"The first and most important thing to say about John Dominic Crossan's work is that it is bad history."
- D.A. Carson
Friday, December 28, 2012
Evidently, he was asked to.
"I wish your project heartily well," wrote C.S. Lewis to Christianity Today, "but can't write you articles." Carl F.H. Henry, founding editor of the magazine, had invited Lewis in 1955 to contribute to the magazine's first issue. Lewis declined. Henry, was not, as the saying goes, "A day late and a dollar short." He was over a decade late, and no dollar amount would have mattered as Lewis gave the lion's share of his royalties to charity.This article got me thinking: which approach (or perhaps which mixture of approaches) is most needed now?
There was a time when Lewis would have said yes: when Nazi soldiers marched into Poland and threatened the stability of the world. Adolph Hitler's influence on C.S. Lewis' apologetics is an irrefutable fact. The Führer's evil campaign paved the way for the clear speaking Lewis to engage listeners through the British Broadcast Service. Even as bombs fell over London, Lewis' baritone voice could be heard on radios across Europe. His evangelistic approach was tailor-made for men at war.
Thus, Mere Christianity was born in the fullness of time. This classic work, though published in 1952, was taken from the transcripts of his broadcasts from the early 1940s. By the time the book was available in print, Lewis was already changing his approach. As Solomon said, "There is a time for war and a time for peace." Lewis modified his methods for both.
"But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world," Lewis later said of the power of fiction to present truth, "Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?" Lewis thought so. And thus, his writing career focused on smuggling theology behind enemy lines. The enemies Lewis now faced were comfort and post-war apathy: He would strike at their imagination.
It would be easy for a young apologist to miss the brilliance of Lewis's creativity. Our day is marked by both war and peace, calling for a multifaceted and flexible line of attack. Herein the life and witness of Lewis provides many examples for evangelists today. While Lewis' articulation of the gospel took different paths, they all led to Christ. In so doing, he was able to take aim of both the head and the heart.
A "C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century" must embody his apologetics in war and peace. As Lewis told one group of youth workers shortly before the end of World War II, "That is why we apologists take our lives in our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments … from Christian apologetics into Christ Himself." If Lewis was falling back from his arguments, it could only mean one thing: Aslan was on the move.
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Comments on "Why C.S. Lewis Didn't Write for Christianity Today":
2. Tony
- 01/02/2013 3:26 pm CST
This is interesting. So CS Lewis saw in Europe, back in the 50's, the need to present truth fictionally (Chronicles of Narnia) as opposed to a more direct approach (Christianity Today). Seeing how Christianity in Europe has declined drastically, I could make an argument that CS Lewis' approach didn't work. I suspect millions of European's as children read or were read to the Narnia series and yet there is less Christianity in Europe today.
I know, on the other hand, you could speculate that perhaps Europe (and the world) would be even worse than it is today if it were not for CS Lewis' fiction.
With that said, I don't disagree with the Christian fiction approach. We need anything and everything to let people know about the truth. I do get hung up on the thought that don't you need to be somewhat familiar with Christianity to correlate the Christian themes? And therefore, the further away from Christianty one is, the less relevant it is to convey truth? As our society continues down the path we are in, the less people with "get it" reading Christian fiction.
Anyway, you asked what approach is most needed now and I would have to say direct one on one friendship type evangelism.
3. Pet Sitting Arlington Heights
- 01/30/2013 1:10 am CST
It is interesting information, and the approach we need now is to build a strategy for war
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The majority of U.S. Christians think we are at peace but are asleep to the fact that we are at war. I think the approach we need now is to build a strategy for war.