Forty Years Later CS Lewis's Influence Tops JFK

Christianity Today, Week of November 24
Compiled by Rob Moll | posted 11/24/2003

Forty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, only half of Americans are alive to remember it, and many Americans are looking away from the Kennedy's Camelot to the fairytales of another man who died that day: Clive Staples Lewis.

C.S. Lewis's death was overlooked on that November 22 in 1963, but historian Mark Summers of the University of Kentucky argues that today Lewis is more relevant to those who cannot answer the question "where were you when JFK was shot?" "In terms of how he's affected the kids of my generation and the rest, I have a feeling that C.S. Lewis may
have affected them more than John Kennedy." Summers told The Louisville Courier-Journal.

The attacks on September 11 have provided a new point of reference, but Joe Loconte argues that C. S. Lewis continues to teach us about faith at a time when "sane thinking about religion" is especially needed. Lewis's late conversion to Christianity allowed him
to see clearly when the faithful saw only cliché, Loconte says.

A British soldier in World War I, Lewis came of age during the rise of communism and fascism. Along with his generation, Lewis saw evil as a potent force, which he confronted in his books of apologetics and fairytale.

In Saturday's New York Times, Loconte writes, "In a harrowing scene from his science fiction novel Perelandra, the protagonist, Prof. Elwin Ransom, battles a mad scientist horribly disfigured by his lust for power. Lewis writes: "What was before him appeared no longer a creature of corrupted will. It was corruption itself to which will was attached only as an instrument." It was the tragedy of human nature to have the free will to choose, and to choose evil. Loconte says, "While Oxford agnostics howled, Lewis gave BBC talks on theology that were a national sensation. Even his beloved children's stories, The
Chronicles of Narnia, ring with biblical themes of sin and redemption. No one did more to make 'the repellent doctrines' of Christianity plausible to modern ears."

In fact, it was Lewis who brought Charles Colson bawling to God. Colson wrote last week, "In 1973, in the midst of the Watergate crisis, I visited the home of a friend who read to me from Mere Christianity. In that book, I encountered a formidable intellect and
a logical argument that I found utterly persuasive. That night in the driveway of my friend's home I called out to God in a flood of tears and surrendered my life to Christ."

Colson argues, "Lewis's influence in the marketplace of ideas spreads daily." Though Lewis may not have imagined that his own church would be suffering from a potential breakup over gay clergy and gay marriage, Lewis still has something to say on the matter.
In an opinion piece this weekend, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Alan Cochrum looks to Lewis for help as the nation debates gay marriage. In Mere Christianity Lewis writes, "Churches should frankly recognize that the majority … are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members."

Though Lewis was considering divorce, his words still guide our reflection on issues of today. Cochrum says, "Christian thinkers should keep two factors in mind: Laws against acts by willing adults, however well-founded morally, are notoriously hard to enforce;
and such regulations, once they lose the support of the populace, may birth contempt for morality and the law itself. (See: Prohibition.) … But marriage is fundamentally the crystallizing of a relationship, with its attendant roles, responsibilities, possibilities.
Changing the players changes those factors, and it changes society as elements play themselves out and as the ripple effects spread in unexpected but logical ways."

And it is not simply the logic of Christian thinkers that Lewis continues to shape, but the imagination of the culture. In the recently released DVD of the extended version of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, C.S. Lewis plays a part.
One reviewer writes, "There's an informative discussion with literary scholars about how conversations between authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis—and their frustration about the lack of stories they liked to read—became the catalyst for the authors to create their masterworks The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, respectively."

While evangelical Christians keep writing and writing about engaging culture and finding God in popular culture, C.S. Lewis has been there, done that. The Chronicles of Narnia boxed set (one of many offerings) maintains an Amazon.com "sales ranking" of 65; according to one estimate, this easily translates into hundreds of sales per day. In
comparison, the wildly popular Left Behind novel ranks 2,077, translating to a about a dozen sales per day. In addition, there are rumors that Peter Jackson's company Weta Workshop has already begun working on the first of five film adaptations of Lewis's
Chronicles of Narnia. The project may be as big as The Lord of the Rings movies, and if so, the influence that C.S. Lewis has on culture will have only just begun.


________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - NetZero HiSpeed!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month -visit www.netzero.com to sign up today!