Into the Wardrobe

"Leslie" wrote
His letters and the biographies (at least the ones I've read) are excellent evidence. The notion that he renounced Christianity sometimes arises out of reading the first part of "A Grief Observed" in which, mourning the death of his wife, he asks some hard questions about the character of God.
In his biographical work (The Narnian ) Alan Jacobs has an interesting passage on this point (p. 291-2) where after quoting just such a 'hard question' he quotes Lewis himself again, " I wrote that last night. It was a yell rather than a thought." and then goes on to state. "He never 'lost his Faith'".
To me the 'yell' indicates the reality of Lewis' high (i.e. Christian) understanding of the unity of the married couple as discussed in Mere Christianity. They are indeed 'one flesh'. Consequently, the 'yell' of pain on their physical parting by death is more a confirmation of Faith than denial of it.

What's interesting about the officemate's remark about Lewis going back to atheism is that it is a member of a class. I've noticed that deflationary legends of this type tend to gather around many admired writers: if nothing factual can be dug up, then something gets made up. I have heard at least five or six remarks of this sort about Henry Thoreau, for instance: from the interesting claim that he didn't live two years at Walden Pond, only a weekend (!), to the claim that he could well afford to have odd ideas, since he was wealthy by birth. (He didn't and he wasn't.) Always from people who "heard" it somewhere.

What happens, I think, is that some people are haunted by a voice from behind the mirror that whispers to them that they aren't living as fully, as well, as virtuously, as passionately, or as something as they could be. That there is something sham or automatic or dead about their inner self. And then along comes some admired figure, Lewis or Thoreau or whoever, and the very fact that this figure lived at a pitch beyond the norm seems a judgment, a rebuke, a threat to the person secretly self-convicted of mediocrity. So the psychology of denigrating the great is often embarrassingly, nakedly obvious: insecurity issuing in aggression.

Though one must grant that the fans of figures like Lewis sometimes do trot out their gal or guy like a human Macy's Parade balloon that will Shock and Awe the Opposition by their Sheer Excellence. A religion-doubting friend of mine writes, "I'm a little tired of CS Lewis always needing to be around to rescue the current dominant practice of Christianity from its near-ubiquitous stupidity." Hm, touche.

"Every light gathers to itself shadows." --- Ursula K. LeGuin (close paraphrase of something she wrote in an essay)

Sincerely,

Larry Gilman[/i]

Lewis did not abandon the Christian faith. I think after he saw his wife die and saw the suffering of people around, he maybe softened his views a little bit and perhaps expressed more doubt and reticence than he did in his early days as an apologist. I've seen that kind of modification in my own faith as I learn that life isn't as easy, neat, and pat as I did in young more dogmatic days. I think sometimes when people see these softening of Lewis's views, they take them for denials of his faith. They are not denials they are simply rethinking of certain stances.

There's a great poem by the Orthodox poet Nicholas Samaras (Rusmeister and Roonwit, you ought to read this guy) called "Easter in the Children's Cancer Ward" where the poet talks about going to show children who are in the cancer ward at a hospital how to color Easter eggs. The point of the poem is that it is easy to say you are a Christian when things are ideal but it's a bit harder to do so in the children's cancer ward. Also, the guy's girlfriend is dying of a disease. The poem is affirmative, though, of faith, though it calls us to the hard realities of believing in a fallen word.

Lewis felt the realities of the fall much more later in life. I think he spoke differently of things because of that, but it's not fair to seize on this change of perspective and use it as proof that he abandoned the Christian faith.

Read Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer.
This was written and published later than A Grief Observed and shows that he had a strong and flourishing Christian faith.

Yahooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I knew it!!!!!!!!!


Thanx Loeee!!!

My regards,
RTM (Robyn)
Bookworm...

Have you heared the similar (unconfiremed to my knowledge) statemrnt that Darwin became a Chrisitian just before his death. Saying that evolution was a silly thing that a kid made up? I have had a couple people tell me this one. I wonder if it is true?

This is my first post to this forum but I have been a fan of "Jack" for quite some time and read a good many of his books.

I think I can add to the debate on this topic here.
There are two papers which you might like to look at which will outline some of the questions that are being raised about Lewis' Christianity and whether or not he was saved. To me it seems a totally objectionable idea that there could be any question over his salvation, but here is the background to these ideas:

by John W. Robbins
by Mary Van Nattan

I would be very interested in what you folk have to say in response to the points made in these articles.

The reason I ask is that on another Christian forum which I frequent the question has just been raised concerning Lewis' salvation. Here it is for those who are interested. Some of you may like to respond there, but I am not here to lead people somewhere else. I was hoping that there might be some good information relevant to the debate to be found on this forum, but perhaps the subject has never been considered worthy of any questioning here.