Friday, March 21, 2014

Stephen to Lazarus

Sailing in the Bay of Fundy, sighting a whaleBut was I the first martyr, who
Gave up no more than life, while you,
Already free among the dead,
Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,
Surrendered what all other men
Irrevocably keep, and when
Your battered ship at anchor lay
Seemingly safe in the dark bay
No ripple stirs, obediently
Put out a second time to sea
Well knowing that your death (in vain
Died once) must all be died again?

C.S. Lewis, “From Poems,The Essential C.S. Lewis (Touchstone, 1996) 422.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

The last interview (Part 11)

Because Professor Lewis has written so extensively, both in fiction and nonfiction, about space travel (see his trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength), I was particularly interested in what he would have to say about the prospects for man’s future.

Sherwood Wirt: What do you think is going to happen in the next few years of history, Mr. Lewis?

Apollo 13 liftoffC.S. Lewis: I have no way of knowing. My primary field is the past. I travel with my back to the engine, and that makes it difficult when you try to steer. The world might stop in ten minutes; meanwhile, we are to go on doing our duty. The great thing is to be found at one’s post as a child of God, living each day a though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years.
    We have, of course, the assurance of the New Testament regarding events to come (Matthew 24:4-44; Mark 13:5-27; Luke 21:8-33). I find it difficult to keep from laughing when I find people worrying about future destruction of some kind or other. Didn’t they know they were going to die anyway? Apparently not. My wife once asked a young woman friend whether she had ever thought of death, and she replied, ‘By the time I reach that age science will have done something about it!’

Wirt: Do you think there will be wide-spread travel in space?

Lewis: I look forward with horror to contact with the other inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only transport to them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness, and establish a new colonialism. I can’t hear to think of it. But if we on earth were to get right with God, of course, all would be changed. Once we find ourselves spiritually awakened, we can go to outer space and take the good things with us. That is quite a different matter.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 266-267 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The last interview (Part 10)

Sherwood Wirt: What is your view of the daily discipline of the Christian life — the need for taking time to be alone with God?

C.S. Lewis: We have our New Testament regimental orders upon the subject. I would take it for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian would undertake this practice. It is enjoined upon us by Our Lord; and since they are His commands, I believe in following them. It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what He said when He told us to seek the secret place and to close the door’ (Matthew 6:5-6).

Bible-Reading

Matthew 6:5-6
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 265-266 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The last interview (Part 9)

Billy and Ruth Graham 1955 UK tourSherwood Wirt: Do you approve of men such as Bryan Green and Billy Graham asking people to Come to a point of decision regarding the Christian life?

C.S. Lewis: I had the pleasure of meeting Billy Graham once. We had dinner together during his visit to Cambridge University in 1955, while he was conducting a mission to students. I thought he was a very modest and a very sensible man, and I liked him very much indeed.
In a civilization like ours, I feel that everyone has to come to terms with the claims of Jesus Christ upon his life, or else be guilty of inattention or of evading the question. In the Soviet Union it is different. Many people living in Russia today have never had to consider the claims of Christ because they have never heard of those claims.
    In the same way, we who live in English-speaking countries have never really been forced to consider the claims, let us say, of Hinduism. But in our Western civilization we are obligated both morally and intellectually to come to grips with Jesus Christ; if we refuse to do so we are guilty of being bad philosophers and bad thinkers.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 265-266 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Finding Narnia in Northern Ireland

In recognition of St. Patrick’s Day and C.S. Lewis’s Irish heritage, in today’s post, we’ll briefly explore the land which inspired Jack’s creation of Narnia. The following excerpt which includes quotes from Lewis was taken from an article in the UK’s weekly newspaper The Observer.

If you didn’t find Narnia in your own wardrobe, you might just find it in Northern Ireland, the birthplace of CS Lewis and beloved inspiration for the author's fictional land….

Silent Valley near Newy in the Mournes

When Disney scoured the world looking for a location to play Narnia's mythical landscape, they chose New Zealand's fantastical soaring mountains and sun-scorched grassy plains. It would have pleased CS Lewis, Narnia's creator, but it wouldn't have resonated with his love of ‘Northernness.’ For Lewis the portal into Narnia was far closer to home - Ulster.

Carlingford Lough from the Mournes

“I have seen landscapes, notably in the Mourne Mountains and southwards which under a particular light made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge,” he wrote in his essay On Stories. While living in England he spoke of the magic of Northern Ireland: “I yearn to see County Down in the snow, one almost expects to see a march of dwarfs dashing past. How I long to break into a world where such things were true.”

Rostrevor, Newry, County Down

And in a letter to his brother, he confided explicitly: “That part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough is my idea of Narnia.”

Carliingford Lough

While he loved the countryside, in a letter to his best friend Arthur Greeves, Lewis confessed that he was less fond of the people. “The country is very beautiful and if only I could deport the Ulstermen and fill their land with a populace of my own choosing, I should ask for no better place to live in.” This, argue some experts, is what he did when creating Narnia.

DSCF0015

 

Rostrevor Cross in Northern Ireland


Taken from:
Northern Ireland: If you didn’t find Narnia in your own wardrobe… This article appeared on p2 of the Observer Escape section of the Observer on Sunday 4 December 2005. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.38 GMT on Sunday 4 December 2005.

Friday, March 7, 2014

The last interview (Part 8)

The Edmund Fitzgerald by dureallSherwood Wirt: Do you feel, then, that modern culture is being de-Christianized?

C.S. Lewis: I cannot speak to the political aspects of the question, but I have some definite views about the dc-Christianizing of the church. I believe that there are many accommodating
preachers, and too many practitioners in the church who are not believers. Jesus Christ did not say ‘Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.’ The Gospel is something completely different. In fact, it is directly opposed to the World.
    The case against Christianity that is made out in the world is quite strong. Every war, every shipwreck, every cancer case, every calamity, contributes to making a prima facie case against Christianity. It is not easy to be a believer in the face of this surface evidence. It calls for a strong faith in Jesus Christ.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 265 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

The last interview (Part 7)

Sherwood Wirt: Do you believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to the world through Christian writers today?

cslewisC.S. Lewis: I prefer to make no judgment concerning a writer’s direct ‘illumination’ by the Holy Spirit. I have no way of knowing whether what is written is from heaven or not. I do believe that God is the Father of lights — natural lights as well as spiritual lights (James 1:17). That is, God is not interested only in Christian writers as such. He is concerned with all kinds of writing. In the same way a sacred calling is not limited to ecclesiastical functions. The man who is weeding a field of turnips is also serving God.

Wirt: An American writer, Mr Dewey Beegle, has stated that in his opinion the Isaac Watts hymn, ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’, is more inspired by God than is the ‘Song of Solomon’ in the Old Testament. What would be your view?

Lewis: The great saints and mystics of the church have felt just the opposite about it. They have found tremendous spiritual truth in the ‘Song of Solomon’. There is a difference of levels here. The question of the canon is involved. Also we must remember that what is meat for a grown person might be unsuited to the palate of a child.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 264 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The last interview (Part 6)

Sheep on the RoadSherwood Wirt: How would you suggest a young Christian writer go about developing a style?

C.S. Lewis: The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean, If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the readers will most certainly go into it.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 263 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The last interview (Part 5)

The hour and a half I spent with Mr. Clive Staples Lewis in his quarters at Magdalene College, Cambridge University, will remain a treasured memory. I found Professor Lewis in his modest establishment, surrounded by the historic atmosphere of the old university city, engaged in the quiet daily stint of teaching medieval classic literature. It was hard to realize that this unassuming man is probably the outstanding Christian literary figure of our age. I was prompted to say to him:

the-screwtape-letters-cslSherwood Wirt: Professor Lewis, your writings have an unusual quality not often found in discussions of Christian themes. You write as though you enjoyed it.

C.S. Lewis: If I didn’t enjoy writing I wouldn’t continue to do it. Of all my books, there was only one I did not take pleasure in writing.

Wirt: Which one?

Lewis: The Screwtape Letters. They were dry and gritty going. At the time, I was thinking of objections to the Christian life, and decided to put them into the form, ‘That’s what the devil would say.’ But making goods ‘bad’ and bads ‘good’ gets to be fatiguing.

Sherwood Wirt interviewing C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 263 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Monday, March 3, 2014

The last interview (Part 4)

Jesus-Liar-Lunatic-or-Lord-by-peterborough-1980Sherwood Wirt: You wrote 20 years ago that ‘A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.’ Would you say your view of this matter has changed since then?

C.S. Lewis: I would say there is no substantial change.

Wirt: Would you say that the aim of Christian writing, including your own writing, is to bring about an encounter of the reader with Jesus Christ?

Lewis: That is not my language, yet it is the purpose I have in view. For example, I have just finished a book on prayer, an imaginary correspondence with someone who raises questions about difficulties in prayer.

Wirt: How can we foster the encounter of people with Jesus Christ?

Lewis: You can’t lay down any pattern for God. There are many different ways of bringing people into His Kingdom, even some ways that I specially dislike! I have therefore learned to be cautious in my judgment.
    But we can block it in many ways. As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the Faith. We give in too much. Now, I don’t mean that we should run the risk of making a nuisance of ourselves by witnessing at improper times, but there comes a time when we must show that we disagree. We must show our Christian colours, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away.
    There is a character in one of my children’s stories named Aslan, who says, ‘I never tell anyone any story except his own.’ I cannot speak for the way God deals with others; I only know how He deals with me personally. Of course, we are to pray for spiritual awakening, and in various ways we can do something toward it. But we must remember that neither Paul nor Apollos gives the increase. As Charles Williams once said, ‘The altar must often be built in one place so that the fire may come down in another place.’

C.S. Lewis, “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 261-263 with appropriate additions from the originally published interview in Decision magazine, September 1963, ©1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.