George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (10)

 

 

“G. K. Chesterton paid deep tribute to MacDonald in an introduction to Greville MacDonald’s biography of his father, especially noting the effect upon him as a child of The Princess and the Goblin. He said it was a book that “made a difference to my whole existence, which helped me to see things in a certain way from the start…MacDonald had made for himself a sort of spiritual environment, a space and transparency of mystical light, which was quite exceptional…” (Christian Mythmakers, Rolland Hein, pp. 109 – 110).

 

Few writers have equaled the output of G. K. Chesterton in quantity, quality, breath of subjects, and genre. From the mysteries of Father Brown, to the apologetics of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, to numerous articles and essays on current culture, thinking, and events; to literary criticism, to biography, to fantastic fiction – what I have missed? – Chesterton takes his readers on a grand tour of life with challenges and observations and an insistence that we live as men and women who are awake and not dead. It is as if he is perpetually exhorting, with both shouts and whispers, “Awake you who are asleep and Christ will give you life.”

 

What particularly strikes me about Chesterton is his ability to see things from perspectives that I often miss, to twist the kaleidoscope and say, “Now take a look at this. What pattern do you recognize?”

 

He was also a man of courage, such as when he challenged popular notions of patriotism during the Second Boer War. Who is the true patriot? Is it the man or woman who blindly supports the actions of his or her country, or is it the person who seeks righteousness and justice? Is preserving the soul of a people more important than satisfying the greed of a people?

 

After just reading The Man Who Was Thursday, and experiencing the chase scene toward the conclusion of the book, I find myself once again asking, “Where does he come up with this? Where do these images come from? Do they pop out of a box on his desk? What am I reading?” (I recall the same thoughts and reactions when reading The Napoleon of Notting Hill and the opening pages of Manalive.)

 

Then I recall what Chesterton wrote regarding The Princess and the Goblin, that it “made a difference to my whole existence, which helped me to see things in a certain way from the start.”

 

C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton were first class intellects, not only standing in the first rank of their generations, but of many generations; how do we fail to see that they drank from the unseen waters of the True mystical – mythical that flow from the Throne of God in and through Jesus Christ – the Logos that we see in John 1:1 – 18? (Please remember that I am using “myth” and “mythical” in the technical and academic sense, not in the popular sense).

 

“Light is sown [like seed] for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart.” (Ps. 97:11).

 

“For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” (Ps. 36:9).

 

Chesterton and Lewis experienced “light” in MacDonald, and they pursued it – or as Reepicheep might say, “They took the adventure that Aslan gave them.” As Lewis wrote of the Curdie books and Phantastes, “the radiance, is incarnate in the whole story.” (We might say that with Lewis that the Light first pursued him, and then he pursued the Light.)

 

We can take the adventure that Aslan gives us when we trust Aslan. When we trust our Good Shepherd and the Holy Spirit to lead us, when we trust them to teach us to see beyond what is normally seen (2 Cor. 4:18), then we can begin to experience what it is to live as the daughters and sons of our heavenly Father, “For all wo are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” (Rom. 8:14).

 

Our minds are renewed in Christ and His Word, (Rom. 12:1 – 2; 1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16); and we teach and speak a wisdom that is grounded in Jesus Christ (Col. 2:2 – 3), for in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Our imaginations are baptized, so that when we read the Scriptures, we see Jesus Christ – whether we read Genesis or Proverbs or Isaiah or Revelation or Philippians – Jesus Christ comes to us and we come to Jesus.

 

In That Hideous Strength, Ransom and his cohort do not defeat social engineering and science run amok by arguing for a competing worldview – they do it by reaching back to the foundations of Logres and by participating in the unfolding cosmic victory by the Oyeresu – they participate in the “descent of the gods.”

 

When will we learn that the “weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh”? (2 Cor. 10:3 – 5).

 

It is when we behold Jesus Christ, that we experience Life and are transformed from glory to glory into His image. It is one thing to tell others about Jesus, it is another to show them Jesus. (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18; 1 John 3:1 – 3; Col. 3:1 – 4; John 14:9).

 

 

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (9)

 

 

Lewis writes, “MacDonald is the greatest genius of this kind whom I know. But I do not know how to classify such genius…It may be one of the greatest arts…It arouses in us sensations which we have never had before, never anticipate having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of consciousness…and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives.” (Anthology, pages XXXI – XXXII).

 

“The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe.” (page XXXVIII).

 

I have hit a wall in writing about Lewis and MacDonald because the complexities of the Preface are more than I realized at the beginning of this series. I know that some readers will be familiar with the terms and concepts Lewis uses (such as the technical term “myth”, not the popular term, but the technical term, but that others will not). I know that few readers will have read much, if any, of MacDonald – so when Lewis contrasts MacDonald’s novels with his works of fantasy, few will have a framework to see what Lewis is saying.

 

I suggest reading the Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes to get started with MacDonald. Unspoken Sermons can be read alongside his other writings, and probably read slowly, there is much to absorb. Lewis’s daily Anthology will give you exposure to short selections from the novels and sermons. The novels present a challenge for they are not particularly well written, yet Lewis not only read them, but he writes, “The novels…have yielded me a rich crop. This does not mean that they are good novels.” (XXXII – XXXIII).

 

“The great works are Phantastes, the Curdie books, The Golden Key, The Wise Woman, and Lilith. From them, just because they are supremely good in their own kind, there is little to be extracted. The meaning, the suggestion, the radiance, is incarnate in the whole story, it is only by chance that you find any detachable merits.” (XXXII).

 

In “the whole story” we “dwell in the shelter of the Most High and abide in the shadow of the Almighty (Ps. 91:1). In the “whole story” we find the incarnation of the Story set forth from eternity past and rolling out into the ages to come. In the whole we touch the radiance of Christ, drawing us into the City which has no need of the sun or moon or stars, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its Light (Rev. chapters 21 – 22).

 

To enter into the whole story is to participate in the Whole Story, to confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth and in this age, looking for that City whose Builder and Maker is God (Hebrews 11). The Whole Story incarnates the Other, the Numinous, the Glory, the Shekinah, the Mythical (in the technical metanarrative sense!) – and for that very reason it does not lend itself to pithy maxims, to propositional statements of truth. Jesus says those who are born of the Spirit are those who are born of the Wind (they are born of One and the Same, John 3:8).

 

Peter speaks of “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Paul writes of things that cannot be lawfully uttered. Dante the pilgrim finds that there are things he sees and experiences but that cannot be conveyed with words.

 

To read Hebrews Chapter 11 without joining the journey of Hebrews Chapter 11, without walking alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; without spending our days in the communion and pilgrimage of the saints – without joining in the Incarnation and radiance of Hebrews Chapter 11…this is like, I imagine, a tone-deaf person hearing Mozart.

 

We are called to read John 1:1 – 18 and see the glorious Incarnation within ourselves and within one another (Col. 1:25 – 27; John Chapter 17); to read the Gospel and experience the Journey of Jesus Christ leading us to the Father, beyond the veil and into the Holy of Holies, to know the Cross and the Resurrection, to shout Galatians 2:20 and Philippians 3:7 – 16 with Paul…we are called to live the Story as the Story lives within us. And let us make no mistake, the Story is first of all about Jesus Christ, Jesus is the Story and the Story is Jesus and Jesus calls us into His Story…and into such Divine intimacy that His Story becomes our Story in Him and we become one with Him and with one another in the Incarnation.

 

Well, I seem to have gotten back on track…and while I glory in the Story of Jesus, my heart breaks that we have become men without chests, without hearts and imaginations - and that much of our Christianity has been reduced to dehydrated food packets, devoid of joy and taste.

 

I’ll close this reflection with an excerpt from Rolland Hein:

 

“…much of traditional Christian thought is romantic. The sense of the ideal in the Sermon on the Mount; the life of faith epitomized by Abraham and defined by the apostle Paul; the insistence on the primacy of the unseen as opposed to the seen; the command that Christians develop eyes to see and ears to hear spiritual realities; the love of nature because in some undefinable sense it manifests aspects of the divine; and the awareness that all worship centrally involves the imagination. All these make up the romantic spirit, and all are emphasized in MacDonald’s thought.” (Christian Mythmakers, Rolland Hein, page 70).

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (8)

 

 

From C. S. Lewis’s Preface to the MacDonald Anthology:

 

“It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought – almost unwillingly, for I had looked at the volume on that bookstall and rejected it on a dozen previous occasions – the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier…Nothing was at the that time further from my thoughts than Christianity…I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it was also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence…”

 

What frontiers have you crossed?

 

There are those who travel the world on planes and cruise ships and trains, yet who never go anywhere, who never cross a frontier. Then there are those who may go no further than their feet or local transportation can take them, and yet who cross frontier after frontier and who have seen and experienced more than they could possibly tell.

 

Vickie, my brother Jim, and I were once on the windswept Zugspitze in Germany. There was a catwalk that connected Germany and Austria that Jim and I walked across so that we could say that we’d crossed the frontier into Austria. Alas, there was no boarder agent to stamp our passports, indeed, due to weather conditions there were no other people on the Austrian side of the catwalk, so after a few minutes we returned to Germany and Vickie and hot chocolate.

 

Can I truly say that I’ve seen Austria? Have I experienced Austria?

 

Not only was the wind strong and the cold bitter, but fog enveloped the Zugspitze and visibility was poor, so we saw virtually nothing of Austria.

 

If I’m in a conversation with others and the subject of travel arises, can I truly say that I’ve been to Austria – without qualifying what I mean?

 

Might it not be that we treat evangelism like the catwalk between Germany and Austria? Just get the people over the catwalk and you’ve done your job, get them to say, “I’ve been to Austria, now I’m Austrian! One day I’ll make it to the Vienna Opera House, one day I’ll enjoy an Austrian coffee shop, one day I’ll visit the Trapp Family home – in the meantime, even though I am going back to Germany after just a minute or two, I am most certainly and gloriously – fog or no fog - Austrian!”

 

How quickly we forget the Parable of the Sower, the seed sprouts, the words are said (no matter what the heart believes), and the deal is done…or so we think. Whether the frontier has been truly crossed is no matter to us, we must move on – it is enough that the catwalk has been crossed, the fact that it is shortly recrossed is not our concern.

 

While I cannot find the quote at hand, in Mere Christianity Lewis writes of passengers taking a train from Paris to Berlin (I’m relying on fading memory). As the train crosses the France – Germany frontier, some passengers are awake and aware of the crossing, others are asleep and unaware that they’ve crossed from France to Germany. Whether one is awake or asleep has no bearing on the reality of the crossing – a frontier has been crossed.

 

In the case of Lewis and Phantastes, Lewis knew a frontier had been crossed, taking him into a new land, indeed a new world that was strange, homely, and humble. He didn’t know what it meant, he had no thought of Christianity, but he knew something had happened.

 

Lewis also sensed that the purchase of Phantastes was almost unwilling – there was something moving him to make the purchase, even though he’d passed the book up on previous occasions.

 

There is a chapter in Surprised by Joy titled Check. The penultimate chapter is titled Checkmate. In Checkmate Lewis writes:

 

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had a last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed, perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

 

The chapter concludes with these words, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

 

The “Other” which compelled Lewis to purchase and read Phantastes would not leave him alone, just as He would not leave Saul of Tarsus alone. “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” (Acts 26:14).

 

How is it that our view of apologetics and evangelism focuses so much on rationalistic  evidence and obtaining decisions, rather than on the Person of Jesus Christ and working in harmony with the Holy Spirit…helping others to cross that most vital frontier? How is it that on the one hand we affirm the sovereignty of God, and yet on the other hand tend to take control of evangelism, often herding others the way Border Collies herd sheep into an enclosure? Why do we tend not to respect the process of the Holy Spirit?  

 

And let’s make no mistake, contrary to what many of us have been taught, Jesus is no “gentleman” quietly waiting for us to ask Him to dance, He is pursuing us with love and passion, and He intends to checkmate us. In the chapter Checkmate Lewis lays out the final moves of his match with God.

 

Checkmate, however, is not the final chapter in Surprised by Joy, the final chapter is the first chapter in that it is titled The Beginning. This is akin to the final chapter in the Narniad; while it is titled Farewell to Shadowlands, it might also be titled Welcome to Narnia!

 

“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.” This is how the Narniad ends, and yet this is how it begins, for is not our Lord Jesus the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End – the Telos?

 

Lewis records his crossing of yet another frontier in the chapter The Beginning, “To accept the Incarnation was a further step in the same direction. It brings God nearer, or near in a new way. And this, I found, was something I had not wanted. But to recognize the ground for my evasion was of course to recognize both its shame and its futility.

 

“I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.”  

 

Whether through a wardrobe, or with Ransom in a space capsule, or touching the numinous in The Problem of Pain, or with Orual and Psyche, or as a tour guide in George MacDonald – An Anthology, Lewis crosses frontier after frontier, and in doing so does more than take a catwalk from Germany to Austria, he does more than take a trip around the world…he moves into the depths of Jesus Christ, going “further up and further in”.

 

O dear friends, our dear Lord Jesus is calling us to know His incredible love and grace and friendship, to know His joy.

 

“Then Aslan turned to them and said, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” (The Last Battle, page 766, one volume edition).

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (7)

 

 

From C. S. Lewis’s Preface to the MacDonald Anthology:

 

“It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought – almost unwillingly, for I had looked at the volume on that bookstall and rejected it on a dozen previous occasions – the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier…Nothing was at the that time further from my thoughts than Christianity…I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it was also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence…”

 

“What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptize…my imagination. It did nothing to my intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later and with the help of many other books and men. But when the process was complete…I found that I was still with MacDonald and that he had accompanied me all the way and that I was now at last ready to hear from him much that he could not have told me at that first meeting.”

 

“But in a sense, what he was now telling me was the very same that he had told me from the beginning.”

 

What do you see in Lewis’s words? What do you perhaps see in Lewis? What do you identify with? Is there anything utterly foreign to you?

 

Do you have long-term relationships with authors who have lived before your time? Is there a man or women, who lived before your time, whose writing has spoken to you in Christ in a profound way?

 

I emphasize “lived before your time”, or perhaps mostly before you time (such in my case C. S. Lewis), because while contemporary authors have their place (I hope!), those who have gone before us have stood the challenge of time, their words have been tested. Often people who lived outside of our own time and immediate culture have more to say to us of lasting value than we have to say to one another – we can lack perspective because of our attention on the immediate and its pressures. Naturally the Bible is the best example of this because the Bible is transcendent – the Word of God is alive in Christ ever and always.

 

Lewis’s idea of crossing a frontier is prominent in his writing and his experience and we will explore that in the next reflection (the Lord willing), but right now I’d like us to think about Lewis’s imagination being baptized and converted.

 

In The Abolition of Man Lewis wrote of “men without chests.” What does our imagination do with this image? Do we see men literally without chests? Or do we see beyond words? Do we see into the words? Do the words “men without chests” help us to “see” a condition of humanity, especially Western humanity?

 

Mankind is abolished when our hearts and souls are stripped from us, when they are educated and programmed out of us, when notions of righteousness and goodness and truth and beauty and courage are exterminated within us. Mankind is abolished when our God-given imaginations are either silenced or perverted.

 

What do I mean when I ask, “Do we see men literally without chests?” Of course I mean “physically without chests.” But what does Lewis mean from a literary point of view? He certainly doesn’t mean “physically”. Lewis is giving us a literary image that he wants us to explore using our imaginations in conjunction with our intellects and consciences.

 

Prior to his conversion, Lewis struggled with the tension between materialistic atheism and the sense that there must be something more than what the eye can see or that can be proved by scientific experiment. Lewis could not shake the sense that there are such things as goodness, truth, and beauty – and evil and despair; that there are things “other” than the material.

 

Imagination is seeing beyond what is seen, it is also a bringing into conceptual existence, it is also visualizing the words we hear and read. Perhaps imagination has more facets, it certainly does not have less. Perhaps we are the closest to our Creator when we participate in holy imagination. Does not Paul teach us to look at the things that are unseen, rather than the things that are seen? (2 Cor. 4:18). Did not Moses “see” Him who is invisible? (Heb. 11: 27).

 

When Jesus speaks of His being the Light of the world, the Bread of Life, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, being the Resurrection, destroying “this temple,” – can we hear and see and read these words, can we hear His Voice – without imagination?

 

Is it really possible to read Psalm 23 without imagination? Come now, is it really possible?

 

Did not God create Man in His image? That is, does not God speak with images? We speak of the image of God, and yet we do not want to speak of imagination, of visualizations, of that which is unseen being seen and heard and touched. Jesus is not the dialectical proposition of God, Jesus is the image of God, the exact image of God. Certainly the Logos can only be seen and experienced holistically by the grace of God – He cannot be defined, He is the I AM.

 

Lewis felt that had his imagination not be baptized and converted, that he may have “floundered into its darker and more evil form, slithering down the steep descent” of Romanticism. [Preface, XXXVII].

 

There are, I think, at least two insidious movements in our time with respect to the imagination. On the one hand we see the perversion of imagination in which we have pandemonium. On the other hand, we have materialism in many forms, including in Biblical interpretation. Is it too much to suggest that the church is also engaged in the abolition of man when it insists on naturalistic hermeneutics?

 

After all, the historical – grammatical method, on its face and at its root, is naturalistic and materialistic, it does not require grace or the Holy Spirit – it requires learning and employing a method. We can say that it leaves nothing to the imagination, or better, to the God-inspired imagination. Of course, learning and employing the historical – critical method is critical to good grades and graduation in many seminaries, and professing adherence to it is required for membership in some academic and ecclesiastical circles. (This requirement would disqualify the writers of the New Testament and the Church Fathers, including Augustine. O yes, it would also disqualify Jesus.)

 

A fair reading of 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:16, and of Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, ought to show us that Divine illumination and revelation are the essence of Biblical hermeneutics. How can we experience such things without our imaginations being converted and baptized? If our epistemology is faulty, then our exegesis and hermeneutics will be faulty and fall short of the glory of God.

 

Perhaps we can simply say that Jesus Christ is our epistemology and hermeneutic (Luke 24:27; 44 – 47).

 

The New Testament’s view of the Old Testament is not the product of the historical – critical method, it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ living in the People of God, enlightening men holistically in communion with the Trinity and the saints and the mysterious Living/Written/Spoken Word from ages past.

 

The emperor is stark naked, we have become Christian men and women without chests – and we do not think it strange. How can men without chests help other men without chests? How can dead bones live?

 

I don’t think we appreciate Lewis’s statement, regarding MacDonald, that it has not seemed to him "that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice” that MacDonald is Lewis’s master. (Preface, XXXVII). We want to separate Lewis’s didactic work from his imaginary work, but it cannot be done. For example, in The Problem of Pain, Lewis lays a foundation of the numinous, of the “Other,” as he moves into the subject of pain. The numinous remains with us throughout the book – even though we may want to bring Lewis’s thinking on pain down to the naturalistic.

 

The most beautiful passages in the Chronicles of Narnia are those in which Aslan appears. Everything in every book, and every book bound together, anticipates Aslan’s appearance. Every time, and I do mean every time, I reread a book in the Narniad I read it longing to see Aslan. The joy I have in seeing Him, and in others seeing Him – both in the story and in daily life – fills my soul with love and the numinous – the cloud of glory. The Narniad is a high sacrament for me, a high sacrament indeed.

 

As I open the Scriptures daily I do so in anticipation of seeing Jesus – whether I am in Leviticus or 1 Kings or Obadiah or John – I expect to see Jesus coming to me and coming to His People – coming to us. It never occurs to me that Jesus might not be greeting me and meeting me when I open His Book.

 

How have we strayed so far from loving Jesus?

 

Yes, yes, you are right. It is difficult for professing Christians without chests to love.

 

Can these dry bones live?

 

O holy Father, baptize, convert, and renew our imaginations in the image of your Son Jesus.

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (6)

 

 

I want to share some observations that may be helpful to some of us, and in the next post we’ll return to MacDonald and Lewis.

 

Jesus Christ is Biblical Christianity, and Biblical Christianity is Jesus Christ. There is cultural Christianity, there is churchy Christianity, and then there is Jesus Christ as He is revealed through the Scriptures. I think the Nicene Creed has no peer when it comes to expressing the essence of the Bible. And may I gently say that we are foolish children if we think creeds are unimportant – for we all have creeds, written or unwritten; so why not honor a creed that was forged in the fires of persecution, deep Biblical reflection and hard labor, and a passion for the glory of God in Jesus Christ?

 

I can’t begin to tell you of the many peoples I’ve met over the years, I say “peoples” because I’m thinking of communities, whether churches or ethnic groups, or theological traditions, or groups that almost defy definition such as the Jesus People and many of the folks in the early Charismatic Movement.  Nor can I hardly begin to share the many authors I’ve read from various traditions, many long dead (in the natural) and some still living. I owe many debts to the living and the dead – I am the product of many wonderful sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ – including dear friends over the years…again…some are now in the Presence of our Lord…some are still on earth.

 

The women and men I remember, the ones who have built into my life, the ones who have made a difference, are those who have loved Jesus Christ and have transmitted that love to me and others; for you can’t separate loving Jesus and loving others, or truly loving others and loving Jesus. This is a love with clear articulation and definition, it is not nebulous. The form it takes is the Crucified Christ, it is cruciform; Paul writes that he determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified – O friends, if we do not hear and see this message we ought to run from what we do see and hear; as the disciples on the Mount, we want to look up and see only Jesus.

 

I will be the first to say that this makes life a bit difficult – not so much with respect to the world, for the world is the world is the world. Rather, it makes life difficult with respect to the professing church, for it seems that Jesus is never enough for us. We want our best lives now. We want success. We want to be esteemed by others. We want to accumulate things. We would much rather talk about “church” than talk about Jesus. Just listen to what Christians talk about and you will see what I mean.

 

This is a mystery to me, this propensity we have to talk about everything and everyone but Jesus. Why is this? If we truly know Him, then why don’t we talk about Him? What good is it to be a good Presbyterian or Roman Catholic or Baptist or Pentecostal if we don’t talk about Jesus? What good is it to be confirmed or baptized or to be ordained if we don’t know Jesus? What good is beautiful worship music or lively “praise” music if we don’t know Jesus? And frankly, a “Christian” worldview, if there is such a thing, is worthless without knowing Jesus Christ – for without knowing Jesus we can think we are something that we are not.

 

This insistence on Jesus Christ being Christianity makes life difficult with professing Christians because we don’t like it – we have our own agendas; political, nationalistic, economic, denominational. We also take subsidiary elements of the Bible out of context and make them the main thing – we often go from one “spiritual” religious “Biblical” fad to another, it is like having a membership in the “revelation of the month club.”

 

And the thing is, these “new” main things all look pretty good, they all appeal to our sense of making things better for us and others – usually these things that distract us from Jesus Christ are not bad things but good things. As the adage goes, “The good is the enemy of the better, and the better is the enemy of the best.” Let’s recall that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil looked good. If we are not in love with Jesus we will not see this, we will not understand it, we will not have an eye nor an ear for it.

 

The Nicene Creed is not enough, the Bible is not enough, Mere Christianity is not enough – the Person of Jesus Christ is not enough. It seems was always want to add something to Jesus Christ.

 

But the men and women who have spoken into my life have insisted that Jesus is indeed not only enough, but that He is everything.

 

As with Lewis and MacDonald, and as Murray with Law, I have known saintly men and women who have radiated Jesus Christ and yet who have not always seen certain elements of the Bible as clearly as we might desire. I have also known people, and I have been one myself, who have had finely-turned doctrinal knowledge, but who have not been gracious or loving or caring or forgiving or giving or sacrificial – in short, who have not radiated Jesus Christ. As I look back over my life, I am appalled at what I see in my past, for there was a time when at best I was a Pharisee.

 

Someone once said to me that right doctrine produces right living. That is not true. Jesus Christ living in us produces righteous living – frankly, right doctrine without Jesus Christ can be dry orthodoxy and it can be toxic in the self-righteousness it can produce. Perhaps the most important doctrinal question is, “What do we think about Jesus Christ?” Or perhaps, “How is our relationship with Jesus Christ?” Then the next question is, “How is our relationship with His Body, His Bride, His Temple, His Church?”

 

We can hardly have a relationship with someone if we don’t communicate with them and they don’t communicate with us. If we speak to God then of course we ought to expect that God, our dear loving heavenly Father, will speak to us. Of course we ought to expect that our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, who has given us His very Nature, will speak to us. Of course we ought to life live in and by the Holy Spirit, speaking to us holistically – whatever that may look like in our respective lives, in our marriages and families, in our congregations, our friendships.

 

And we ought to expect that God will speak to us through the transcendent Body of Jesus Christ, for we are members of one another. We ought to always be learning from one another, growing with one another in Jesus Christ.

 

I owe debts to so very many men and women in Jesus Christ, so many I have known in person, and so many through history via books of their writings and their recorded words and deeds. I owe a debt to William Law because I owe a tremendous debt to Andrew Murray, and since Law built into Murray, I owe a debt to Law. I was introduced to Murray just months after becoming a follower of Jesus, so for 58 years Andrew Murray has been a mentor to me in Jesus Christ…always pointing to Jesus, always encouraging me to abide in Jesus, to rest in Him, and to live by the Holy Spirit.

 

I owe a direct debt to both MacDonald and Lewis, or I suppose I could say that I owe a double debt to MacDonald. While I can’t recall when I first encountered Lewis, I also can’t recall when I haven’t been reading Lewis. Considering that Lewis called MacDonald his master, I obviously owe MacDonald a debt for I owe Lewis a debt.

 

But I owe MacDonald another debt, a first debt, a debt incurred prior to encountering Lewis; for when my mother read The Princess and the Goblin to me as a child, the numinous reached into my soul and gave me a sense of the Other that has continued to grow within me, in Christ, to this Day.

 

I am deeply thankful that others in Christ have touched me and continued to point me to Jesus, always to Jesus…from many traditions, from traditions within traditions, from seemingly outside traditions (such as the Jesus People), from many ethnicities and social and economic environments. I want to live as a Mere Christian, die as a Mere Christian, and stand before our Lord Jesus as a Mere Christian. After all, He has purchased me and I am His mere bondservant.

 

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (5)

 

From Andrew Murray’s Introduction to William Law:

 

“I confess that in all my reading I have never found anyone who has so helped me in understanding the Scripture truth of the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is because I know of no one who has put certain aspects of needed truth with the same clearness, that I cannot but think that he is a messenger from God to call His Church to give the blessed Spirit the place of honour that belongs to Him.”

 

“…all true religion in heaven and earth, consists in nothing but an absolute and unalterable dependence upon God, and how the highest blessedness is nothing but the most complete surrender to let this blessed God do His work.”

 

Here again we see a similarity in Murray’s approach to William Law and C. S. Lewis’s approach to George MacDonald.

 

Lewis said that he was not a theologian, I’m not sure in what sense he meant that, or why he made the statement – he was certainly a critical thinker, he knew the Church Fathers who laid the theological groundwork for our faith by articulating its cardinal doctrines from Scripture. He knew ancient Greek and Latin; he read the New Testament in Greek and reviewed the translation work of J. B. Phillips at Phillips’s request. Sometimes I think Lewis may have used “I’m not a theologian” to give himself a pass not to move beyond Mere Christianity, at least a pass in not making public statements about certain doctrines and practices. Of course I really don’t know what Lewis meant, but functionally I consider him a first rate theologian.

 

Murray could not give himself a pass by saying that he wasn’t a theologian, for he was trained in theology and was a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. It was as a pastor, a theologian, and a leader in his denomination that he writes the following in his Introduction to Law:

 

“In some respects no two men differ more than John Calvin and William Law…And yet no one reminds me more of Calvin than Law. Calvin’s theology had but one thought, the glory of God, and our absolute dependence upon Him. The shape this principle took in his teaching of the Predestinating Sovereignty of Grace, Law utterly rejects. And yet, I have nowhere met a teacher who, from another side, has opened up this same truth of the Glory of God and our absolute dependence on Him, as Law.”

 

“Often the thought has come to me of seeing Calvin and Law in heaven, very near each other, side by side, in deepest prostration, special witnesses to that absolute dependence which alone can bring God the glory due to His name.”

 

Murray was a Reformed pastor and leader, his roots were in Scottish Presbyterianism and the Dutch Reformed church, his immediate audience was his Reformed denomination – as such he addressed the elephant in the room, the differences between John Calvin and William Law. Murray saw them reconciled in Jesus Christ – they were both seeking the glory of God.

 

C. S. Lewis also saw the glory of God in George MacDonald – MacDonald was pointing to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and MacDonald’s glorious expression of God overshadowed those areas in which MacDonald may have displayed an imperfect understanding.

 

And here is the critical thing to remember, MacDonald and Law were centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and the Good News about Him. They were centered on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There may have been areas of their thinking that did not align with orthodoxy, but in practice, in their love for God and love for people, they were often more orthodox than those who were orthodox.

 

Over the years people have often recommended “Christian” teachers and authors to me who are not centered on Jesus Christ and His glory. They are focused on the supreme “self” and not Almighty God. They are positive thinkers; they teach ten or twelve or twenty principles that promise to make our lives better. They sell us the idea of having our best lives now. They dangle success and health and wealth in front of us. They will equip us to manipulate God to answer our prayers. They often caricature the Cross and the Atonement and our need for repentance, confession, new birth, and obedient discipleship.

 

If our lives are not centered in Jesus Christ then we will not discern false teaching, for we will not have ears to hear and eyes to see, we will not have a sensitivity to the Voice of our Good Shepherd. George MacDonald and William Law teach us to hear this Voice, they teach us to live in deep daily relationship with the holy Trinity, and how to live with one another in Christ.

 

Believing and articulating orthodox doctrine is no substitute for living in fellowship with Jesus Christ – if we are truly born of the Holy Spirit then we are to live in, and by, and through, the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ.

 

There is beauty is Christocentric doctrine; as Dorothy L. Sayers said, the beauty is in the dogma. We see this beauty as we are in Jesus Christ. Outside of the Bible I know of no beauty greater than the Nicene Creed – but this beauty is the beauty of Christ, and of the Father and of the Holy Spirit and of the communion of saints. This is a sacramental beauty that comes to me in God’s glory – it never fades, its glory ever increases.

 

Lewis and Murray, two critical thinkers, can teach us to look for Jesus in others within the tent of Mere Christianity; they can teach us that the centrality of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Bible, is the core of Christianity, indeed, Jesus Christ is Christianity. Murray and Lewis knew there is such a thing a lifeless orthodoxy, both Law and MacDonald challenged misconceptions about God in their teaching and writing as they pointed to a vibrant life in the Holy Spirit and in deep communion with the Father and the Son.

 

In our next reflection, the Lord willing, I hope to share some things I’ve observed in life regarding the above, and then we’ll come back to Lewis and MacDonald.

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (4)

 

 

Now I’d like to bring Andrew Murray (1828 – 1917) into our conversation, a remarkable husband, father, friend, and pastor -  a pastor not only to his congregations, but to southern Africa, and to much of the world (then and now) through his writing and his example of living and loving in Jesus Christ.

 

As a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, Murray dealt with pastors and theology that were heretical. He was instrumental in founding a seminary in South Africa for two reasons, one was that South Africa had an increasing demand for pastors which the U.K. and Europe could not supply. The other was that the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands was, at that time, departing from the Bible. Murray cared deeply about Biblical teaching, and he took church discipline seriously – seeking to remove heretical pastors from their positions in accordance with the tenets of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Bible.

 

Like Lewis, Murray was a “Mere Christian,” seeking Jesus Christ, seeking to live in Jesus Christ, and seeking to bring others to know Jesus Christ. Andrew Murray was more a citizen of the Kingdom of God than he was a member and leader in the Dutch Reformed Church (where he served as moderator and in other leadership positions thorough out his life) - though perhaps he never thought in those terms for he worked with English speakers, Dutch speakers, diverse ethnic groups, and Christians from many traditions. He also ministered the Gospel to both British and Boer during the bitter Second Boer War (1899 – 1902) and for doing so was criticized by both sides.

 

With the above as a brief background, let’s consider Murray’s Introduction to William Law. Here is how it begins [the copy I have is titled The Power of the Spirit, Selections from the Writings of William Law, edited by Andrew Murray, Bethany House, reprinted from the 1896 edition]:

 

“In publishing the new volume of Law’s works, I owe a word of explanation to the Christian public, and all the more because some with whom I feel closely united have expressed their doubt of the wisdom of giving greater currency to the writings of an author who differs markedly in some points from what we hold to be fundamental doctrines of the evangelical faith.

 

“First of all, let me say that, as in publishing the former volume, so now in issuing this, I only do so because I do not know where to find anywhere else the same clear and powerful statement of the truth which the Church needs at the present day. I have tried to read or consult every book I knew of that treats of the work of the Holy Spirit, and nowhere have I met with anything that brings the truth of our dependence on the continual leading of the Spirit, and the assurances that that leading can be enjoyed without interruption, so home to the heart as the teaching of the present volume.

 

“It is because I believe that teaching to be entirely scriptural, and to supply what many are looking for, that I venture to recommend it. I do so in the confidence that no one will think that I have done so because I consider the truths he denies matters of minor important, or have any sympathy with his views.”

 

Do we see a similarity in Lewis when writing of MacDonald? Lewis writes in his Preface to the Anthology, “I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.”

 

Both Lewis and Murray are looking for Jesus Christ, they are looking for the Spirit of Christ – this is not a nebulous feeling and way of thinking they are seeking, it is not touchy – feelie, for Jesus Christ is the image of God and the image of God is articulated and given definition in Jesus Christ, the Word, the Logos. Murray and Lewis were both highly critical thinkers – and they both dearly loved Jesus and the Bible.

 

Lewis did not dismiss areas of MacDonald’s thinking that were imperfect, nor did Murray dismiss areas of Law’s thinking that were imperfect, but they both saw the glory of the Spirit of Christ overshadowing the imperfections.

 

And here is a critical point, MacDonald and Law were Christocentric, they were both centered on Jesus Christ, they both honored the Lordship of Jesus Christ and were pointing to Jesus Christ. They both believed in deep koinonia with Jesus Christ, and they were not afraid – even at their personal peril – to contrast dead orthodoxy and praxis with life in the Holy Spirit. (Law’s Address to the Clergy takes up most of the book Murray published). Law and MacDonald were ostracized by other pastors, they were men of courage as opposed to conformity.

 

What can we learn from Lewis and Murray and their respective approaches to George MacDonald and William Law?

 

The short answer is, “Living in Jesus Christ is everything.” But what does this life look like when specifically considered in Lewis’s Preface to MacDonald and Murray’s Introduction to Law?

 

It seems to me that Lewis and Murray call us back to being centered in Jesus Christ and in His Kingdom. On the one hand we have lost the centrality of Jesus Christ and can no longer discern between Biblical and non-Biblical teaching, on the other hand many of us find our primary identity in a particular Christian tradition rather than in Jesus Christ and His Kingdom – and in so doing we shut ourselves off from the glorious Body of Christ and become self-centered rather than Jesus centered.

 

If a tradition is rooted in Jesus, then it ought to be rooted in John 17 and our oneness in the Trinity, and if a tradition falls short of the unity of John 17, a unity which is essential to our life and witness, then we ought to have the courage to admit there is a problem within our tradition and seek our Lord’s help in aligning our faith and practice with His Word.

 

That is, if a tradition falls sort of promoting a Kingdom of God perspective and practice, and a recognition of the Body of Christ, we ought to seek God’s help in being faithful to His Word as opposed to our limiting tradition.

 

If we are called to lay down our lives for the brethren (John 15:12 - 14; 1 John 3:16), then this applies to not only us as individuals, but to us as families, congregations, denominations, traditions…in whatever groupings we may find ourselves.

 

(And let’s be clear that even those who insist they are “nondenominational” are nevertheless also in some sort of tradition, some primary way of thinking and practice. We are not born in a vacuum; we do not learn and grow in isolation.)

 

I do not want to live and die as a Presbyterian or a Baptist or a Roman Catholic or a Pentecostal or a Lutheran; I want to live and die as a Christian, a Mere Christian. I want to appear before Jesus as one of His followers. I may find myself worshipping and serving Him primarily within a particular tradition and understanding and practice, but by His grace I want to do so as a disciple of Jesus Christ serving within His Body and in His Kingdom, with His name and the name of His Father written on my heart and mind – no other name, no other name.

 

If there is not some measure of tension in all of this, might we not need to reconsider how we are living?

We’ll pick this back up in our next reflection…the Lord willing.

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (3)

 

 

Lewis writes in his Preface to the Anthology, “This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald’s literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that is has given them great help – sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith.” (page XXXIV, italics mine).

 

Then we have (page XXXVII), “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it.” (italics mine).

 

I have read lots of books and articles about C. S. Lewis, and I have often seen the quote about Lewis regarding MacDonald as his master, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it emphasized in its context. In other words, Lewis didn’t write of MacDonald being his master in a passing fashion, but rather in the Preface to an anthology which was the result of hours upon hours over years of reading, pondering, selecting, and then presenting MacDonald’s work in order to “spread his religious teaching.”

 

And consider again, “My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another.”

 

Since C. S. Lewis was not given to hyperbole, since he was a careful writer with few missteps, (so few, I think, that when he does make them they are glaring – such as passages in The Four Loves), he must have meant what he wrote about MacDonald – but do we take Lewis seriously? For it isn’t just what I’ve quoted above that communicates Lewis’s debt to MacDonald, it is the entire Preface, and it isn’t just the Preface, it is the entire Anthology.

 

The quote about MacDonald being Lewis’s master does not do justice to what Lewis is saying, the entire Preface needs to be read, and reread, and reread again to gain the depth and texture of what that quote means, to see in some measure the force of what Lewis is writing.

 

And then consider that Lewis gives us a glimpse of how he engaged in evangelism – he gave MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons to people! We read above, “…and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it [Unspoken Sermons] acknowledge that it has given them great help – sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith.” (italics mine).

 

Again, in all my reading about Lewis, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this statement explored.

 

Would we like to know what book one of the greatest thinkers of the 20^th century gave to others to help them know Christ? It was Unspoken Sermons. But you see, dear friends, Lewis was more than a great thinker, he was a great lover, a lover of goodness, truth, and beauty – and it was as a lover that he came to know Jesus Christ, and as a lover (with a sharp mind!) that he lived, and taught, and wrote.

 

Therefore Lewis writes of MacDonald, “…but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself” (page XXXV).

 

In MacDonald, Lewis finds “the Spirit of Christ Himself.”

 

It strikes me that neither Lewis nor MacDonald can be straightjacketed within a particular Christian tradition – as much as we might like to try. To be sure, there are those who would exclude MacDonald from the tent of Mere Christianity, but who would keep Lewis. Isn’t this a curious thing?  It is curious because if we believe what Lewis says about his debt to MacDonald, and if we accept his endorsement of MacDonald, then how can we accept and promote Lewis and reject MacDonald?

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think Lewis was looking for Christ and he saw Christ in MacDonald – and here’s the thing dear friends, we can have finely-tuned beliefs and doctrines and miss Jesus Christ. We can have well thought out propositional truth, carefully crafted statements of faith, and not have Jesus Christ at the center of our lives. Jesus Christ is a Person and we are to live in relationship with Him, our life in Him is organic – His Divine Nature is either in us or it is not, we are either abiding in the Vine or we are not.

 

I can have…and we all do…imperfect doctrinal understanding but be organically in Christ. I can live Christocentrically and yet have elements of my understanding that are immature or misinformed. I can also articulate a well – developed system of Christian thought and doctrine and Bible knowledge, and yet not live Christocentrically, and I can even be outside an organic relationship with Jesus – not actually knowing Him. Nicodemus knew a lot, but what he didn’t know was that he needed to be born again.

 

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn. 3:8). What did this statement of Jesus’ do to Nicodemus’s well – defined rabbinical understanding?

 

MacDonald was a child of John 3:8. Of course we don’t much care for anything having to do with John 3:8, not really. After all, we can’t put the wind or the Spirit in a package, we can’t harness it (though we try), we can’t truly comprehend it, we can’t define it, we can’t control it, we can’t make it conform to our traditions – we can’t put new wine into our old wineskins. Better to drink flat soda than the fermenting lively wine of the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” (John 5:29 – 40).

 

What Jesus says about the Scriptures, also applies to orthodoxy and the traditions within orthodoxy. If what Jesus says is true of the Greater Thing – the Scriptures, it is most certainly true of the lesser things.

 

Do we take Lewis’s statements about MacDonald seriously?

 

In our next reflection, the Lord willing, we’ll look at how Andrew Murray’s Introduction to William Law is similar to Lewis’s Preface to MacDonald.

 

[Note: Unspoken Sermons is in the Public Domain and can be found on the Internet.]

 

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (2)

 

 

In Lewis’s George MacDonald, An Anthology – 365 readings, Lewis provides 365 quotes from about 15 of MacDonald’s works. Some of these works are novels, some collections of sermons, some fantasy or Faerie stories, and some reflections. Some of the quotes are short, many are substantial, much more than a couple of lines.

 

Could I provide 365 quality quotes from one author? If I could, how long would the process take? I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis and Andrew Murray, both prolific writers, for almost 60 years, and in the instance of Lewis, a few thousand of his letters. Murray and Lewis would be my only possible candidates, but could I really provide 365 quality quotes? I wouldn’t know until I tried. How long would the project take?

 

Then consider that the Anthology was published in 1946. Lewis became a Christian in 1931, and while he first read Phantastes years earlier, I don’t know that he read any more of MacDonald until he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ in 1931. I don’t know when Lewis began working on the Anthology, but let’s say it was 1945, so we’ll give Lewis one year to compile the book. This means that from 1931 – 1944, 13 years, Lewis read and absorbed and integrated MacDonald’s extensive body of work – while Lewis was teaching, writing, doing academic research, reading scores of other books and articles and academic papers, engaged in voluminous correspondence, caring for a demanding older friend, maintaining significant friendships, and brushing his teeth.

 

The Anthology is a remarkable accomplishment and indicates the mass of the iceberg below its tip – the Anthology is the tip; we can only wonder at what lies below. Thankfully Lewis gives us a glimpse of the iceberg’s mass in his Preface.

 

At this juncture I want to bring in Andrew Murray, for there is a remarkable similarity between Murray’s appreciation of William Law and Lewis’s debt to George MacDonald. Just as Lewis wrote a Preface to introduce readers to MacDonald, Murray wrote an Introduction to his, Selections from the Writings of William Law. Lewis and Murray both acknowledged that MacDonald and Law were not perfect, that they had blind spots; but having made the acknowledgments, they were joyful in endorsing the glorious core of their respective writings, the core being Jesus Christ and the glory of God.

 

Murray and Lewis were both vigorous intellectuals. Rigorous thinking was a hallmark of both men. W. T. Kirkpatrick, “the Great Knock,” put Lewis through intellectual boot camp, providing him with a foundation that he built upon throughout his life.

 

Murray left South Africa as an adolescent, with his brother John, to attend college in Scotland and seminary in Holland – both demanding academic environments – before returning to South Africa to become a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church and the greater Kingdom of God. Murray had occasions when he had to deal with heretical teaching within the ranks of Dutch Reformed pastors, and his concern for sound Biblical theology helped spur him to, with the help of others, establish a divinity school in South Africa to counterbalance Dutch and German theological trends away from the Bible in Europe.

 

In MacDonald, Lewis touched Christ; in Law, Murray touched Christ. Or better, both men were touched by Christ, by His transcendence, by His glory, by the luminosity of the Living God.

 

I think there is something we can learn from Murray and Lewis here, and I think it is worth spending some time looking at the similarities of Lewis’s Preface and Murray’s Introduction. You don’t need to be well – versed in Lewis or Murray or MacDonald or Law to follow this, because we’re looking at basic principles and understanding, but of course I hope you will enjoy what you read and that you’ll find food for reflection.

 

As I have pondered Lewis and Murray and their appreciation of MacDonald and Law respectively, I have concluded that what was important to Murray and Lewis was the centrality of Jesus Christ – Lewis saw this in MacDonald, Murray saw this in Law – they saw Christ and the Cross and the transcendent glory of God, and thus they could freely compile the Anthology and the Selections for others with confidence.

 

Lewis used the term Mere Christianity to indicate those Christian doctrines and beliefs which the Church has held to be true throughout the ages, the cardinal elements of our faith, and as much as people have tried to force Lewis into a particular Chrisitan box, from Evangelical to Roman Catholic, Lewis remains a “mere Christian,” who worshipped within the Anglican Communion.

 

While Murray was committed to the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, serving terms as its moderator, he was also very much a “mere Christian.” Murray worked with pastors and missionaries from various traditions, and he drew spiritual nurture from brothers and sisters outside of the Reformed tradition. It is no mystery why Andrew Murray’s writings have touched generations of Christians across the Kingdom of God – Christ and His Kingdom were everything to him; he has been called the Apostle of Abiding Love.

 

To be continued…

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis

 

 

In the series just concluded, on being with one another forever, I mentioned that I’d like to spend some time in the preface that C. S. Lewis wrote to George MacDonald An Anthology - 365 Readings. I hope you will come along with me in my reflections on MacDonald and Lewis; we’ll see where these go.

 

I was a boy when my mother read MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin to my brother Bill and me. Hearing, seeing, and entering into that story was one of my first experiences with the numinous. It was a foundational experience in that I experienced a land, a realm, a reality that has remained with me all my life. However, it was a foundation that was hidden for many years by the detritus of confusion, anger, instability, and a host of other things – including things that we might not readily think of, such as the wisdom of man as can be displayed in naturalistic Christianity with its Enlightenment hermeneutics (including elements of Evangelical Christianity), and in some forms of Chrisitan experience (including elements of the Praise & Worship movement) that obscure the depth of the numinous in Christ.

 

Without the Presence of Christ, we really have nothing – no matter how ecstatic our experience and no matter the depth and breadth of our intellectual endeavors.  I am afraid we are more pagan that we’d like to admit. 

We cannot conjure the Presence of God with music and lyrics, nor can we impress Him with our finely – tuned doctrinal thinking; our Father has said, once and for all, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” We still don’t seem to have grasped this.

 

My mother died a few days before her 44^th birthday. Thinking back, I would love to ask her why she chose to read MacDonald to us. Did someone read MacDonald to her? Did she encounter MacDonald on her own?

 

This leads me to two things about Lewis, MacDonald, and me; we all lost our mothers when young. I was older (17 years old) when I lost my Mom than Lewis (9 years old) and MacDonald (8 years old) were when they lost their mothers (I have two younger brothers, though Jim is now with Jesus), but my loss helps me to identify with their losses.

 

The other thing has to do with Lewis and his brother Warren, as children they created stories of talking animals, in fact, they created a world of talking animals…and they wrote about this world; it was a world they never forgot. Why? Well, I think it was because they touched the numinous and the presence of that “land” continued to work within their lives right up until they drew their last breaths. When their lives were crashing around them at the death of their mother, they could find some measure of refuge in Boxen.

 

My mother used to create stories for my brother Bill and me of Susie and Molly Mousie (I don’t think Jim had been born yet). Now here I am writing about this at 74 years old, and while I can only recall one actual story of these mouse sisters, I can see my mother’s facial expressions and her body language and hear her voice – I can see into the land of Susie and Molly Mousie. Did someone tell her stories of Susie and Molly when she was a girl?

 

I must share one more childhood memory which has remained with me, and which my brother Bill has, I think, preserved all these years. Mom purchased an unfinished chest of drawers for us, which we painted a deep green. Being children of the 1950s and early 1960s, we were into outer space exploration. We had a map of the solar system hanging on the wall of our bedroom.

 

One day we decided that we needed a spaceship, it was one thing to look at the map on the wall, it was one thing to look up into the heavens, but if we were going to lead the way in space exploration we obviously needed our own spaceship. What to do? Why of course the solution was to create a spaceship.

 

On the back of our chest of drawers we drew the control panel for a spaceship – I can still see those instruments and gauges. Being confident in our creative work, we bypassed testing and immediately launched into outer space. It was remarkable that we could travel as far as we wanted and never run out of fuel, and when we got hungry we could immediately touch back down in our bedroom and find something to eat in the kitchen. I don’t understand all the fuss about mega budgets for space exploration when all NASA needs is a fleet of well – made chests of drawers.

 

I think brother Bill still has our spaceship, or perhaps he has passed it on to one of his children. I understand that the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum asked him to donate it to their collection, and I further understand that foreign governments have attempted to purloin the technology, but Bill has steadfastly guarded our secrets and preserved this family treasure.

 

Well, Chesterton wrote to the effect that all he really needed to know he learned in the nursery as a child – for there he touched the numinous, there he touched transcendent reality that we do our best to eradicate from children and adults. I’ll close this reflection with C. S. Lewis’s dedication of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to Lucy Barfield:

 

“My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be…your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.”

To be continued…