast and I'm not sure how or why you jumped there from what I said. I specifically said I wasn't bashing the things on Bob's list, just saying CSL didn't really fit with them. I found the joining of CSL with Billy Graham/Focus on the Family/NIV Study Bible/Inter-Varsity to be a little bit of a disconnect. Yeah they are Christian and so was he. And some of us like CSL and like all those other things, too. But aside from a very important shared Christianity "one of these things is not like the others" in a lot of other respects. While Jack took great pains to focus on what he called Mere Christianity and to avoid the controversies and divisions of Christendom, he was both puzzled and put off by a lot of what became American evangelicalism. He wouldn't have been comfortable there. He didn't turn it into us vs. them, and neither should we. But neither is it accurate to evangelical-ize Lewis.
11. Karl
- 11/24/2009 10:59 am CST
I like that quote, by the way. I've posted it here in this very space, more than once IIRC.
Lewis was charitable to those with whom he differed in both belief and temperament. He didn't start out that way, but he became more so as he grew in grace. You can see it clearly in his letters over time. But that charity didn't remove the differences, even if he rightly chose to focus on the areas of commonality. That focus is one of the main reasons why I love and celebrate him. I agree with you.
12. Bob Sacamento
- 11/24/2009 2:32 pm CST
But ten years from now, I think we CSL/Billy Graham/Focus on the Family/NIV Study Bible/Inter-Varsity stalwarts ...
The blogosphere is a wonderful place. You can say things with all sorts of trepidation that are received as perfectly ho-hum. Then you can make an off-hand comment that seems completely ho-hum to you, but that starts a minor kerfluffle. ("Minor kerfluffle" coming somewhere between a "kerfluffle" proper and a "tiff".)
Anyway, I lumped all those things together because, twenty or fifteen years ago, they did all sort of go together, at least in the minds of most evangelicals, even if they weren't entirely consistent with each other. I sort of saw them as a set of (non-exclusive) marks of "evangelicaldom." Pretty much anyone who appreciated one of them would appreciate the others, back then. They were markers for a kind of evangelical (the majority evangelical back then) who looks like a disappearing species to me now. And I don't mean the markers for this type of evangelical have changed. I would be OK with that. I mean I think the actual type is going away.
Is that any clearer? BTW, Focus on the Family was a bit different back in the day. More focus on, well, the family.
13. Karl
- 11/24/2009 2:54 pm CST
I didn't mean my comment to be anything more than an offhanded aside, Bob. I sure didn't see it as controversial, but then felt called on to explain what I meant. Not a big deal.
Yeah, at Wheaton in the late 80's/early 90's I kind of had the impression that those things all went together, too. He's the virtual patron saint of my alma mater and it was there that I really got turned on to him. But these days I don't feel like they (necessarily) do go together - or at least, don't believe CSL would have thought so even if he recognized evangelicals as brothers and sisters in the same family. Part of that change may be evangelicaldom drifting away from its past adoration of Lewis in favor of shallower stuff, Osteenism or whatnot. But for me anyway, part of it has been learning more about Lewis himself, and reading all of his writings especially his collected letters and realizing in how many ways CSL differed even from the pretty balanced version of evangelicalism I was exposed to in college. That's not even to say CSL was right, or better than evangelicalism, in those places. Just that he differed. His books have "taught" countless Wheaton students, including me. But he himself would have never been allowed to teach there and, based on what I now know about him, I think it's safe to say he wouldn't have wanted to.
But as Bill points out, there is still enormous common ground and that's one reason why evangelicals can celebrate and learn from CSL -and also why so many Orthodox and Catholics similarly think of him as almost one of "theirs" and either knowingly or unknowingly experience his influence even these decades later.
And yes, I think I get what you're saying about "we evangelicals" back in the 70's or '80's pretty much uniformly liking the things on your list. If one was an evangelical, they probably liked and identified with all of those things, and that typology no longer really works to identify evangelicals today. Or as you say, that type of evangelical exists but is becoming increasingly rare. We may well be talking about 2 different things. I agree there were and are such people, but my initial little aside was to question (lightly, with a smile toward Jack not with scorn toward evangelicals) just how much Lewis himself would have ever seen himself as being lumped in with that group.
14. Bill
- 11/24/2009 4:01 pm CST
Karl, you were just the latest victim of a reflexive reaction that has been growing in me for years. You didn't deserve to be questioned and sure shouldn't have felt required to answer.
The problem is, the Christian blogosphere has become one long shower of [expletive deleted] about The Other. Everyone Else (present company always excepted, of course) is the problem. And it's the pettiest of things - people who've dared read Purpose Driven Life, People who like U2, People who like The Gaithers, People who think KJV is best, People who go to Lakewood, People who do house church, People who vote Republican, People who vote Democrat . . . always the Other.
What does this have to do with your comment? Not much :-) - I've got a post that's been brewing in me for about four years (in between episodes of utter despair over the Bsphere and episodes where I have a close, if somewhat scratchy, relationship to it). I'll never post that post, though.
I do think on Judgment Day we will be standing there, smugly assured that God's big problem was with Denominations. It will be surprising and horrifying to find out that he was actually more or less OK with them - at least they disagreed about big things. What will be shown in living gory color will be the backdrop of hatred and contempt many of us have had for people who like choir robes, or who dislike hymns, or who drink wine, or who are reformed, or who are missional, or who are trad-church, or who think guitars are evil, or who are "Sola", or who like sacraments, or who like drum beats, or who like Max Lucado, or who like Luther, or who like Sarah Palin, or who take part in politics, or who are anti-war, or who are . . .
As Lewis noted somewhere, at the core of every Christian denomination are people who hold to Mere Christianity, and are tightly bound (unified) with those at the core of every other Christian denomination. It's all of us whackjobs out on the outskirts who sow all the dissension. And the dissension is often times about the smallest, most insignificant things.
Well, I guess I just wrote my post. . . :-)
Sorry for dragging you in to all this.
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Hear hear!
Happy going home day, dear Professor. You've influenced me more than I can describe.