>
>Hey Susan --- I have Stokes Treasure box in my To read stack.
>
>As for Christian Classics -- I have read very, very few.  I have been wanting
to read C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

<------->

I personally cannot recommend C.S. Lewis. Please see the information at
the end of this post for my reasons for saying this.


>As for the deeper stuff .. for example Thomas a Kempis ... a great way to
>introduce your self to these authors is through other books -- bear with me
>here.  I love the book Stepping Heavenward by Mrs. E. Prentiss and while it
>is a fiction book it reads as nonfiction and contains so many quotes and
>passages from Christian Classics.  It is written as a journal and she writes
>out her favorite passages from these brilliant men of God -- just as I do in
>my journal!

I was blown away to see this review of this book AFTER I wrote my last post.


<------>
>
>Happy Reading!  Barb

Blessings,

Jeff

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

C.S. LEWIS AND EVANGELICALS TODAY

Updated February 4, 2002 (First published July 1, 2000) (David Cloud,
Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron,
MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@...) - The late British author
C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963) is extremely popular with
Evangelicals today. According to a Christianity Today reader's poll
in 1998, Lewis was rated the most influential writer. Though Lewis
died in 1963, sales of his books have risen to two million a year. In
an article commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lewis's birth, J.I.
Packer called him "our patron saint." Christianity Today said Lewis
"has come to be the Aquinas, the Augustine, and the Aesop of
contemporary Evangelicalism" ("Still Surprised by Lewis,"
Christianity Today, Sept. 7, 1998). Wheaton College sponsored a
lecture series on C.S. Lewis, and Eerdmans published "The Pilgrim's
Guide" to C.S. Lewis.

In its April 23, 2001, issue, Christianity Today again praises C.S.
Lewis in an article titled "Myth Matters." Lewis, called "the 20th
century's greatest Christian apologist," wrote several mythical
works, such as The Chronicles of Narnia, which Christianity Today
recommends in the most glowing terms, claiming that "Christ came not
to put an end to myth but to take all that is most essential in the
myth up into himself and make it real." I don't know what to say to
this except that it is complete nonsense. In his Chronicles, Lewis
depicts Jesus Christ as a lion named Aslan who is slain on a stone
table. Christianity Today says, "In Aslan, Christ is made tangible,
knowable, real." As if we can know Jesus Christ best through a fable
that is vaguely based on biblical themes.

Was C.S. Lewis a strong Bible believer? By no means. Christianity
Today noted that he was "a man whose theology had decidedly
unevangelical elements" (Ibid.). Lewis was turning to the Catholic
Church before his death. He believed in prayers for the dead and
purgatory and confessed his sins regularly to a priest. He received
the Catholic sacrament of last rites on July 16, 1963 (C.S. Lewis: A
Biography, pp. 198, 301). Lewis also rejected the doctrine of bodily
resurrection (Biblical Discernment Ministries Letter, Sept.-Oct.
1996) and believed there is salvation in pagan religions. Lewis
denied the total depravity of man and the substitutionary atonement
of Christ. He believed in theistic evolution and rejected the Bible
as the infallible Word of God. He denied the biblical doctrine of an
eternal fiery hell, claiming, instead, that hell is a state of mind:
"And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the
creature within the dungeon of its own mind--is, in the end, Hell"
(Lewis, The Great Divorce, p. 65). D. Martin Lloyd-Jones warned that
C.S. Lewis had a defective view of salvation and was an opponent of
the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement (Christianity
Today, Dec. 20, 1963). In a letter to the editor of Christianity
Today, Feb. 28, 1964, Dr. W. Wesley Shrader, First Baptist Church,
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, warned that "C.S. Lewis... would never
embrace the (literal-infallible) view of the Bible" and "would accept
no theory of the 'total depravity of man.'"

At age 58, the long time bachelor C.S. Lewis married Joy Gresham. She
met Lewis in England, returned to the States and was divorced from
her husband, then traveled back to England to marry Lewis. According
to two of Lewis's friends, Gresham's husband divorced her on the
grounds of desertion (Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, Light on
C.S. Lewis).

In 1993, Christianity Today explained why C.S. Lewis is so popular
among Evangelicals. Among the reasons given for his popularity was
the following "Lewis's … concentration on the main doctrines of the
church coincided with evangelicals' concern to avoid ecclesiastical
separatism" (Christianity Today, Oct. 25, 1993). CT admits that C.S.
Lewis is popular to Evangelicals today because, like them, he
despised biblical separation.

C.S. Lewis was very ecumenical. The following is an overview of his
ecumenism and his influence on present-day ecumenical movement:

Lewis was firmly ecumenical, though he distanced himself from
outright liberalism. In his preface to Mere Christianity, Lewis
states that his aim is to present 'an agreed, or common, or central
or "mere" Christianity.' So he aims to concentrate on the doctrines
that he believes are common to all forms of Christianity--including
Roman Catholicism. It is no surprise that he submitted parts of the
book to four clergymen for criticism--an Anglican, a Methodist, a
Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic! He hopes that the book will make
it clear why all Christians 'ought to be reunited,' but warns that it
should not be seen as an alternative to the creeds of existing
denominations. He likens the 'mere Christianity' that he describes in
the book to a hall from which various rooms lead off. These rooms are
the various Christian traditions. And just as when you enter a house
you do not stay in the hall but enter a room, so when you become a
Christian you should join a particular Christian tradition. Lewis
believes that it is not too important which room you enter. It will
be right for some to enter the door marked 'Roman Catholicism' as it
will for others to enter other doors. Whichever room you enter, says
Lewis, the important thing is that you be convinced that it is the
right one for you. And, he says, 'When you have reached your own
room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors.'

Mention should also be made of Lewis' views of the sacraments. The
sacraments 'spread the Christ life to us' (Mere Christianity, book 2,
chapter 5). In his Letters to Malcolm Lewis states that he does not
want to 'unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his
denomination, the concepts--for him traditional--by which he finds it
profitable to represent to himself what is happening when he receives
the bread and wine' of the Lord's Supper. What happens in the Lord's
Supper is a mystery, and so the Roman Catholic conception of the
bread and wine becoming the actual body and blood of Christ might be
just as valid as the Protestant view of the Lord's Supper as a
memorial (Letters to Malcolm, chapter 19). ...

This enigma of C.S. Lewis was no more than a slight bemusement to me
until recently three things changed my bemusement into bewilderment.

In March 1994 the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement
produced its first document. This was a programatic document entitled
Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the
Third Millennium. It was rightly said at the time that this document
represented 'a betrayal of the Reformation.' I saw no connection
between this and C.S. Lewis until a couple of years later when the
symposium Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Working Towards a
Common Mission was published. In his contribution to the book,
Charles Colson--the Evangelical 'prime mover' behind ECT--tells us
that C.S. Lewis was a major influence which led him to form the
movement (Billy Graham was another!). In fact Colson says that
Evangelicals and Catholics Together seeks to continue the legacy of
C.S. Lewis by focusing on the core beliefs of all true Christians
(Common Mission, p. 36). The enigma took on a more foreboding aspect.

The enigma darkened further when just last year (after becoming
connected to the Internet at the end of 1996) I discovered, quite by
accident, that C.S. Lewis is just as popular amongst Roman Catholics
as he is amongst Evangelicals. Perhaps I should have known this
already, but it had never struck me before.

The third shock came last autumn when I read that Christianity
Today--reputed to be the leading evangelical magazine in the USA--had
conducted a poll amongst its readers to discover whom they considered
the most influential theological writers of the twentieth century.
You will have already guessed that C.S. Lewis came out on top!

After these three things it came as no surprise to me this year to
find that C.S. Lewis has exerted a major influence on the Alpha
course, and that it quotes or refers to him almost ad nauseum. Could
not the Alpha course be renamed the 'Mere Christianity' course? ...

In conclusion, I offer the following reflection. If it is true to say
that 'you are what you eat,' then it is also true to say that 'a
Christian is what he hears and reads' since this is how he gets his
spiritual food. Thus if Christians are brought up on a diet of C.S.
Lewis, it should not surprise us to find they are seeking 'to
continue the legacy of C.S. Lewis.' The apostle Paul said, 'A little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump' (Gal. 5:9--the whole passage is
relevant to the present context); thus if evangelicals read and
applaud such books as Mere Christianity it should come as no surprise
if we find them 'working towards a common mission' with the enemies
of the gospel. The young Christian should be very careful what he
reads, and those in positions of authority (pastors, teachers,
parents) should be very careful what they recommend others to read
(Dr. Tony Baxter, "The Enigma of C.S. Lewis," CRN Journal, Winter
1998, Christian Research Network, Colchester, United Kingdom, p. 30;
Baxter works for the Protestant Truth Society as a Wycliffe Preacher).

In April 1998, Mormon professor Robert Millet spoke at Wheaton
College on the topic of C.S. Lewis. In a recent issue of Christianity
Today, Millet, dean of Brigham Young University, is quoted as saying
that C.S. Lewis "is so well received by Latter-day Saints [Mormons]
because of his broad and inclusive vision of Christianity" (John W.
Kennedy, "Southern Baptists Take Up the Mormon Challenge,"
Christianity Today, June 15, 1998, p. 30).

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