Our Last Battle (8)

 Caricatures Continue

Chapter Four opens with the King tied to a tree, away from the Shift the Ape and the stable and the gathering of Narnians. He has been beaten, he is hungry and thirsty. 

As night descends, Mice, a Rabbit, and Moles quietly come to the King with food, wine, water, and with care and concern. However, they cannot untie Tirian lest Aslan be angry with them, just as when Tirian was attacked by the Calormenes they dared not fight for their King, lest they go against Aslan. 

When Tirian asks them if they really think Aslan would command the killing and enslavement of Narnians, the Mice acknowledge the contradiction between Aslan’s actions and what they’d always heard about Him, but then remind Tirian that they’ve seen Aslan (Puzzle the donkey dressed in a dead lion’s skin). Their conclusion is that they must have done something really bad to deserve such punishment from Aslan.

There is a brief moment when Tirian has his own doubts about what is real and what isn’t concerning Aslan, but then he recalls the rubbish about Tash and Aslan being one and the same and that brings him back to his senses. 

The theme of caricature continues in this chapter, and with the Mice and Rabbit and Moles we see good – hearted Narnians torn between compassion for Tirian and fear of Aslan. They know something isn’t right, but they don’t know what to do because they are afraid. Yet, they have overcome their fear in some measure, if only for a moment, to give comfort to Tirian. 

As Tirian considers the danger these little ones have placed themselves in to bring him comfort, he bids them to leave him, for he would not for all of Narnia see them harmed. Here we see Tirian’s anger, a prominent feature in the story to this point, being displaced by love for others. 

Left to himself, the King begins to ponder the history of Narnia, the appearances of Aslan, and the accounts of mysterious children from another world who have appeared from time to time to save Narnia. He thinks, “It’s not like that with me…But it was all long ago…That sort of thing doesn’t happen now.” 

Here is another caricature in Our Last Battle, the caricature of the Bible, God’s Word. Has God’s Word changed? Does it no longer mean what it says? Can we trust the stories and commands and teachings of Scripture? Does Jesus still appear to His People? Does He still live with us? (This is a prominent theme in Prince Caspian and in The Silver Chair.)

Are we explaining away the Bible? Are we making excuses for not seeing and knowing Jesus as a Living Person? Are we teaching that the Holy Spirit is less than He is represented in Scripture? Are we sewing dead lions’ skins on donkeys to represent the Bible, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? Have we exalted our rationalizations, our sociology, our humanistic hermeneutics and epistemology, above the Word of God and the Person of Jesus Christ? Just how many stables are we constructing? 

If we aren’t asking these questions, we won’t know. If we aren’t asking these questions as part of the fabric of life, we will not know. However, there is risk in asking these questions, for we may end up like Tirian, beaten and tied to a tree, abandoned. 

How often are we told, “That was then, in Bible times, this is now in our times. God has changed, the Bible does not mean today what it meant when it was written. We have progressed."

An element of Our Last Battle is whether we accept the Bible as God gave it to us, and whether we are living under its authority, or whether we are re-forming the Bible into our image. Do we have the courage to think about these things? 

Since the Bible testifies to Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ is seen holistically throughout Scripture (a reality that we have been blinded to), these questions are critical. This is all about Jesus Christ. Our Last Battle is about Jesus, just as The Last Battle is all about Aslan. 

And this suggests another danger in asking these questions, and that danger is that even in asking such questions, we may miss Jesus. Simply to identify caricatures or chasms between what we think and practice and believe today and the Jesus Christ of holistic Scripture is not enough. Our attention must not be directed to the chasm, it is to be always directed to Jesus. As important as it may be to realize there are chasms, what is of vital importance is to see Jesus and be drawn to Him, to know Him as we’ve never known Him before.

As we draw nearer and nearer to Jesus, as our friendship with Him becomes ever more intimate and vibrant, we forget about the chasms and caricatures in the light of His glory and grace and sweet friendship. In one sense it doesn’t matter so much where we have been, but rather where we are going, “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). 

In 1 Corinthians Chapter One, Paul in essence says, “We have a Message that doesn’t cater to Jews or Greeks, a Message that doesn’t conform to the expectations and paradigms of human culture. We have a Message that is a stumbling block to some and sheer foolishness to others.

Then in 2:2 he writes, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” 

It seems to me that much of our thinking today, including in Evangelical circles, seeks to remove the stumbling blocks and foolishness of the Gospel, of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. In doing so, perhaps we are making Aslan into Tash, and Tash into Aslan, perhaps we are creating our own Tashlan.

Well, we’ll return to Tirian tied to a tree and seemingly abandoned in our next reflection (the Lord willing), for the story is about to take a wonderful turn.

Our Last Battle (6)

 Six – Not A Tame Lion?

While Lewis titles chapter three, The Ape in Its Glory, I think the question for the reader is, “What do I see happening as a result of the Ape having such glory?” That is, what do we see happening on the inside of people as a result of the Ape’s words and actions?

Here is the second phase of Our Last Battle, while this phase was introduced in Chapter Two, it comes into focus in Chapter Three. It is a phase that is deeply ingrained in the professing church of our own day, whether it styles itself conservative, progressive, liberal, or with, I suppose, any other label – including the label of “no label.” 

In Chapter Two, as the King and Jewel are rejecting Roonwit’s warning not to believe that lie that Aslan has returned, Jewel argues that Aslan need not be consistent with the stars that Roonwit points to because Aslan is not a Tame Lion. At this Tirian cries, “Well said, well said, Jewel. Those are the very words: not a tame lion. It comes in many tales.”

Then in Chapter Three, as Tirian and Jewel deal with their shame over the murder of two Calormenes, who were unarmed, and struggle with how it is possible that Aslan would decree the enslavement of Narnians, the destruction of Narnian trees, and an alliance with the Calormenes, Tirian says again, “He is not a tame Lion.” 

Later, when Jewel and Tirian are brought before the Ape and witness the Ape’s interaction with the crowd, we see a Boar asking Shift why the people can’t actually see Aslan and talk to him. The Boar points out that in the old days, when Aslan appeared, people clearly saw him and spoke to Him face to face. 

The Ape responds by saying that times have changed and that Aslan will “teach you to think he’s a tame lion.” 

A Bear then says, “We want to hear Aslan speak for himself.”

A young lamb then asks how Aslan could be friends with Tash, a god who is worshipped with human sacrifice. Then the Ape gets things out in the open with the statement, “Tash is only another name for Aslan…Tash is Aslan: Aslan is Tash.” 

Finally Tirian comes to his senses, “Ape,” he cried with a great voice, “you lie. You lie damnably. You lie like a Calormene. You lie like an Ape.”

This phase of Our Last Battle can be thought of as knowing Aslan, or knowing Jesus – as opposed to believing and accepting a caricature of Him. This includes seeing the perfect harmony and correspondence between Aslan and the stars, or more perfectly, between Jesus and His Word. 

Let’s explore a few of the threads inherent in this phase of Our Last Battle. 

The first thread has to do with the idea that Aslan is not a Tame Lion, an image we find in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Mr. Beaver had warned the Kings and Queens concerning Aslan, “He’ll be coming and going. One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down – and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” 

What does this mean? What doesn’t it mean? How did Tirian and others misunderstand this? 

There are six books that precede The Last Battle in the Narniad. Each of these stories reveal Aslan, and in revealing Aslan they reveal His character, His Nature. We see Aslan’s loving self-sacrifice, His kindness and gentleness, His righteousness and justice, and His forgiveness and mercy. We also see that while He is not a tame lion, that He is approachable and trustworthy and safe to be with. We might say that while we do not tame Aslan, that Aslan tames us by teaching us to trust Him and obey Him in love and truth and righteousness and courage. 

In The Last Battle, not only do the King and Jewel reject Roonwit’s appeal to the message of the heavens, but the King, Jewel, and many of the King’s subjects reject the testimony of previous generations concerning Aslan. They are duped into believing lies. They actually believe and accept the caricature of Aslan as portrayed by the Ape. Those few Narnians who take issue with the Ape’s message are quickly shouted down and are not supported by their fellow Narnians. 

This entails more than believing lies, it also attributes evil to Aslan, the Christ figure. This is what occurs when we do not really know Aslan, when we do not speak to Him face to face. This is how we can be led to attribute evil to God when we don’t know the Nature and Character of God. When we don’t know the Word of God, when we don’t know Christ as revealed in the Bible, then we can only rely on hearsay, on what others have told us as opposed to what we have experienced. 

In Scripture we are told that Jesus, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He become poor. Is it likely that this Jesus would send us a message that we ought to accumulate wealth? That we ought to seek bigger and bigger houses, jewels upon jewels, exotic automobiles, and hoard more money than we will ever need? Does it make sense that this Jesus would send messengers, pastors, priests, archbishops, prophets, evangelists who are not transparent about their (and their churches) finances, who make displays of wealth when people are starving and homeless? Who lay up treasures on earth when people need Jesus and food and shelter and medical care? 

Jesus says that we are to allow the little children to come to Him. Does it make sense that this Jesus would tolerate the abuse of children? That He would cover it up? That He would enable abusers to continue their evil practices? The Jesus of the Gospels provided a safe place for women. Do we not think it strange that institutions that purport to be from Him perpetuate the abuse of women, making excuse after excuse for the practice. 

Jesus said that we will know trees by their fruit. If a system, if an institution, is producing sinful and evil fruit – how can we think that the Ape is actually representing Aslan? 

Jesus teaches us that we are His brothers and sisters, that we are the daughters and sons of His Father. Jesus teaches us that we can know Him, speak to Him, hear Him, abide in Him and have Him abide in us. Yet, we are often taught that we cannot come near Him, but that we must have others speak to us on His behalf. In fact, we are often taught that He no longer speaks to us, in spite of what Jesus Himself tells us in His Word. 

Some teach us that nationalism should share the stage with Jesus. Others teach that this or that economic system has been sanctioned by Jesus and that we ought to propagate it. Others teach us that there is a certain way to look at the world, they call it a worldview, and they make it equivalent to the Gospel. 

But the Jesus of the Bible is transcendent, and He makes us citizens of heaven. Jesus calls us to be His Ekklesia, His Church, His Body, His Bride, His Temple – there are no national flags or national constitutions within the Temple of God – there is the Father and the Son.  

There are those who claim to be messengers of Jesus who keep people in slavery to guilt, they measure the effectiveness of their so-called ministries by how guilty their people feel from week to week. They pay lip service to the New Covenant, but they practice the guilt-ridden Old Covenant where there is a constant reminder of sin. (Actually, the men and women of faith under the Old Covenant knew the blessedness of forgiveness – see Romans Chapter 4). Yet, the Jesus of the Bible comes to forgive and cleanse us once and for all (see Hebrews Chapter 10; 2 Cor. 5:21). 

If we don’t know the Nature and Character of Jesus, as displayed in Scripture, we will be duped by the Ape and dead lion skins. 

People will say, “Well, He isn’t a tame lion,” and we will take that to mean that the Bible can be superseded by our whims and fancies and pragmatism. 

An element of Our Last Battle is whether we know Jesus or whether we have bought into a caricature of Him. Are we attributing evil – including religious evil - to the spotless and holy Lamb of God? Are we following dead lions’ skins? 

“I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). 

In our next reflection we'll consider what it means that Aslan is not a tame lion on the positive side. 

Our Last Battle - (5)

 FIVE – THE KING’S ANGER GROWS

As Tirian and Jewel contend with Roonwit over the centaur’s warning of not to believe the lie that Aslan has returned, their ears are arrested by a Dryad’s wailing, crying for justice from the King. Her brothers and sisters, Narnian trees in Lantern Waste, are being cut down, murdered. Tirian’s reaction is to draw his sword. 

Note that the King has gone from putting his hand on his sword in anger toward Roonwit, to now drawing his sword in response to the Dryad’s news.

When the Dyad falls dead in great pain, indicating that her tree in Lantern Waste has also been cut down, Tirian’s grief and anger are so great that he can’t speak. Then, when the King calls on Roonwit and Jewel to come with him to Lantern Waste and confront the enemy perpetuating the murders, Roonwit counsels, “Sir, be wary even in your just wrath.”

Roonwit further counsels Tirian to wait until they gather reinforcements, for after all, there are only three of them and there are likely many villains to confront. Tirian, however, will not wait, but as he and Jewel make their way to Lantern Waste, he sends Roonwit to Cair Paravel for help. 

Lewis tells us that as the King hurries to help the Narnian trees that he is muttering to himself and clenching his fists, his anger is burning, he is driven by anger. When they ford the cold waters of a river Tirian is so angry that he hardly notices how cold the water is. Again, he is propelled by anger, fueled by anger. 

After an encounter with a Water Rat who tells them that their arch enemies, the Calormenes, are the ones felling the trees, Jewel and the King both become so angry that they can’t think clearly, which leads us to a key statement by Lewis in this chapter, and indeed in the entire book: “But much evil came of their rashness in the end.” 

The chapter concludes with Jewel and Tirian killing two Calormenes who have enslaved a Narnian horse. “The King’s sword went up, the Unicorn’s horn went down.” Jewel gored his opponent and Tirian beheaded his enemy. 

Note the progression of Tirian’s anger with his sword; first he lays his hand on the sword in his anger toward Roonwit, then he draws his sword in his anger at the news Dryads are being murdered, then he beheads an enemy with the sword to conclude the chapter. As noted previously, Tirian’s anger is mentioned at least ten times in this chapter, which is titled The Rashness of the King. 

Tirian rejected Roonwit’s counsel not to believe the lie about Aslan. Then the King rejected Roonwit’s counsel to be wary of his anger. Much evil would come of Tirian’s rashness, much sorrow, and much harm to his people. 

O dear friends, can we learn from Lewis’s warning about anger? Anger propels us on a trajectory of sorrow and hurt. When we become people of anger we hurt others in our self-righteousness, we ingest poison into our souls, we spread toxicity to those around us, we communicate spiritual and moral disease and death. 

The People of Christ are to be those who belong to the sacrificial Lamb, the Prince of Peace. We are called to be peacemakers. Our gentleness is to be known to all people. We are to "follow the Lamb wherever He goes” rather than take the lead in anger. We are not to call down fire on others, but we are to remember whose Spirit lives within us. 

The Scriptures teach us that Christ has made us a royal priesthood, we are kings and priests in Christ. If this is so, then we ought to be aware that godly kings do not rule and operate out of anger, but in peace and equity and wisdom. 

When we find ourselves drunk with anger we need to check ourselves into a detox center, and the detox center focuses on Christ Jesus the Lamb and our submission to His Word. The detox center reminds us of the character of our Father and Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, it reminds us that we are not of this world. 

The cup of anger is the cup of Satan, the cup of deceit. The alcohol may be mixed in sweet fruit punch so that we won’t taste it, it may be easy for us to drink, we may justify a drink here and a drink there, but before we know it we have turned the jug upside down and we no longer control the drink, the drink controls us – we are fools. 

Our Last Battle includes our battle with anger. If anger wins, then we lose. If we learn to submit to the peace of Christ, allowing His peace to rule in our hearts (Colossians 3:15), then we have hope and the possibility that we can help others, that in Christ we can save others from the chaotic hell around us. 

Tirian’s anger blinded him to the character of Aslan, it blinded him to the wise counsel of Roonwit, it blinded him to the Word of Aslan as portrayed in the heavens, it blinded him to good judgment, it impeded his ability to save his people. We cannot see clearly when we are angry; we hurt ourselves and others and bring shame to Jesus Christ when we act like fools.

The people around us need the peace of Jesus Christ, they do not need our self-righteous anger, be it religious or political. 

Many of us are fond of quoting Isaiah in saying that a time will come when people will call good evil and evil good. Yet, we do the very same thing when we call anger good and peace evil. Why don’t we see this? It is because we are losing our Last Battle, it is because we are drinking the cup of the enemy and we are too drunk to know it. Isn’t it about time we sobered up and began living for Jesus and others? 

Godly courage is exemplified by the Cross, not by the sword. 

“And they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony [of the Lamb], and they did not love their life even to death [just as the Lamb]” (Rev. 12:11). 

“The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24 – 25). 

How are we doing with our Last Battle with anger? 

Do we really want to live and die as an angry people? 

Our Last Battle (4)

 Four – Anger at Roonwit

As Jewel parries Tirian’s anger at Jewel’s suggestion that the reports of Aslan may not be true, the centaur Roonwit thunders onto the scene, sweating profusely, having galloped long and hard to reach the King. 

Note that Roonwit drinks to “Aslan and truth” first, and then to the King secondly. 

Roonwit has come to warn the King that the stars, which he reads with wisdom and understanding, say nothing about the appearance of Aslan. Quite the contrary, the stars indicate disaster. Roonwit warns the king not to believe the news that Aslan is in Narnia, for the stars proclaim not good news, but rather warn of terrible events. Roonwit says concerning accounts that Aslan is in the land, “It is all a lie.”

On hearing those words, Tirian lays his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

When Roonwit says that the stars don’t lie, Jewel interjects that Aslan does not serve the stars but the stars serve Aslan and that Aslan can do what He wants to do. Tirian laches onto that argument, for Tirian’s mind is made up, he will believe the account of Aslan being in the land. 

First Tirian is angry at his dear friend Jewel, then he is angry at the majestic Roonwit to the point where he reaches for his sword. In the six pages of Chapter Two, Tirian is angry at least ten times, hence the chapter’s title, The Rashness of the King. Tirian’s anger blinds his judgment and leads to sorrow and confusion. His refusal to heed the stars, and his insistence on placing his own feelings above the message of the stars, hinders his ability to save his people and point them to the true Aslan. 

While the central warning of Chapter Two concerns anger, we are also warned about the danger of failing to heed God’s Word, in this case, the stars. Our feelings ought to be subject to God’s Word, God’s Word is not to be subject to our feelings or thinking or agendas. Nor should we make the terrible mistake of believing that God will contradict His Word; in the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God and His Word are One. 

Our own Last Battle includes both our own anger, as opposed to submitting to the peace of God, and whether we will submit to God’s Word or insist that God’s Word submit to us. In both instances our submission to Jesus Christ is at the heart of the matter and battle. 

We are commanded to allow the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts (Colossians 3:15).  We are supposed to be subjects of the Prince of Peace. Peacemaking is to be a characteristic of the sons and daughters of God.

Anger is a third rail that will kill us, even though we deny it in the midst of our own electrocution. Anger makes us crazy and induces spatial disorientation, it makes us forget who Jesus Christ is and who we are in Him. Anger made Tirian forget that he was a Narnian King and also subject to Aslan. Anger is no substitute for wisdom, understanding, peace, or self-sacrifice. 

I don’t think we care much about the Bible, not really. We are good at lip service to the Scriptures, but we aren’t good at obeying the Word. Just ask the world, ask the people around us. Francis Schaffer pointed out that Jesus gives the world the right to judge us based on what it observes about our love and our unity (John 13:34–35; 17:21–23). 

We’ve one group of professing Christians who have repudiated the Bible’s teaching about the image of God, and we have another group who are repudiating what the Bible teaches about caring for the stranger and the widow and the orphan and the poor. In the same communities we have churches who are affluent and churches whose members lack necessities, such as health care, decent housing, affordable groceries, and safe schools (see 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 and then explain to me why we ignore this passage). 

We have one group of churches that criticizes what it terms the “social gospel,” while that very same group goes all in on a political agenda that endorses violence and makes excuses for the violation of the rule of law, basic morality, and ethics.

Whether we look to the right or the left, we are hardly people who take the Bible seriously unless it is as a smoke screen. C. S. Lewis did not so much take issue with theologians or pastors who did not believe the Bible – except to say that they ought to be honest and find another line of work. In other words, believe what you want to believe, but have the honesty not to make your living from the church if you don’t believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The problem isn’t so much that discrepancies exist between what the Bible teaches and how we actually live, the problem is that we either fail to recognize the gaps or that we justify our thinking and behavior. 

Since the anger of man is contrary to the righteousness of God (James 1:20) and has its roots in the demonic (James 3:9 – 18), the fact that so many professing Christians engage in anger and vitriol in the public square is shameful and troubling. 

Professing Christians do not want to hear what the Bible teaches. They do not want Roonwit showing up to bother them with the truth of Jesus Christ. They would much rather follow a dead lion’s skin – for health and wealth, for self-righteousness, for economic gain, for political and social advantage, for nationalistic agendas, for entertainment, for personal therapy…what can we add to the list? And we certainly don’t want our anger to be placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. 

When it is convenient we want to attack authority, and when it suits our purposes we insist that others bow to our authority. We are drinking from a cup other than that at the Lord’s Table. 

There are dead lion skins all around us.

Our Last Battle (3)

 Chapter Two is titled, The Rashness of the King, and in it Lewis presents a warning for those who will pay attention. This warning presents us with the first phase of our Last Battle. 

The chapter begins with two friends, King Tirian and the unicorn Jewel. Unlike Shift and Puzzle in the first chapter, these are true friends whose friendship has been tested and proved through life – threatening perils, they had risked their lives for each other. Jewel and Tirian love each other, they have a true friendship – they have been willing to lay down their lives for one another. 

It is some three weeks after the events of Chapter One. The scene is a woodland setting, away from Cair Paravel, the royal capital. The king likes to live simply, away from the protocols and finery of the capital. As we are drawn into the chapter, we hear the king telling his friend that he doesn’t feel like doing any work or sport because of the glorious news that Aslan is in the land. As Jewel replies that the news is indeed wonderful, he adds “if they are true.”

Tirian responds with incredulity, “How can they choose but be true?” The king goes on to list the testimony of birds and squirrels and a stag (who had seen Aslan from afar) and a Calormene, and a badger. In Tirian’s response we see the first sign of his great danger, that of anger. He will believe what he has heard, and he will countenance no suggestion that what he believes isn’t true, even from his dear friend Jewel. Jewel hasn’t said it isn’t true, but he has expressed the possibility that it might not be true. There is a sense in which Jewel is saying that the report of Aslan ought to be verified. Jewel hopes it is true, he wants it to be true, it will be glorious if it is true. The king will have none of it, it has to be true and that is that.

Why was Tirian still at his hunting lodge? Why wasn’t the king back at Cair Paravel with his people to meet Aslan? Why wasn’t the king, as the leader of his people, seeking Aslan? If the king had responded to the first reports of Aslan, our story may have unfolded in a very different manner, much heartache and tragedy may have been avoided, he may have been able to protect his people. 

Dear friends, we can be comfortable, or we can be faithful, but we cannot be both. Yes, you read the words correctly, we can be faithful to Jesus Christ and others, or we can choose to live comfortably, but we cannot have both. This is not to say that we cannot enjoy good things in life when we are able, by God’s grace, to do so (Phil. 4:12), but it is to say that the race we are called to run and the battles we are called to fight require constant engagement and vigilance for the benefit of those around us. While we may have respites at Tirian’s lodge, our place of service is at Cair Paravel, it is where people are. Jesus Christ came for people, not pleasure; He has called us to serve Him and people, not pleasure. 

Paul writes Timothy that he is to “endure hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” and that he [Paul] “endures all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” (See 2 Timothy 2:1 – 13).  Jesus’ call to follow Him is a call to self-denial and a call to lay our lives down for Him and others (Mark 8:34 – 38; John 15:12–13; 1 John 3:16). 

Francis Schaffer predicted that the two greatest dangers to the church, at least in the West, at the end of the 20th century would be personal peace and affluence. What Schaffer meant was that our attitude toward the world would be, “If you leave me alone to have my own space and my personal peace, and if you allow me to enjoy the things I can accumulate and experience, I will leave you alone. I will not bother you with the Gospel and we as a People will not bother you with a distinctive unified witness to Jesus Christ.” 

While Tirian was enjoying his time with his friend Jewel in the woodlands, his people were being deceived by the Ape and poor Puzzle in a dead lion’s skin. 

What about us? Where are we living and how are we engaged? Is our own selfish welfare at the center of our decisions? Does personal peace and affluence determine our words and actions and decisions? Is life all about us and our families and our wellbeing, and even our congregations and religious traditions? As Haggai the prophet put it, are our own houses at the center of our lives while the House of God (Eph. 2:19 – 22) lies in ruins? (Haggai Chapter One). 

Oswald Chambers wrote that every morning when we wake up, that we wake up on a battlefield. While Tirian was enjoying his time in a pastoral setting and believing a lie, his people were being deceived and enslaved.

In Chapter Two we see that our Last Battle includes the battle of personal peace and affluence as opposed to a life in Christ of self-denial and sacrifice for others; it also includes whether we will live in anger or in the peace of Jesus Christ. As we will see, the battle with anger unfolds in Chapter Two and the rashness of the king leads to much harm. 

We’ll consider the entrance of the majestic Roonwit in our next reflection, a centaur who has much to teach us. 

Our Last Battle (2)

 I'm going to ask you to hang in here as we work through The Last Battle. I've been deferring this for a few years. Do we have the courage to face The Last Battle? Do we have the courage to face anything?

The Pilgrim Church, by E.H. Broadbent, (forward by F. F. Bruce) provides a nice historical background. 

My goal is to do one posting a week on the Last Battle, and continue to focus on the Upper Room. 

Love,

Bob

Two – By Caldron Pool

In Chapter One we meet the ape Shift and the donkey Puzzle. They say that they are friends. When Puzzle says it he means it. When Shift says it he says it to manipulate Puzzle, for Puzzle’s desire for friendship blinds him to the fact that Shift has only one interest in him, to use him and to abuse him. Shift is always reminding Puzzle how he knows better than Puzzle and only wants the best for Puzzle. Shift also plays off Puzzle’s emotions, making Puzzle feel guilty and sorry for the way he treats Shift when we fails to do Shift’s bidding.

One morning, as Puzzle and Shift walk alongside the Caldron Pool, the Ape spots something yellow floating in the water. After manipulating Puzzle to retrieve the object, they both realize that it is a lion’s skin. As Puzzle frets about the former occupant of the skin, Shift’s bent soul is at work, devising a plan to benefit from this sudden find. Here is a contrast between Puzzle’s sympathy and Shift’s narcissism, between Puzzle’s simplicity and Shift’s subterfuge. 

Puzzle wants to give the lion skin proper burial, for even if it is not the skin of a talking lion of Narnia, out of respect for Aslan Puzzle honors all lions. However, Shift reminds Puzzle that he isn’t good at thinking and then announces that they will turn the lion skin into a nice coat for Puzzle. How thoughtful and kind of Shift, always thinking of others. Then Shift has an even better idea, for since Puzzle will look like a lion when wearing the skin, he might as well pretend to be Aslan and speak to others as if he is Aslan. 

The balance of the chapter portrays the back and forth between Shift and Puzzle, Puzzle feeling uncomfortable with wearing the lion’s skin and pretending to be Aslan, and Shift insisting that this is Aslan’s plan and that they will be able to do much good for others. As Shift reminds Puzzle again and again, donkeys are not very good at thinking and he really should leave the thinking to Shift. 

The narrator reminds us that if you had seen a real lion that you would not have been taken in by Puzzle, but that if you had never seen a real lion, and if you only saw Puzzle at a distance, and if you couldn’t clearly seen him, and if he didn’t make donkey noises, that it is possible that you could be deceived into thinking that he was an actual lion. 

Puzzle’s instincts told him one thing, but he was so intimidated by Shift and was so convinced that he was stupid, and that Shift knew best, that he allowed himself to be led into a tragedy. Was it that Puzzle so wanted to have a friend that he kept accepting Shift’s deprecating evaluation of him? Had Puzzle become so brow beaten that even when his instinct for truth was strong, that he didn’t have the courage to break away from the malicious Ape? 

When the dead lion’s skin, after being tailored for Puzzle by Shift, was fitted on Puzzle, things were even worse, for Puzzle had become a captive to the skin of a dead lion and the Ape had even more control over him.

I wonder how we might be manipulated to wear the skin of a dead lion. How might we be induced to wear a Christianity that has no living relationship to the life of Jesus and the Gospel portrayed in Scripture?  If, after all, we don’t have an intimate relationship with Jesus, if we don’t know Him as our Friend and Brother, if living with Him is not our daily Way of Life; then is it not possible that we can be manipulated into accepting an image of Jesus that is not that of Scripture, that is not really the Word made Flesh? 

Since we are donkeys and not wise apes, this could be possible. But would we know it? 

In John Chapter 9 Jesus heals a man born blind. The Pharisees are angry about it for it was the Sabbath, and as we all know, God does not like it when people heal other people on the Sabbath (well, that is what the Pharisees taught about God, of course that isn’t the truth). After an extended back and forth between the Pharisees, the man’s parents, and the man who was healed; and after the man refused to denounce Jesus, the Pharisees said to the man, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?”

Then the religious leaders did the man a favor by putting him out of the synagogue.

Just as Shift belittled Puzzle, so the Pharisees belittled the man born blind. Unlike Puzzle, the man born blind had to wherewithal to say, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 

The manipulators of life, including in the religious world, exalt themselves and belittle others to maintain their power and deception. They may do this with smoke and mirrors – with prophetic utterances, with ever unfolding interpretations of events, with creating bogey men to evoke fear, with raw emotionalism; or they may be subtle and sophisticated, making pronouncements from the heights of exalted learning, or by convincing us that we need therapeutic ways of thinking and self – analysis.

         Then there are those who promise health and wealth and success and affluence. There are yet others who so browbeat their people and burden them with guilt that the people become prisoners of a sick relationship. Whatever the case, no matter the genre, they are smart apes and we are dumb donkeys; we were born in our sins and we cannot possibly teach them anything. We ought to be quiet and to accept whatever dead lion’s skin they fashion for us. 

Jesus said that you can’t put new wine in old wineskins. Do we believe that? Wouldn’t we rather change the chemistry of the new wine to make it compatible with the old wine skin? Don’t we really want the Holy Spirit to work within our status quo? 

C. S. Lewis wrote about inner circles, about closed groups who desire to control others. He had an aversion to these groups. He portrays such a group in That Hideous Strength. Lewis saw such groups as a schoolboy. He saw such groups in the world of scholarship.

        Do we see such groups today?

        Are others trying to fit us with dead lion skins?

        Would we know it if we were wearing dead lion skins? 

        Are we trying to induce others to wear the skins of dead lions?

        The best protection against being duped by dead lion skins is to know the real and true Aslan. 

Our Last Battle

 

Our Last Battle

 

Reflections on The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis and our pilgrimage in Christ.

 

Robert L. Withers, 2024

 

One – What Does It Mean?

 

            What does Lewis mean by the title, The Last Battle? Our response to the question seems simple at first; surely we find the answer on page 738, “And then the last battle of the last King of Narnia began.” Maybe this is what he meant by the title, maybe this is all he meant by the title, but maybe it isn’t. If it is all that he meant, then he wrote more than he knew – which is probably the way it should be, for the story and its images are not simply linear and one dimensional, anymore more than Lewis was one dimensional and linear – anymore than the Bible is flat. [I am using the one volume edition of the Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis, Harper Collins].

            When we birth life we do not know where the life will go, how it will grow, how it will be transformed and transform those around it. Tolkien did not care for the Narniad, he considered its images incongruous, for example, what in the world was Father Christmas doing in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? What has Father Christmas to do with a witch or an Aslan figure of Christ? Tolkien wanted Lewis to follow the congruity of The Lord of the Rings, he wanted Lewis’s creative life to mimic his own creative life.

            How likely was this to happen? After all, Lewis said that for many years he had an image of a faun carrying a package, and that it was from this image that life took the form of Narnia – an unlikely progression to our natural eyes, but who knows the mystery of creation and birthing in our souls? I think only Christ Jesus.

            After decades, The Lord of the Rings is still giving life, likely in forms that Tolkien did not anticipate, as is the Narniad, likely in forms that Lewis did not consider. Authorial Intent can be a poor primary hermeneutic, and Lewis argued that we ought to encounter the creative work of the author rather than the author, and indeed Lewis and others, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, were disgusted with the trend of knowing personal details about authors – including themselves – they thought that creative work ought to be encountered on its own merit. 

            While my sense is that they both went a bit far on this, my point is that to encounter the Narniad is to enter into Narnia and to allow Narnia to enter into us – it is not to primarily ask, “What did Lewis mean?” We might well ask this question when reading The Problem of Pain or Miracles, but we ask it because we acknowledge the genre of what we’re reading – both of these books are didactic and tightly reasoned, whereas the Narniad is imaginative with imaginative seeds sown everywhere and cross pollinating. To enter into the world of Narnia is to “take the adventure that Aslan gives us,” an adventure taking us “further up and further in.”

            For the past few years I have been pondering The Last Battle and wanting to write about it. My motivation is simple, I love Jesus and I love His People and I think that The Last Battle is a message of both warning and encouragement. I have come to see that the question of just what the last battle really is, is a bit more complex than we might think. Is the last battle found on page 738, or is it found throughout the book?

            I think that the last battle on page 738 is found within the true Last Battle which occurs throughout the book, which is to say that the physical battle that commences on page 738 is but a component of the battle that commences at the beginning of the book, or at any rate that commences no later than Chapter 2, when Tirian and Jewell digest the news of Aslan’s appearance.

            You see, we all have a last battle. We have this battle as individuals and as a People, and the battle centers around “What think you of Christ?” That is, “Who do men say that I am?”

            Most of the Narnians bought into a caricature of Aslan, a caricature which grew and grew, which twisted and twisted, until their faith was transferred from Aslan to Tashlan. In other words, the Narnians believed the worst of Aslan. Of course they couldn’t see it, because once they stepped on the slippery slope their descent accelerated.

            There would have been no last battle on page 738 had not King Tirian first fought his own last battle, had not Tirian come to see the gross caricature of Aslan in the deceitful work of the Ape.

            But what of us? Do we worship the true Jesus Christ, or have we so twisted Him that we’ve created our own Tashlans – our syncretistic idols? Are we parading our theologies and politics and worship styles and nationalism and materialism in the skins of dead lions, convinced that we have the true Jesus? Do our hearts belong to Jesus? As the deer pants for water brooks, are our souls panting for Jesus?

            I have a dear friend who graciously invited me to preach his installation sermon – it is one of the highlights of my life. My text was 2 Corinthians 11:2 – 3:

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.  

 

            The hallmark of all Christian ministry ought to be leading Christians into a monogamous marriage with Jesus Christ; a pure and simple marriage to Jesus, in which Jesus is our All in all. We ought to be teaching others to love Jesus, we ought to be encouraging one another to love Jesus, we ought to have eyes for Jesus and only for Jesus. Jesus is not a capitalist, a socialist, a nationalist, a materialist; nor He is “red” or “blue” or of a particular religious tradition or denomination or of a church that claims to be exclusive. It seems we have many variations of dead lion skins that we parade shouting and teaching, “This is Jesus, this is Jesus!”

            It is frightening to me that we even cloak the Bible in dead lion skins – what hubris!

            It also seems that we are in competition to see who can produce the most authentic looking dead lion skin. We have become adept at making dead lion skins look alive, and it really does not seem to bother us…I find this puzzling.

            So many of our “Christian” books, our nationalistic pronouncements, our song lyrics, our teachings on “End Times,”  our Sunday school and small group curriculum, our emphasis on money and possessions, and the way we often “do” church – seem to me to be dead lion skins, for they do not point us to Jesus and only to Jesus, and they require artificial life support, otherwise they will die quickly. They also require marketing, manipulation, pressure to conform, and a return on investment. They must make economic sense.

            Well, I trust you will forgive me for the above, I am simply sharing my heart and the impact of The Last Battle. There is a simplicity in Jesus that our sophistication has left behind, there is also a directness in His call to discipleship (Mark 8:34 – 38) that we avoid, but which Bonhoeffer captures when writing, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

            We like to quote Jim Elliot’s, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose,” but we don’t really want to live it out in our lives – we don’t really want to encounter the true Aslan, the son of the Emperor across the sea – for while Aslan is good, He is most certainly not tame.

            I hope you will join me in reflecting on The Last Battle. Every time I walk through this last book of Narnia it tears my soul but it also gives me hope, for I know that I will see Aslan and be with Him, going further up and further in…always with Him, always in Him.

Much love,

Bob

 

 

 

 

Are We Loving Jesus?

 

Good morning friends,

 

The other day I met “Sam”. Early in our conversation he asked me what I did before retirement and when I told him that one of my vocations was as a pastor the conversation turned to…turned to…turned to what exactly? Is there a word that describes what it turned to?

 

Sam has been highly involved in “church” over the years and I won’t say more than that because I want him to remain anonymous, just as I won’t provide any details about how we met. This was a challenging conversation for me, not unlike many conversations I have with “church” people, but this one was especially challenging – possibly because Sam was so sure of himself and because of his many church connections. I think I could have done better in my time with Sam, but right now I’m not sure how.

 

As with many church folks I meet, Sam immediately gravitated toward the conservative – liberal axis assuming that I was one of his social and political tribe, and therefore assuming that I defined myself by the tribe, and therefore assuming that this political and social tribe is the tribe of Jesus. He also therefore assumed that the hot – button social and political issues of the day are the issues that should define “Christians” and are what we ought to talk about before and above anything else and use as our litmus test of relationship.

 

On the other hand, I wanted to talk about Jesus. In fact, I wanted to explore Sam’s relationship with Jesus. I wanted to see if Jesus was Sam’s center of gravity and first and highest love. I wanted to put into play 1 John 1:3, “…what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

 

You see, I know what it is to substitute other things for Jesus. I know what it is to put political and social and church agendas before the Person of Jesus. I know what it is to be religious without living in Christ and being centered in Christ. I know what it is to be somber without Christ as well as what it is to play the tambourine and sing and shout without Christ. I know what it is to do things in the name of Jesus Christ without actually living in the Vine, Jesus Christ.

 

Sam and I spent about 45 minutes together and he just couldn’t “hear” me. I was trying to connect with him in Jesus, I was trying to draw Jesus out of him, I was trying to encourage him to talk to me about Jesus in his life; but all I heard was political, social, church stuff; the whole liberal versus conservative, and conservative versus liberal…but no Jesus.

 

When Sam did refer to Jesus he referred to Him as many professing Christians do, as a spokesperson for agendas other than the Gospel and the Father; Jesus has become our pitchman for the Constitution, for economic systems, for social agendas, for political parties, for church organizations. Could it be that we will soon see Jesus selling cars and wireless plans?

 

(Don’t misunderstand me, we are fools if we don’t think the way we serve others matters; see Matthew 25:31 – 45 and 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. Pushing drowning people back into the water while we play on our cruise ship is sinful, ugly, and disgusting – we should not forget that Christians will stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:9 – 10. We are to be the Face of God to the world, the continuing Incarnation).  

 

This leads me to C. S. Lewis and his book, The Great Divorce. In my recent rereading of the book I was struck by the following passage, an excerpt of a conversation between a “Spirit” and a “Ghost,” the Spirit being a “departed” person now in Heaven, and the Ghost being a departed person who still has the potential to experience Heaven (remember, this is a dream Lewis is writing, he is not making a doctrinal statement about what happens after we die, he is exploring spiritual dynamics):

 

"Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you'll never learn to see the country."

 

"But that's just how a real artist is interested in the country."

 

"No. You're forgetting," said the Spirit. "That was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light."

 

"Oh, that's ages ago," said the Ghost. "One grows out of that. Of course, you haven't seen my later works. One becomes more and more interested in paint for its own sake."

 

"One does, indeed. I also have had to recover from that. It was all a snare. Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, deep down in Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower - become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations."

 

"I don't think I'm much troubled in that way," said the Ghost stiffly.

 

"That's excellent," said the Spirit. "Not many of us had quite got over it when we first arrived. But if there is any of that inflammation left it will be cured when you come to the fountain."

 

"What fountain's that?"

 

"It is up there in the mountains," said the Spirit. "Very cold and clear, between two green hills. A little like Letha. When you have drunk of it you forget forever all proprietorship in your own works. You enjoy them just as if they were someone else's; without pride and without modesty."

 

Pages 84 - 86.

 

Bold is mine.

 

Are we more interested in what we say about Christ than in Christ?

 

Are we Christians without Christ?

 

Are we our own victims of John 5:39?

 

How is it that we call ourselves Christians and yet not talk about our relationship with Jesus?

 

Is 1 John 1:3 a reality in our lives?

 

Are we loving Jesus?

 

A Reminder from Narnia

Sometimes a story says it best, God speaks to us in the Bible through stories and images - and by His grace He speaks to us through those to whom He has given the gift of story and image, such as C.S. Lewis. Next to the Bible, the Chronicles of Narnia are the books I would take with me on the proverbial lonely island if I could take no other books. 

Here's a vignette worth pondering - what do you see? 

Aslan and Jill (The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis)

 

“Are you not thirsty?” said the lion.

 

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

 

“Then drink,” said the lion.

 

“May I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

 

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

 

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

 

“Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

 

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

 

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

 

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

 

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

 

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

 

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

 

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

 

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

On The Incarnation Of The Word – Athanasius (1)

I have a friend who is asking his congregation to read Athanasius’s On the Incarnation of the Word during Advent. His church is using a recent translation by John Behr in the Popular Patristics Series. C.S. Lewis wrote an introduction to a translation of On the Incarnation in the mid-20^th century that is included in the Behr translation; this introduction isn’t just about Athanasius’s writing, it is also about the way we read, how we should read; and the way we think and how we should think. Certainly one of the problems with the present-day church is that we are untethered from the past – Protestants think Christian history began with the Reformation; the Reformers would be surprised at our attitudes and thinking. But even those who look to the Reformation seldom know much about the Reformation or the teaching of the Reformers – we pretty much live in an historical vacuum.

Below is Lewis's introduction. It isn't "light" reading, but it is reading we need. The fact that we may struggle with reading it indicates just how our minds and souls have atrophied. This piece by Lewis is worth pondering and returning to again and again. 

INTRODUCTION by C.S. Lewis

THERE is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about "isms" and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul- or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.

Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to. read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o'clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why-the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed "at" some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook-even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united-united with each other and against earlier and later ages-by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century-the blindness about which posterity will ask, " But how could they have thought that?"-lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

I myself was first led into reading the Christian classics, almost accidentally, as a result of my English studies. Some, such as Hooker, Herbert, Traherne, Taylor and Bunyan, I read because they are themselves great English writers; others, such as Boethius, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and, Dante, because they were "influences." George Macdonald I had found for myself at the age of sixteen and never wavered in my allegiance, though I tried for a long time to ignore his Christianity. They are, you will note, a mixed bag, representative of many Churches, climates and ages. And that brings me to yet another reason for reading them. The divisions of Christendom are undeniable and are by some of these writers most fiercely expressed. But if any man is tempted to think-as one might be tempted who read only contemporaries-that "Christianity" is a word of so many meanings that it means nothing at all, he can learn beyond all doubt, by stepping out of his own century, that this is not so. Measured against the ages "mere Christianity" turns out to be no insipid interdenominational transparency, but something positive, self-consistent, and inexhaustible. I know it, indeed, to my cost. In the days when I still hated Christianity, I learned to recognise, like some all too familiar smell, that almost unvarying something which met me, now in Puritan Bunyan, now in Anglican Hooker, now in Thomist Dante. It was there (honeyed and floral) in Francois de Sales; it was there (grave and homely) in Spenser and Walton; it was there (grim but manful) in Pascal and Johnson ; there again, with a mild, frightening, Paradisial flavour, in Vaughan and Boehme and Traherne. In the urban sobriety of the eighteenth century one was not safe-Law and Butler were two lions in the path. The supposed "Paganism" of the Elizabethans could not keep it out; it lay in wait where a man might have supposed himself safest, in the very centre of The Faerie Queene and the Arcadia. It was, of course, varied; and yet-after all-so unmistakably the same; recognisable, not to be evaded, the odour which is death to us until we allow it to become life

... an air that kills

From yon far country blows.

We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age. It is not enough, but it is more than you had thought till then. Once you are well soaked in it, if you then venture to speak, you will have an amusing experience. You will be thought a Papist when you are actually reproducing Bunyan, a Pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas, and so forth. For you have now got on to the great level viaduct which crosses the ages and which looks so high from the valleys, so low from the mountains, so narrow compared with the swamps, and so broad compared with the sheep-tracks.

The present book is something of an experiment. The translation is. intended for the world at large, not only for theological students. If it succeeds, other translations of other great Christian books will presumably follow. In one sense, of course, it is not the first in the field. Translations of the Theologia Germanica, the . Imitation, the Scale of Perfection, and the Revelations of Lady Julian of Norwich, are already on the market, and are very valuable, though some of them are not very scholarly. But it will be noticed that these are all books of devotion rather than of doctrine. Now the layman or amateur needs to be instructed as well as to be exhorted. In this age his need for knowledge is particularly pressing. Nor would I admit any sharp division between the two kinds of book. For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of. devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and -a pencil in their hand.

This is a good translation of a very great book. St. Athanasius has suffered in popular estimation from a certain sentence in the "Athanasian Creed." I will not labour the point that that work is not exactly a creed and was not by St, Athanasius, for I think it is a very fine piece of writing. The words "Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly" are the offence. They are commonly misunderstood. The operative word is keep; not acquire, or even believe, but keep. The author, in fact, is not talking about unbelievers, but about deserters, not about those who have never heard of Christ, nor even those who have misunderstood and refused to accept Him, but of those who having really understood and really believed, then allow themselves, under the sway of sloth or of fashion or any other invited confusion to be drawn away into sub-Christian modes of thought. They are a warning against the curious modern assumption that all changes of belief, however brought about, are necessarily exempt from blame. But this is not my immediate concern. I mention "the creed (commonly called) of St. Athanasius" only to get out of the reader's way what may have been a bogey and to put the true Athanasius in its place. His epitaph is Athanasius contra mundum , "Athanasius against the world." We are proud that our own country has more than once stood against the world. Athanasius did the same. He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, "whole and undefiled," when it looked as if all the civilised world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius - into one of those "sensible" synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended to-day and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.

When I first opened his De Incarnatione I soon discovered by a very simple test that I was reading a masterpiece. I knew very little Christian Greek except that of the New Testament and I had expected difficulties. To my astonishment I found it almost as easy as Xenophon; and only a master mind could, in the fourth century, have written so deeply on such a subject with such classical simplicity. Every page I read confirmed this impression. His approach to the Miracles is badly needed to-day, for it is the final answer to those who object to them as "arbitrary and meaningless violations of the laws of Nature." They are here shown to be rather the re-telling in capital letters of the same message which Nature writes in her crabbed cursive hand; the very operations one would expect of Him who was so full of life that when He wished to die He had to "borrow death from others." The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all its confidence to-day. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance which Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that it is not Athanasius.

The translator knows so much more Christian Greek than I that it would be out of place for me to praise her version. But it seems to me to be in the right tradition of English translation. I do not think the reader will find here any of that sawdusty quality which is so common in modern renderings from the ancient languages. That is as much as the English reader will notice; those who compare the version with the original will be able to estimate how much wit and talent is presupposed in such a choice, for example, as "these wiseacres" on the very first page.

C. S. LEWIS.

The Fellowship - The Literary Lives of the Inklings – Charles Williams?

There seems to be little question that the dynamics of the Inklings changed when Charles Williams arrived in Oxford during WWII. More than one biographer of the Inklings suggests that the Lewis – Tolkien relationship turned onto the path of estrangement because Williams supplanted Tolkien as being especially close to Lewis, while this may have played a part in this unfortunate development, it was only a part.

I don’t want to write about Charles Williams, and I’ve been thinking about this post for a few days because I’m uncomfortable writing it. Even now, as my fingers touch the keyboard I find myself struggling to break out of the eggshell and into the light. I don’t want to write about Williams because to write about him in the context of the book, The Fellowship – The Literary Lives of the Inklings, means that I have to write that the authors treat Williams in a straightforward manner as they describe his unusual relationships with women who were not his wife. There…I’ve written it. When one is acutely conscious of one’s own sin, sins, and failings, one is (I hope) reluctant to write about the sin, sins, and failings of others.

There are two elements of Charles Williams that should not be glossed over, one is that he engaged in practices that are tainted (a word which may in itself be a gloss) with the occult, the other is that he poured energy and emotion into relationships with women who were not his wife; in at least one case a woman was the wife of another man. And this is what I really want to say, the fact that these relationships were Platonic means nothing, writing “love” letters to women not your wife is as much adultery as engaging in physical acts; not to mention other behavior which is bizarre (a word without gloss). Again, the authors treat these aspects of Williams in a straightforward non-sensational manner, allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions – the narrative is painful to read…as it should be.

Williams had friends and admirers who presumably had little or no knowledge of his strange relationships with women, and it seems as if his personality was such that those attracted to him would focus on the attraction and intellectual and kinetic stimulation that Williams radiated – for he was, by all accounts, a man who radiated a presence. Yet, what you saw was not always all that was there, and the question arises as to how much of himself he revealed to the other Inklings; or was it there for them to see if they thought about some of the things that Williams was writing, saying, and doing?

Lewis seemed to consider Williams transparent; Tolkien, however, did not agree with this assessment – perhaps this disagreement over a man whom Lewis thought so much of contributed to the estrangement between Tolkien and Lewis.

When C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters it was a painful experience for him. Lewis wrote concerning the process of writing Screwtape, “…though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The world into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst, and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness, and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before I was done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it.”

Williams’s novels are dark, touching on unseen things in the shadows and in darkness; in light of Lewis’s account of writing Screwtape, which is nowhere near the dark genre in which Williams wrote, I wonder how Williams wrote what he wrote and what effect it had on him as he inhabited the lands of which he wrote. I have read four of Williams’s novels and I have read his Descent of the Dove (though I stopped early on because I thought it unreadable), and I have read his The Figure of Beatrice – which is to say that I think I have a pretty good feel for Williams. While I would recommend Lewis’s Screwtape, I would not recommend Williams’s novels.   

Perhaps the saddest thing about the story of Charles Williams is that his marriage seemed to be getting better just before he suddenly died, a contributing factor to this improvement appears to have been that there were fewer other women for him to direct his attention toward due to his move from London to Oxford during the war. So sad to think that he might have had a wonderful marriage if he had directed his affection and energy to his wife before all others.

I don’t enjoy writing this, but Charles Williams is one of the four principals of The Fellowship – The Literary Lives of the Inklings, and as I wrote in a previous post, this book is for adults.