Breaking Bread with the Dead

The life of the mind is a topic of growing significance as the pace of change, with its assaults on our mental stability, continue to accelerate. Some sources estimate there are more than 2 million books published worldwide each year. And that volume of content is in addition to the newspapers, magazines, blogs, tweets, and emails that also vie for our time.

Along with the flash and glamour of new publications, our attention is also directed to “old books,” which are often celebrated as “classics” that are critical to becoming properly formed as humans or derided as elements of a “racist patriarchy” that must be resisted by any means and at any cost.

In three books, written through the last decade, Alan Jacobs has drafted a series of books that wrestle with the life of the mind, the nature of reading, and value of ancient literary history. This is an odd series. Each book comes from a different publisher, has a distinct thesis, and wrestles with a different topic. There is no thematic unity and little hope of a boxed set, which seems to be the hallmark of such sequences in our day. The progression of topics, too, does not seem as unified as one might expect.

And yet, Jacobs admits that these books are in a series, and that they are related, as disparate as they may seem. The careful reader will, indeed, find that there is a connection between them all. Not a connection that requires reading the books in sequence, but that these are markers, perhaps, staking out the boundaries of a mind alive to the unity of the world and its possibilities. The series is by no means complete, so it will not surprise me to find another short book set out to help readers navigate the modern world, published in a few more years.

Jacobs is, by profession, a teacher of literature. He has also done significant work as a cultural critic. In this he is much like C. S. Lewis, a thinker with whom Jacobs has demonstrated significant interest and expertise. It is not difficult, as a result, to find echoes of Lewis throughout Jacobs’ work, especially in this latest book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, which shares a common theme with Lewis’ essay, “On the Reading of Old Books.”

Breaking Bread with the Dead obviously comes out in favor of reading old books. But read in context with The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, it is abundantly clear that Jacobs is not advertising the “checklist” approach of slogging through “Greats,” which is a quest to max out your score on Facebook quizzes and a recipe for gobbling a gourmet feast without savoring the marinated centuries between works—in other words, it represents the sin of gluttony. Rather, he is arguing that reading old books is necessary to understand our times and to live in them.

Jacobs clearly states this goal toward the end of his introduction,

To open yourself to the past is to make yourself less vulnerable to the cruelties of descending in tweeted wrath on a young woman whose clothing you disapprove of, or firing an employee because of a tween you didn’t take time to understand, or responding to climate change either by ignoring it or by indulging in impotent rage. You realize that you need to obey the impulses of this moment—which, it is fair to say, never tend to produce a tranquil mind.

This book is an essay that wanders toward a single goal, rather than an argument with chapters neatly divided into segments of support and refutation. It is a literary essay that seeks to deal with the questions of the day. One of the most pertinent questions for our tiny historical moment is whether one dare to read authors whose social and moral views differ—whether greatly or radically—from our own.

Jacobs begins by examining the problem of presentism, which is the tendency to see our particular cultural moment as the moral apex of humanity and to denigrate all who have ever had a differing opinion. Thus, the reading of Robinson Crusoe must be abandoned because it is racist, sexist, colonial, and a bunch of other bad things that are native and irrevocably attached to old, dead, white men. Jacobs argues that in order to properly understand our own moment, we must interact with minds that came before our moment, even when they do, in fact, have racist, sexist, and colonial ideas.

The concept for engaging with those we disagree with is represented as “table fellowship,” which is obviously conveyed by the title of the book. Jacobs understands this has the center of the book: “sitting at the table with our ancestors and learning to know them in their difference from, as well as their likeness to, us.” He argues that reading even those with whom we disagree—by inviting them to our table—we open ourselves up to a greater understanding of their time and ours. But at the same time, since we invite these sometimes-scraggly guests through the practice of reading, we control the interaction, so that when they get to rowdy we can, with little effort, simply disinvite them from the meal by closing the book and moving to another guest.

Breaking bread with the dead offers us challenges to our own worldview—exactly the reason many activist “academics” want them “cancelled”—and force us to examine our unexamined assumptions. They also force us to wrestle with the reality that our morality du jour has some of the same barbarities of a previous age (albeit with a different shade of lipstick) and that it sometimes is a positive logical outcome of a trajectory we might find in older literature, if we but take the time to consider it. Reading old books helps us to understand ourselves and our time better.

As morality has become increasingly unpinned from any sense of permanence or overt morality, the pace of change from one absolute standard to another has become exhausting. A group of racist trolls on a social media site turn the “OK” symbol into a symbol for “white power” and suddenly everyone who uses the symbol, with its long-standing cultural significance, is now complicit in white supremacy. Unless, of course, someone who is of the right color or political affiliation uses it, in which case it means what it has consistently meant. The tyranny of the present undermines every sense of peace. As Jacobs argues, reading old books is the best way to remind ourselves of our own finitude, the temporary nature of our culture’s moral conclusions, and deepens our souls to better understand those who differ from us. In other words, breaking bread with the dead helps make us more human and reminds us of the humanity of others.

Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

By Jacobs, Alan

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

C. S. Lewis on Christianity as a Means to an End

The genius of C. S. Lewis is, perhaps, most clearly evident in his devotionally rewarding, theologically rich, and whimsical book, The Screwtape Letters. Those brief snippets of supposed letters from a senior devil to a junior one get at many of the issues that were wrong with Christianity in his day, which happen to be remarkably similar to those that are wrong in our day.

In Letter 25, Screwtape writes to Wormwood:

“The real trouble about the set your patient is living is that it is merely Christianity. . . . What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity AND.’ You know––Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring.”

Depending on who reads that paragraph the object to the right of the “And” will vary. It could be social justice, anti-racism, prosperity, comfort, political conservatism, or doctrinal orthodoxy (when pursued for its own sake). In other words, this isn’t a “left” or “right” issue, it is one that can impact all Christians and often the “And” is adopted in the name of making Christianity purer and more proper.

In Letter 23, we get prelude to the “Christianity And” discussion:

“We do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything––even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy [God] demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that ‘only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilisations.’ You see the little rift? ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’ That’s the game.”

To be clear, Lewis prized actual social justice. Many casual readers of Lewis would be surprised at just how much he wrote on particular social issues of his time in a wide range of periodicals. In some areas he was quite advanced for his time and in other areas he sounds like the dinosaur he claimed to be. But the man was always arguing toward truth from Christianity. He was not attempting to use Christianity as a means to gain something else. This prevented him from falling into the trap of “Christianity And.”

The temptation in reading a moralist like Lewis is to look at what he wrote and say, “Boy, he gave those other guys a good drubbing. Wait until I post this quote on social media.”

The proper response to reading Lewis on these issues, especially in The Screwtape Letters, is to ask that more significant question, “In what ways have I fallen into the trap that Screwtape outlines.” If we are honest, we’ll probably find that we have been at least somewhat guilty at some point. As we pursue holiness, our task is more to knock off the rough edges of our own sanctification than to point out the problems of the other folks.

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The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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The Neglected C. S. Lewis - A Review

One of the greatest frustrations for fans of C. S. Lewis is the number of fake quotes attributed to him. Some of them seems as obvious as the old joke, “Never trust information from the internet – Abraham Lincoln.” Some of the misquotes are, however, less obvious fabrications that distort people’s understanding of C. S. Lewis and undermine his legacy by trivializing it.

There are several contributing factors to the regular misquotation of C. S. Lewis. First, Lewis was a fabulous writer with a gift for turning a phrase, so he is imminently quotable. This is nowhere more apparent than in the exceedingly useful volume edited by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis, which serves as a topical index of much of Lewis’s thought as well as fodder for social media posts.

A more significant contributor to the misquotation of Lewis is that too few people have read enough C. S. Lewis to recognize the difference between the true and counterfeit quotes. Many Christians know the name but have read nothing, so they like and share fake quotes out of ignorance. Many others have read some of the A-side works of C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia, Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, or another of his more popular works. Nearly everything Lewis wrote has some value, so readers ought not to be discouraged. But there is an entire B-side of C. S. Lewis’s writings that are much more rarely discussed, even in academic research on Lewis and the Inklings.

Professionally, Lewis was a university level teacher of English literature. While his apologetic work was prolific and lucrative (he gave most of the money away), he also made significant contributions in his academic discipline. The books he wrote on literature and theory are often unknown even to fans of C. S. Lewis. And yet, his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama was a landmark work comprehensively researched. His Discarded Image and Allegory of Love continue to be texts used in classes on medieval literature in both secular and religious academic settings.

Mark Neal and Jerry Root have set out to provide an introduction to some of the B-side works of C. S. Lewis in their recent book, The Neglected C. S. Lewis. In this relatively short volume, the authors explore some of the less popular works of Lewis that are no less valuable in understanding the mind of C. S. Lewis and, in fact, help illuminate what he does in some of his more popular works.

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This is not a comprehensive volume. There are number of neglected works of Lewis that Neal and Root do not explore, likely because of space constraints. However, the volumes they do highlight are helpful. In the eight chapters of this text we get an overview of (1) The Allegory of Love, (2) The Personal Heresy, (3) Arthurian Torso, (4) English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama, (5) Studies in Words, (6) An Experiment in Criticism, (7) The Discarded Image, and (8) Selected Literary Essays.

Some of these volumes are difficult to find (especially Arthurian Torso and English Literature), while others have been reprinted by reputable presses to ensure continued availability. The common links among them are they tend to be connected to Lewis’s proper field of study rather than his more popular apologetic work.

It might seem to some readers of Lewis enough to read Chronicles, Mere Christianity, and Screwtape, enjoy the readability and devotional quality, and move on. However, to understand the framework that Lewis is working from (which he partially unpacks in essays like “De Descriptione Temporum,” which is his inaugural address for his Chair at Cambridge), scholars and students need to read beyond the A-side of Lewis’s works into his more neglected works.

Neal and Root have done a great service to the field of Lewis studies by providing an accessible introduction to some of Lewis’s lesser-read works. This is the sort of auxiliary text that could accompany a college course on C. S. Lewis that is housed in the English Department of a university. For those engaged in the academic study of C. S. Lewis, this is an exceedingly helpful way to get an overview of and prioritize the study of volumes that are important, but off the beaten path.

The target audience of The Neglected C. S. Lewis is not the high school aficionado or the casually interested. However, this survey of some of the neglected works of Lewis is an essential part of a Lewis scholar’s library and a key resource for those looking for new areas of study in the increasingly crowded field of Inklings studies.

The Neglected C.S. Lewis: Exploring the Riches of His Most Overlooked Books

By Neal, Mark, Root, Jerry

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis - A Review

C. S. Lewis is a figure that fascinates contemporary, English speaking Christians. His writing is connected to the deep well of Medieval thought, especially the pervasively Christian tide of that thought. For the modern Christian, C. S. Lewis is a gateway to orthodox Christian thought from a different era that has been adapted to wrestle with the problems of modernity.

As a result, of the writing of C. S. Lewis biographies there is no end, and much reading of them can weary the body. Most of the biographies of Lewis in recent decades have simply rehashed old themes, picked over the same published data, and repackaged the same accounts in a slightly different structure.

And yet, periodically there are new approaches that expose different facets of Lewis scholarship. Harry Poe’s Becoming C. S. Lewis, for example, has an innovative approach and includes new data. Or Alan Jacob’s book, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, that looks at Lewis alongside other Christian thinkers like Dorothy L. Sayers, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden. These varied approaches are vital to the field of study and are useful in inviting new scholars and writers into a rich community of thought.

Gina Dalfonzo has produced a delightful volume that looks at the relationship between Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis. This account is, of course, biographical. However, by focusing on the relationship between these two great Christian thinkers and by including Sayers alongside Lewis, this moves from garden-variety biography to a valuable contribution to the literature of the field.

Sayers is the lesser celebrated of the two. Lamentably, she has not received the attention her work warrants. There are, I believe several reasons for this. First, Sayers was much more private than Lewis. While she had deep friendships and sometimes includes her own experience in her writing, it is hard to truly know Sayers by simply reading her published works. Her letters and the biographies written by friends help, but compared to Lewis, she is a stranger even to fans of her work. (The fact that she hid the existence of her son from close friends shows how private a person she was.) Second, Sayers was much more reluctant to become a spokesperson for Christianity than Lewis, so there is less of her work that deals with the topics that many Christians find so important. Third, though Barbara Reynolds has done the world a great service in editing Sayers’ letters and writing about her, Walter Hooper had more opportunity and was more effective in editing and promoting Lewis posthumously.

Though Sayers was less known, she is no less significant. Her detective fiction is par excellence. Her translations of Dante are still in print. And her essays and plays still move readers. For many young scholars who have found the field of study surrounding the Inklings to be overcrowded, Sayers is an “Inkling-adjacent” thinker with room still available for original topics.

Dalfonzo’s book, Dorothy and Jack, is an example of solid, new synthesis. Her bibliography shows little original research (i.e., there is little evidence of her diving into archives in various locations), but she has put the available information together in a helpful way. Dalfonzo has read through and correlated some of the correspondence of both figures, compared the timelines of their lives to create a roughly synchronous chronological retelling, and put together ideas from secondary sources for both Lewis and Sayers. The result is thoroughly enjoyable to read for the average reader, but original and enriching for those interested in academic studies.

Summary

This short volume is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the early life of the two friends, in some respects very similar and in others very different, and extends roughly until their first introduction to one another. Chapter Two moves into the early stages of their friendship, beginning with a fan letter written by Sayers to Lewis and through the first few years of their growing mutual admiration, which consisted mostly of letter writing. The third chapter shows how the friendship blossomed between Lewis and Sayers as they were able to give each other critical feedback alongside pointed praise. Their friendship was one of equals who valued thoughtful criticism as much as loud, undeserved congratulations. Chapter Four explores Lewis’ attitude toward women in general and the relationship both Lewis and Sayers had with Charles Williams. For those interested in the attitude of the Inklings toward women and Sayers’ own opinions on society and women, this is an engaging chapter.

The fifth chapter focuses on the worldview of both Sayers and Lewis. Both were deeply influenced by the thought of the middle ages. Lewis famously described himself as a dinosaur, which title he also ascribed to Sayers affectionately. The title was well received. To understand their unusual friendship, the reader must understand how different the two were from the rest of the world and how similar they were in their engagement in medieval thinking. Chapter Six covers Sayers’ relationship with Joy Gresham, Lewis’ late-in-life spouse. We see similarities in the personalities of Gresham and of Sayers, as well as possible sympathy between Sayers and Lewis in that both were married to divorcees. The final chapter wraps the book up, drawing together several streams and highlights the friendship as one of mutual admiration and equal respect.

Analysis and Conclusion

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The book is well-researched and clearly written. Dalfonzo takes contested positions on a few topics like the Lewis-Anscomb debate, the Lewis-Moore relationship, and a few others. Readers may disagree with Dalfonzo, but there is a reason those topics are contested—the evidence is muddled at best. Perhaps more controversially, the underlying theme in Dorothy and Jack is the possibility of meaningful friendship between men and women, outside of marriage. Dalfonzo shares a vision with Aimee Byrd, as she developed it in Why Can’t We Be Friends? But Lewis and Sayers are such unique individuals that it isn’t clear they are a good test case for Byrd’s ideas. Whether one finally agrees with Dalfonzo on that issue does not diminish the value of this book.

Many readers may not notice, but for academics the use of the Sayers’ and Lewis’ first names may be a bit jarring. After all, as Dalfonzo notes, it was twelve years into their fifteen-year friendship before the two referred to each other by their Christian names. However, the quality of the research makes up for the feeling of informality (for those who care about such things) and the informality serves to illustrate the friendship between the two. This reads like a popular book, but the research will warrant consideration by a more academic audience. Sometimes one size does not perfectly fit all.

This is an excellent volume. Those interested in Lewis or Sayers should immediately buy it or, at least, put it on their wish list not to be long forgotten. It deserves a place alongside books like Humphrey Carpenters’ The Inklings, the Zaleski’s The Fellowship, and Colin Duriez’ Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. This is a solid work of secondary literature that makes a meaningful contribution to the study of both Sayers and Lewis, while being accessible and interesting to the casual reader.

Dorothy and Jack

By Dalfonzo

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NOTE: I was granted access to uncorrected proofs of this volume.

Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians - A Review

Theological retrieval has become increasingly popular among evangelicals as young evangelicals, especially, react to some of the narrowly contextual interpretations of many Twentieth Century evangelical and fundamentalist theologians. There has been a great deal of orthodox preaching that has tried to present orthodox theology as if it is the simplest, most obvious reading of texts that any casual interpreter should be able to arrive at. Sometimes, in a rush to conserve the apparent authority of Scripture, well meaning interpreters arrive at heterodox conclusions and claim they are authentically biblical, despite disagreeing with the careful, Bible-saturated arguments of centuries of prior Christians. Theological retrieval is the process of reading historical theology, parsing it against the witness of Scripture, and using the copious resources of our theological ancestors to enrich our theologies.

There has been a great deal more work done on retrieval of the Early Church resources than of Medieval resources. Part of this is due to the acceptance by most Protestant traditions of the product of the seven ecumenical councils, the last of which wat the second council of Nicaea, which concluded in 787 AD. Another reason for the relative concern for retrieving Medieval theology is that the Roman Catholic tradition claims to have direct ties to that tradition.

The Middle Ages was also the time during which the worst abuses of papal authority and incrementally increasing confusions of Christian doctrines were incorporated. The Protestant Reformation was, after all, an attempt to reform some of the deviations from biblical orthodoxy that had evolved during the Middle Ages. Some of Martin Luther’s most severe critiques are of elements of Christian theology invented in the Middle Ages and the Roman Catholic church, which claims continuity with Medieval versions of Christianity, killed many Protestants trying to enforce both political control and adherence to some of those doctrines invented in the Medieval era. There is a reasonable basis for a reduction in concern for that theological age.

Christ Armstrong’s book, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians: Finding Authentic Faith in a Forgotten Age with C. S. Lewis, is a project for Protestant theological retrieval from the Middle Ages. The book is written for a predominately Evangelical, but possible broadly Protestant audience. It uses Lewis’ interest as a medievalist to show that retrieving doctrines from the Middle Ages is consistent with mere Christianity and can be fruitful.

 Lewis was deeply influenced by the contemplative and devotional aspects of Medieval theology. His book, The Discarded Image, is basically a call for a retrieval of a medieval perspective on the cosmos—not for the adoption of their astronomy, but for their memory of the enchantment of the created order.

Armstrong offers ten chapters in this volume. He begins with an explanation of his approach to the topic, which is focused on maintaining Christian orthodoxy while retrieving the treasures from oft-ignored saints. In Chapter Two he makes the argument, which is easily defensible, that Lewis had a distinctly Medieval worldview. Helpfully, Armstrong also acknowledges that while Lewis was a man of the Middle Ages, there were times his argumentation and epistemology were distinctly modern. He was a man of his times as well as a man deeply saturated with the time before. In Chapter Three Armstrong caps off the introductory topics by arguing that tradition can be a source for truth. His argument here does not conflict with Sola Scriptura, a fundamental of the Reformation, but shows that we can glean wisdom as we discerningly parse through historical and theological writings of the church.

Chapters Four through Ten focus on retrieval of medieval ideas within various categories. Chapter Four deals with recapturing the delight in theological thought of the Middle Ages. The fifth chapter considers the ethical reasoning of Medieval Christians. Chapter Six builds on the previous chapter discussing the culture shaping influence of Christianity in the Middle Ages, which led to the invention of institutions like hospitals. In the seventh chapter Armstrong pushes back against the over-spiritualizing tendencies of much of modern, orthodox Christianity, which tends to value the spirit to the neglect of the body. Armstrong’s argument is that the Medieval, despite the influence of asceticism, had, on balance, a much better doctrine of the body and the created order. In Chapter Eight the pietistic traditions of the Middle Ages are celebrated, with some of the better elements highlighted for consideration. The ninth chapter argues that the medieval focus on the Incarnation was far superior to that of many modern Evangelicals and should be retrieved. Finally, Chapter Ten ties the pieces together and calls for continued work to discover the helpful elements of Medieval theology that can enrich and inform the Christian faith.

The premise of Armstrong’s book is outstanding. There were a great many gospel-saturated Christians in the centuries of the Middle Ages whose writings can enrich our understanding of Christian doctrine, our worship, and our devotional practices. Armstrong is absolutely correct that Lewis was tied into the ethos of the Middle Ages, which means that by reading Lewis deeply (especially beyond the most popular works) one gets an introduction into a Medieval worldview and that by studying the Middle Ages, one can understand Lewis’ work better. This book is worth buying and reading on those accounts.

Perhaps because a great many books highly critical of errant ideas in medieval theology have already been written, there is very little critique offered in this book. In fact, there are some recommendations for adoption of ideas that are, at best, not biblically supported and are, at worst, unhelpful for gospel Christians. Lewis himself adopted a belief in Purgatory toward the end of his life, claiming that it would function as a hot bath to cleanse the Christian from sin before entering heaven. That, indeed, is a reasonable conception, but it undermines the sufficiency of the work of Christ on the cross. Christ paid the penalty to cleanse us from sin, so that no additional, extra-biblical purgation is needed for the sacrifice of the God of the universe to do its work in us. Additionally, Armstrong seems to affirm the idea of transubstantiation of the elements of the Eucharist. The confusion caused by this doctrine has been analyzed greatly, so that I can add little to it, except to note that it that it is a case of (a) excessive literalism, with (b) a strongly contested tradition even within the early Church and  it (c) leads to potential confusion of the creation/creature distinction, which (d)  leads to “veneration” of the elements and (e) an unbiblical belief of the special spiritual status of those ordained by the Church. Another example includes Armstrong’s apparent preference toward the traditional Roman Catholic representation of Christ on the cross as the center of worship. He claims this reinforced the doctrine of the Incarnation. However, this also undermines the biblical emphasis on Christ’s completed work, which was recognized through the triumphant resurrection. Apart from potentially violating the Second Commandment, as many Protestants would argue, the crucifix contributes to an unhelpful focus on the misery of the cross rather than the triumph of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We must understand the first to get to the second, but we worship a Christ ascended, not a Christ trapped in the tortures of the cross. There are reasons, after all, that the Protestant Reformers rejected some of the traditions of the Papal tradition that were not supported by or ran directly counter to Scripture.

Despite some disagreements with where Armstrong takes Medieval retrieval, this is an excellent book. As a volume in Lewis studies, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians is an example of the best sort: it looks where Lewis was pointing, rather than seeing Lewis as the final stopping point for theological consideration. As a volume encouraging theological retrieval, it shows that Armstrong has carefully studied and lived within the traditions he is attempting to retrieve. He is right to show that there is much good that has too often been ignored and contemporary Protestants would do well to revisit some of the theology from a forgotten age.

Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians: Finding Authentic Faith in a Forgotten Age with C. S. Lewis

By Armstrong, Chris R.

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Spirits in Bondage - A Review

C. S. Lewis is known in most contemporary circles for his apologetics and for his children’s books. If you were to do a “person on the street” interview about Lewis in a local church, you would probably find people mentioning his Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and perhaps the collection of essays titled, God in the Dock. There might be some who know about The Screwtape Letters or, if they have a philosophical bent, The Abolition of Man, or, perhaps, The Great Divorce.

Not only would you find people ignorant of any of the works that focused on Lewis’ primary vocation as a scholar of Medieval and Renaissance literature (one of which is still a text in use), but you would be hard pressed to find someone who has not fallen deep into the well of Lewis studies that would describe Lewis as a poet.

And yet, the first volume Lewis ever published was of poetry, and he published many along the way. In an informal exchange, senior Lewis expert James Como (who contributed an essay to the volume, The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis) informed me that Lewis may have executed his mythopoeic power more effectively in his poetry than in his narrative writing. Based on some of his later poetry, particularly poems like “As the Ruin Falls,” there is an argument to be made there.

Lexham Press has recently released Lewis’ first published volume, which is a cycle of poetry. Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics was begun during his teenage years (as we know from his correspondence with Arthur Greeves) and completed while Lewis was in the trenches during the Great War and during his recovery after he was wounded. It bears the marks of a broadly read teenager. Engaging, imitative, emotionally powerful at times, and at other times not quite enrapturing.

This small book, originally published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton, earned a lukewarm reception from reviewers, which contributed to Lewis becoming more invested in other forms of literature. Part of the reason for its meager applause when released was that Lewis largely borrows from existing forms of poetry and, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, English poetry was trending toward more modernistic form and structure. Lewis’ tendency to imitate the art of others, borrowing their themes and structures to present ideas in a fresh way, did not catch the fancy of readers of poetry as it would in his highly imitative science fiction trilogy or with the Chestertonian moralism of much of his apologetic prose. In many ways we should be thankful, because Lewis the novelist and apologist has been more effective than Lewis the poet may have been.

The new edition of Spirits in Bondage is a well-constructed book. The slender hardback volume is artistically illuminated, with brilliantly colored endsheets. It is well-typeset to invite the reader into a meditative digestion of Lewis’ poetry. This is a lovely volume and a pleasure to experience.

The reprint book has been published with a new introduction by Karen Swallow Prior. Her brief essay helps welcome unfamiliar readers into this book. She reminds people that this “is a work of literary, intellectual, and spiritual immaturity––and promise.” And it is all of those things. The reader of Mere Christianity would be surprised to pick up this book and find a tendency toward supernaturalism, but no real sense of the grandeur of the Divine. Prior’s introduction does what all introductions should do: it puts the work into its context so the uninitiated reader need not puzzle over themes and concepts that seem foreign. It also sets expectations, as Prior notes, “While sometimes weak in both concept and execution, the poems overall exhibit considerable metrical variety and a range of perspectives impressive for such a young writer. They are worthy reading for the poetry lover and the Lewis aficionado alike.”

Readers should understand that Spirits in Bondage is being reprinted because of the man who wrote it, not because it is the best poetry of its age. But for those struggling to understand the complexity of Lewis (there is a great deal more to even his children’s stories than some will acknowledge), these poems are exceedingly helpful.

When Lewis wrote Spirits in Bondage he was not a theist. He was past the most strident phase of his atheism, which was fueled by his tutor. He had found joy in the transcendent beauty of Nordic mythology. He had dabbled in the occult in his late teens, and that supernaturalism can be seen beneath some of Spirits in Bondage. This is, to be clear, not a series of love poems to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But it is not directly antagonistic to the faith, however. We encounter a Lewis who has not been found by Christ, but is searching for something he knows is out there.

This book will have the most appeal for those studying the life and work of C. S. Lewis. But those that enjoy poetry will find it a generally pleasant experience, too. Those who both enjoy poetry and are deeply interested in Lewis will find this a thoroughly intriguing book, because there are echoes of later Lewisian thoughts and motifs even in this very early work.

Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics

By Lewis, C.S.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Should Southern Baptists Use Creeds?

The Southern Baptist Convention is a confessional network of autonomous local congregations who have generally clustered around mutual affirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a minimum statement of theological belief that permits cooperation, though there are churches that are in cooperation with the SBC (based on CP giving) that do not affirm the BF&M 2000. Many Southern Baptists are clear that they see the Baptist Faith and Message as a confession, which loosely binds, rather than a creed, that more clearly delineates and binds. Thus, affirmation of the BF&M is not required for churches or pastors to affiliate with the SBC.

The BF&M is a helpful document for this particular moment, because it defines the currently debated boundaries of SBC cooperation. It has limitations in two directions: (1) It largely assumes the earlier theological formulations that define orthodoxy, and which are outlined in the ecumenical creeds and other official products of ecumenical councils. (2) Language changes, which means that certain phrases can be filled with new meaning or disputed in their meaning, so that future clarification will be warranted. In other words, there will come a time that the BF&M will need to be revised to ensure it properly delineates the doctrinal categories of the SBC of that present moment.

One way that we can lengthen the time between needed revisions to the BF&M is to do more work in teaching orthodox doctrine through historical formulations, particularly building on the ecumenical creeds.

The use of creeds in worship gatherings and teaching ministries in SBC churches rubs some members the wrong way. Earlier generations, in particular, have built their identity on being “confessional” not “credal” due to the concept of individual soul liberty. There is value in that objection, but I believe that there is warrant to increase our use of creeds in our congregations without diminishing the role of the conscience in arriving at conclusions through careful of study of Scripture.

Within the context of learning and teaching theology, the creeds that were affirmed by the ecumenical councils are faithful summaries of the Christian faith. They do not supplant the careful study of Scripture, but they certainly provide guardrails that can help keep us from drifting into error. As I understand them, the creeds are some of the ways that we connect to the tradition of faithful Christians and prevent our own culture’s assumptions from overrunning the message of Scripture. This makes them invaluable in this time when information from unlimited sources threatens to overrun our churches.

Basis for Didactic Use of Creeds

The presence and use of creeds within SBC life is growing. In my opinion, that is generally a good thing for at least four reasons.

First, recognizing faithful affirmation of statements of faith (like creeds and confessions) as basics of Christian belief connects us to our Baptist heritage.

As Chuck Kelley, Richard Land, and Albert Mohler wrote in the introduction to the LifeWay study on the Baptist Faith and Message in 2007,

“Baptist churches and associations of churches have adopted statements of belief to teach, defend, and perpetuate the faith ‘that was delivered to the saints once for all’ (Jude 3). These statements, most commonly known as confessions of faith, are intended to clarify and publish the most basic beliefs that frame our faith, our witness, and our worship. In the beginning years of the organized Baptist movement, these statements were often intended to demonstrate that Baptists were fully orthodox as Christian believers. Later, such statements were used to establish identity, confront false teaching, and instruct Christians in the faith.” (The Baptist Faith and Message, 5)

Southern Baptists hold the BF&M to be a document that frames our corporate identity, but as noted, that identity is also within the orthodox tradition. The orthodox tradition has been defined, historically, as including acceptance of (though not dogmatically so) the historical creeds of the church. And, though we tend to describe our confession as a voluntary document, that has not been entirely consistent with the Baptist tradition broadly, or the Southern Baptist tradition more narrowly.

As Chute, Finn, and Haykin (all historians and professors in and from an SBC context) note:

“For at least the past century, some Baptists have adopted a negative posture toward confessions. They suggest that any prescriptive use of confession is ‘creedalism,’ or the elevation of a merely human standard above Scripture and an infringement on individual liberty of conscience. While this view is popular in some circles, it reflects a misunderstanding of Baptist history. As Timothy George argues, ‘The idea that voluntary conscientious adherence to an explicit doctrinal standard is somehow foreign to the Baptist tradition is a peculiar notion not borne out by careful examination of our heritage.’” (The Baptist Story, 327)

By affirming the BF&M 2000 as the defining confession of our cooperative network of churches, we are essentially treating it as a creed. As B. H. Carrol asserts: “There was never a man in the world without a creed. A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe.”

In practice, the BF&M 2000 functions as a creed. It is minimalistic (e.g., it holds open diverse eschatological possibilities, multiple arrangements of church government, and a host of other secondary and tertiary documents). However, it is sufficient for a significant body of baptistic Christians to gather around and cooperate within without excessively binding the conscience of anyone.

In the spirit of the Reformational principal, sola Scriptura, we hold Scripture as the final authority over all faith and practice over the BF&M or any other human declaration. (If the BF&M is the frame of our beliefs, Scripture provides the portrait that the frame outlines.) This practice is consistent with the declaration on the SBC’s webpage that we are “all within the framework of historic biblical orthodoxy,” which statement seems to presume some non-scriptural standard outside of the BF&M that we can be judged by. That is to say, the BF&M necessarily assumes a broader stream of orthodoxy of which the SBC is a part. Using historical creeds like the Nicene Creed supports the BF&M rather than denigrates it by putting it in its context.

Second, evangelical churches (broadly defined) are bleeding young people that are searching for a faith that is rooted deeply in the past. I have seen multiple young Baptists drift into Roman Catholicism because they feel it has deeper roots in history. This is a practical concern, but one that has a theological solution.

While mistaken in their belief that the Roman Catholics are the real church with the deeper tradition, the impetus of those leaving Baptist churches and other evangelical churches is logical as we anticipate the growing cultural storm. In light of growing pressure to affirm counter-scriptural trends in culture, using a statement of faith adopted in the year 2000 is a much less robust shield than in a faith that is described as rooted in the confession of a man who knew Jesus in 33 AD. Churches serve their people well when they help them

Based on this reasoning, I use the historical creeds of the church to teach my children and I share them with Christians in Baptist churches because it connects us to the great cloud of witness that has gone before us. When I read the Apostle’s creed, I am reading the confession that Augustine affirmed, as have millions of faithful Christians in the interim. When I recite the creed, I am joining in a doxological practice that missionaries, martyrs, and ministers have shared for generations.

There is strength in the continuity we can share with those that have come before us. The creeds help us to understand that continuity. Given the ravages of the ecumenical movement of the mid-20th century, I understand reservations toward that sort of universal confession, but I believe it will be important in the coming years. The Nicene Creed is not enough, because it doesn’t take into account theological errors raised since it was authored, which is why the BF&M 2000 is an important document. Connecting people to the historic creeds is a way of showing theological continuity of our present confession with the ancient faith that we believe we are properly representing.

Third, the development of the creeds helps us understand the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. Within the church, pastors and other leaders should be teaching the basis of our doctrinal belief, because it is vitally important to building a robust doctrinal foundation in a post-modern world.

As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote, with characteristic wit,

“Teacher and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy. And heresy is, as I have tried to show, largely the expression of opinion of the untutored average man, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe at the point where they begin to interfere with daily life and thought.” (“Creed or Chaos,” in The Whimsical Christian, 41)

I think Sayers is right. Especially as an ethicist, I believe that we have to understand doctrine in light of the context in which it was expressed (not invented). By rooting our faith, which is founded on Scripture, in the Christian tradition through its connection with the historic creeds, we combat the error that Sayers identified in the 1940s in the rapidly secularizing British culture. To build an ethics that will weather the storms of this life and a faith that will not be carried away, we need to show people that our contemporary orthodoxy is a historical orthodoxy, which was drawn from Scripture in light of particular theological errors that continue to resurface.

Exposing people to ancient creeds that connect faith today to the doctrines delineated more than a millennia ago strengthens the faith of contemporary saints, even as it helps rule out of bounds some doctrinal innovations being promoted by ignorant and malicious teachers in our age. People need to know what good looks like to be able to recognize and avoid bad theology.

Fourth, studying and making people aware of the historical Christian creeds helps prevent the error of believing we can have “no creed but the Bible.”

I am sympathetic to those who try to live by the “no creed but the Bible” statement, but the good intent behind it can lead to significant error because it assumes that we can, without falling into error, read Scripture rightly. For example, “no creed but the Bible” is the essential belief of the Campbellite movement, which has led to their affirmation (in many cases) of baptismal regeneration. When diced in a particular way, Scripture can be seen to support that doctrine, though I believe it to be clearly inconsistent with the holistic message of Scripture.

I affirm the sufficiency, authority, and perspicuity of Scripture. At the same time, I also recognize that there are patterns of thought endemic to my age that will tend to lead to into particular errors. Exposing people to historic creeds helps guard against the blindness of our own age.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation:

“Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the educated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

Church History in general and the creeds specifically are helpful in preventing us from falling into errors of our own age. Lewis is overly optimistic in believing that we won't fall into the opposite error of unquestioningly believing ancient sources, but his point that evaluating our understanding in light of historic thinkers, particularly when we are dealing with timeless truths, is right on the mark.

There are, I am sure, other reasons that I could list for utilizing the creeds as we study Christian doctrine, but these four provide a solid framework. I am hopeful that the creeds that have bounded orthodoxy for generations continue to grow in their use. It will link together faithful believers across traditions and bolster the faith of the members of our congregations trying to stand firm in our cultural moment.

An Invitation to Glory

This post is an excerpt from The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers (Wipf and Stock, 2019). It was written by Dr. Michael Travers. It was presented to the C. S. Lewis Society of New York in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s Death and again at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on January 30th, 2014. Today, March 2nd, is the anniversary of Michael’s passing into the glory that he deeply longed for.

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In his apologetics and fiction, C. S. Lewis invites his readers to hope for heaven and God. His great contribution is his reminder to twentieth-century western culture, which has lost its mooring, of what it means to be humans who were made for God and to long for him all our lives. C. S. Lewis reminds readers that this longing for God, this hope of heaven, is the proper state for all of us in a fallen world. He offers to readers a vision of the Christian mind.

Our culture needs to remember what it means to be human: we are created in the image of God and for the purpose of praising God. At the very outset of his Confessions, St. Augustine gives voice to the essential human need––and desire––to praise God:

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no number. And man desires to praise Thee. He is but a tiny part of all that Thou hast created. He bears about him his mortality, the evidence of his sinfulness, and the evidence that Thou dost resist the proud: yet this tiny part of all that Thou hast created desires to praise Thee.

Thou dost so excite him that to praise Thee is his joy. For Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.[1]

Because we were made for God, we cannot be satisfied apart from Him. Nothing in this world can satisfy the ultimate desire of the human soul to be satisfied in God. Human culture, particularly that inspired by Christianity, incarnates this desire for God in manifold ways, and, what is more, Scripture attests to it as well. The desire for God is a key element of the Christian mind.

The idea that we all desire God and hope for heaven is expressed in both the Old and New Testaments. In Ecclesiastes, the wisdom writer states that God has put “eternity into man’s heart” (Ecc 3:11), and evidences the implications of our desire for God in that nothing in this life ultimately satisfies the soul. The writer speaks of good things––such as work, food, and relationships––that we enjoy in this life, but he teaches that ultimate wisdom is to seek God and rest in him. Everything else is “vanity,” or futility. The Psalmist writes that the ancient Hebrews longed for rest in the Promised Land. But, because of their unbelief and sin, they had to walk the wilderness pathways for forty years before they were allowed to enter that rest, and then it was only the next generation that was allowed to do so (Ps 95:1–11). In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews applies the temporal rest of the ancient Hebrews in the Promised Land figuratively to the spiritual rest Christians have in Christ and then to the eternal rest we ultimately will enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth (Heb 3:7–4:11).

In this life, we are not yet at rest, and we cannot be at rest until our faith becomes sight in heaven. We hope for future glory. In the New Testament, the apostles often write of a hope that looks forward to eternity. The apostle Peter admonishes us to be “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). Peter speaks this instruction to Christians, admonishing them to give a witness to non-Christians about heaven and eternity with God. For Peter, as for the other New Testament writers, this hope is not wishful thinking; rather, it is settled and certain hope, for it is predicated on the character of God as evidenced by the Word of God––“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” as Paul has it in Col 1:27. Paul speaks elsewhere of our hope in Christ, for Christ has paid the debt of our sins and granted us eternal life (Cf. 2 Cor 1:10; 1 Tim 4:10). In the earthly life of Christ our longing for God is made concrete in the transfiguration, when Peter, James, and John see Christ revealed in all his glory. The transfiguration follows immediately after Jesus tells his disciples that he will come again in great glory, thereby prompting longing for that glorious kingdom; it is then that he is transfigured before the three men, and they are given a glimpse of the future and the one on whom their hope is founded. In Romans 8, Paul writes that the Christian’s whole life is oriented toward this hope when we will be glorified in the presence of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Michael Travers

The Bible often expresses this hope in narrative form. Almost two-thirds of the Bible is narrative. From Genesis to Exodus, through the history books and prophets in the Old Testament, to the Gospels, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and even the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the story of redemption is just that––a narrative. The writer of Hebrews symbolizes this life as a pilgrimage. He writes that we “desire a better country, that is a heavenly [one]” (Heb 11:16), and “for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb 13:14). A pilgrimage is not just a wandering journey; rather it is a teleological journey with a destination. For Christians, that destination is heaven with Jesus Christ, our ultimate beatitude. It is no accident, then, that the Bible incarnates a grand metanarrative that encompasses the whole of the created order and our place as humans in that story.

Giving voice to the Christian narrative of hope is what Lewis did in his writings at a time when others had lost sight of that hope. He presented a vision of the Christian mind. Austin Farrer writes of the voice Lewis gives to Christianity:

It was this feeling intellect, this intellectual imagination that made the strength of his religious writings. . . . His real power was not proof [as in apologetics]; it was depiction. There lived in his writings a Christian universe that could be both thought and felt, in which he was at home and in which he made his reader at home.[2]

There is the note: Lewis invites his readers to come along home with him––to God and heaven. He knew that we longed for something beyond this world, and he invited us to join him in the search for our eternal home.[3] Lewis’s method for inviting others to put on the Christian mind, through his prose, poetry, and narrative, was to put the metanarrative of the Bible on display.

C. S. Lewis reminds readers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries of a truth that pre-modern western people knew as part of their culture and we have largely forgotten today: we were created to worship God. Lewis encourages his readers to worship God again––that is, to put on the Christian mind. He invites them to accept that “weight of glory.” Lewis embodies the heart of Christianity in this invitation, for the metanarrative of the Bible tells the same story: creation, fall, redemption, and recreation. Lewis incarnates this metanarrative in his apologetics, his poetry, and his fiction. It is by developing a Christian mind that Lewis fulfills his role as worshipper.

For Lewis, the original creation is the normative mode of existence for human beings, in fellowship with each other and God. In this created condition, there was no need for longing to escape and go to heaven, no need for hope, for all things were as they should be. Lewis invites his readers in all of these books to participate in the glory of things as they were meant to be. In the fall into sin, however, humans were plunged into a pathological condition, producing a sense of exile because we were cut off from God and therefore long to be reunited with him. It is this undesirable state of sin and exile that forms the foundation of Lewis’s apologetics and fiction. Our innate longing for a remedy finds expression in his novels, in the form of a pilgrimage, or quest––a journey that inherently incarnates longing and hope in its form and structure. This longing is for renewal of all that has been tainted by sin; it is a longing for a new life.

Lewis’s fiction provides descriptions of this coming renewal, which begins with a sense of release from sin’s effects. He expresses the sense of beginning a new and glorified life in heaven this way in The Last Battle:

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are––as you used to call it in the Shadowlands––dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”   

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.[4]

All of Lewis’s writings encourage his readers to long for God and to hope for heaven; this is a central characteristic of the Christian mind. And it is fitting that this is so, for the longer we live in communion with Christ, the more we long to see him face to face. Lewis knew that longing well and it shaped everything he wrote. This longing for the transcendent is what makes the Christian mind so beautiful.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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[1] Augustine, Confessions, 3. Emphasis original.

[2] Farrer, “In His Image,” 384–85. Farrer was Chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1935 to 1960, and a good friend of Lewis.

[3] Cf. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 143.

[4] Lewis, The Last Battle, 210–11.

The Reading Life - A Review

For the publishing companies that hold the rights to the works of C. S. Lewis, his continued popularity has been a regular stream of income for decades. Whoever signed that contract with Lewis and, later, his literary estate, probably has a plaque somewhere in the building.

Over the years, revenue from Lewis’s work has been increased by repackaging some of his essays under different titles. The list of titles overlap across volumes published under his name, but to get access to a comprehensive set of Lewis’s shorter works has traditionally been very expensive, due to the sheer number of titles that one had to purchase. (There is actually a single volume collection of Lewis’s essays and short works, but it is out of print, expensive, and hard to come by.)

I am, as a result, a little skeptical when gift-sized books with excerpts of Lewis’s work are published. Some of those volumes add little value to Lewis’s legacy, but consist of quotes everyone knows or repackaged portions of his already popular works. They are cotton candy for those who like Lewis, but don’t want to go through the work to thoughtfully engage his lengthier works.

The recently published volume, The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others’ Eyes, is a welcome surprise. It manages to present Lewis’s thoughts on a particular topic while increasing interest in Lewis as a whole. In short, this short book of Lewis excerpts is more than a marketing ploy, it is a quality contribution to Lewis studies.

Those that are only somewhat familiar with Lewis are often surprised by how much he wrote. Beyond his A-side books, like The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters, there are a wide range of equally or more significant books—his B-side books--that many people never touch and are generally unaware of. The Reading Life includes a number of passages from Lewis’s more popular works, but also includes extended sections from some of his less well-known writings. There are also excerpts of letters in the back of the book, which illuminate Lewis’s thoughts on the subject from a less-formal context.

The result of the careful curation of Lewis’s writing on reading is that those interested in seeing what Lewis has to say about this particular topic now have what amounts to a curated index of passages to use for further research. Those that simply want to geek out reading something from their favorite author on their favorite topic will also find benefit, as the passages chosen are lengthy enough to be engaging and give a sense of Lewis’s style. In short, this book is valuable to the researcher and to fan, though for different reasons.

This is no work of stodgy, formal scholarship. But it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours comfortably curled up in my armchair. It was fun to enjoy the curated volume without feeling like I had descended into a kitschy puddle of sentimentalism. I commend this book to those who enjoy C. S. Lewis and reading.

The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes

By C. S. Lewis

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis

According the Walter Hooper, the man who became the executor of C. S. Lewis’s literary estate, Lewis did not expect to have his books read for long after he died.

That is, of course, the way of it for even many good writers and careful thinkers. During their lives, when they are writing essays and giving lectures, their books sell because they are on trending topics and there are regular reminders that a certain book exists.

People continue to find C. S. Lewis helpful for several reasons. Unlike many academic writers and moralists, Lewis wrote children’s books that are enjoyed by a wide swath of people, both those inside and outside his ideological camp. This means that Lewis’s other works have a fighting chance of being picked up, even if someone wasn’t initially very interested in an essay entitled, “Religion and Rocketry.”

In his intellectual biography of Lewis, McGrath explains Lewis’s ongoing popularity by three reasons:

1.       The continued value of his apologetic work.

2.       His religious appeal.

3.       His use of imagination in defense of the faith.

I think these three are valid, but one needs to go a little further to get at the heart of the reason for the continued sales of the works of C. S. Lewis. Michael Travers noted another reason beyond those offered by McGrath:

In addition to these reasons, there is an underlying reason for Lewis’s ongoing important: he wrote about things of first importance, timeless truths that he thought we needed to hear. In his writings, Lewis taps into the essential human condition in such a way that we catch glimpses of truths we had forgotten or perhaps suppressed, especially in our modern, Post-Enlightenment culture. One of these truths is that everyone is on a journey, hoping for heaven, even when we do not know it or refuse to admit it.

Travers’s explanation gets at the concept of the Christian mind of C. S. Lewis.

Lewis remains fascinating to many Christians at varying levels of education and experience, and across denominational boundaries, primarily because he gets at the heart of what it means at piece to live with the Mind that imagined the universe, set its boundaries, and controls the course of history. The Christian mind provides evidence of the truth of reality and how to live within that truth.

Lewis is one of a number of Christian thinkers who had the Christian mind. In his own time Dorothy L. Sayers and Francis A. Schaeffer had a deep understanding of reality and were able to point people toward it. Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck overlapped with Lewis, but also had the Christian mind. As we look back in Church history, the number grows: Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo both thought and wrote with the Christian mind.

At a most basic level, the Christian mind is one that recognizes the enduring truth, goodness, and beauty of God. It is therefore drawn perpetually to asking questions about the true, the good, and the beautiful. This is a vision of reality that sees integrity in the universe because God himself, the eternal Three-in-One, is perfectly simple and without division. Comprehending this reality, even to the limited degree possible, entails looking at the wonder of reality outside of our own minds. Truth is discovered by observation, not introspection. The Christian mind is, therefore, one that is more interested in the world around than in itself.

I recently edited a collection of essays in honor of a friend and mentor, Michael Travers. In that volume, eleven authors from different fields of study consider the Christian mind of C. S. Lewis as it was presented in his work and as it applies to other significant topics of interest.

The book contains an essay by Michael Travers on Lewis’s apologetic of hope, which opens the book with a grand view of C. S. Lewis’s vision of the world. There is also a delightful chapter by Michael’s daughter, Elizabeth, on Desire and Love in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Aside from personal connections, there are several essays by well-known Lewis scholars in the book. James Como contributed an essay on C. S. Lewis as a master builder, demonstrating Lewis’s rhetorical genius. There is also a chapter from Leland Ryken who gets at one of Lewis’s sources: John Milton. Ryken’s chapter shows how the Christian mind understands all of life to be a stewardship before the Lord.

Heath Thomas contributed a chapter correcting C. S. Lewis’s writings on the Psalms of Lament and demonstrating that Lewis appears to have grown in his understanding of lament later in life, particularly in his Letters to Malcolm. Daniel Estes explains the significance of the integration of faith with all of life, something at which Lewis excelled. There are also essays in Lewis’s ethics in That Hideous Strength and The Abolition of Man, his concept of the “Inner Ring,” disinterested love in Screwtape and The Great Divorce, and an essay that puts Lewis and Schaeffer in dialogue on apologetics and epistemology.

In each of the diverse essays attempts to show readers where Lewis was pointing, since Lewis himself viewed his work as less significant than the one to whom he was pointing. This is a book with a heart attuned to both evangelism and doxology, concepts that are deeply intertwined and vitally important to the Christian life.

If you are fan of C. S. Lewis, or looking for an introduction to the wide range of work he did, this volume would be a good place to start.

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

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NOTE: I edited this volume. If you buy a copy, I might get a tiny fragment of the money, which might eventually bring the hourly rate of my efforts up from deeply negative to zero dollars lost per hour. My more significant motivation is that Michael Travers was a dear friend and some of the essays in this volume are just plain good.