A Life in Exile

I recently read a blog post of a writer who commented on several works in light of the Easter season in order to consider their perspectives on life, death, darkness, light, resurrection, and love. In this quest, he reread two works of C. S. Lewis, who is well-known to many in the worldwide Christian community. The blogger admitted that his affinity for Lewis’s writings has lessened considerably over the decades. Then he says this: “I have issues with some of these early works where Lewis famously gives up his atheism and writes, at least to my ear, with a certainty that is all too prevalent with recent converts.”

This intrigued me. What bothered him more—Lewis’s certainty in giving up atheism or that many other more recent converts claim the same? Though he discusses two of Lewis’s works (The Great Divorce and A Grief Observed), I was sad that he avoids Mere Christianity, where Lewis wrote: “Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed.”

While in his work and some of his writing, Lewis relates the biblical narrative to myth, he never disavowed the truth of the Gospel message. Again, in Mere Christianity, he writes:

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from our friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery.”

The Fallibility of Man

In questioning the work of C. S. Lewis, my natural instinct is to be offended, but as a writer and Christian, I cannot. Critique is an expected result of taking the risk to write. This blogger would not be the first nor last to have something to say about Lewis. What I find amusing is that he, in his issue with Lewis’s certainty over Christ, would seek to downplay and lessen the impact of his writing.

Lewis would never have claimed to be the greatest writer. He himself often recognized the greatness in his friend, J. R. R. Tolkien. His education and experience were not in theology or apologetics but in English and Medieval literature, and yet God used that very background and literary bent to influence his attempts to write about his faith and Christianity. He was also a talking-writer, having given lectures and spoken on radio broadcasts before putting some of his thoughts in print. He writes, again in Mere Christianity: “I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially ‘high’, nor especially ‘low’, nor especially anything else.”

His goal in writing was not to convert anyone to his own position, but “to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.”

Such statements encourage me, because to read Lewis is to read the works of a man about the work of God in Christ Jesus, nothing more, nothing less. This should be the aim of all Christian writers. Elevate Christ, lower self; or, as John the Baptist would say, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30 ESV).

Would Lewis waver in his faith? Yes, and I think that is made clear in A Grief Observed. Still, though grief, war, and trial may have caused not only Lewis but many others to waver, it never changed the certainty of the hope we have in the death, burial, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ. Neither our fallibility nor Hell can veto Heaven, as Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce.

The Certainty of Christ

It is clear from the writer of this blog that much of his effort to downplay Lewis and turn to other sources for guidance in life is due to political differences. Upset by the inconsistencies he sees in conservative Christians when relating to Lewis’s works, he writes: “I believe in the continuation of life after death but have stopped focusing on what comes next in some great beyond.” He looks at A Grief Observed with the hope of regaining a footing in this world and thus avoids what’s to come in the next, and then leans into Madeleine Engle’s words in her commentary of Lewis’s journal: “the important thing is that we do not know. It is not in the realm of proof. It is in the realm of love.” The writer prefers to remain in the areas of imagination, intuition, and intelligence to focus on this life rather than the next.

Here, I go back to Mere Christianity, because instead of digging into the only true source for answers—the Word of God—our writer and many like him turn to the words of other writers, philosophers, poets, scientists, and intellectuals, forgetting that there is only one place and one Person who holds the certainty on which we can plant our hope for today and eternity.

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over the pre-war wishful thinking about international politics. It is time we did the same about religion.”

I like that Lewis brings up politics, because I think this is where many falter in the search for truth. Our current divisions are nothing new. In the end, a person must choose to shut out the voices of the world, right or left, and let the One Voice of Truth speak. This is what C. S. Lewis did, and it changed his life and subsequently the lives of countless others who read his books and heard his voice. He wrote in The Great Divorce: “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”

This is why the certainty that offends holds true—it is found in Christ and Christ alone.

Faith in the certainty of Christ brings hope and purpose

The good news is that because of the certainty of the death, resurrection, and return of Christ Jesus, all who believe in Him can live with hope and purpose. Are we still fallible? Yes. Do we make mistakes? Yes. But thanks be to God, we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God, and it’s by his sacrifice that we are imputed by his righteousness and made right with God. Paul explained it all to the believers in Corinth:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 51-52, 58)

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is shifting sand. This is the beauty of the resurrection—salvation for sinful man!

Grace and Peace

If you missed the last Wednesday Wisdom, click HERE, or check out these posts on C. S. Lewis and the gospel: Engaged in Battle, The Purpose of the Church, One Church, Multiple Expressions, Repaired, The Final Stage, The Joy of Pain, Do You Believe?, and When Faith is Crushed.