The Reluctant Convert -C.S. Lewis.

I have recently, after an absence of a few years, re-discovered the writings of C.S. Lewis. It is almost intoxicating. The danger of becoming an obsessed bore is very real-and I’m sure he would have hated that, but the fact is, I simply cannot get enough of this great author’s books.

Lewis, like most true philosophers, encourages the reader to think about life,and as a Christian and a philosopher, he encourages the reader to think about life and the afterlife.

Born in Ireland in 1898, Clive Staples Lewis, a former atheist, became one of the Twentieth Century's most influential writers on issues of faith and culture. His influence continues to this day with his many writings on such subjects remaining in print. Lewis believed Christianity should be a constant challenge to any society's easy answers or unquestioned assumptions.

My passion for the works of C.S. Lewis (Jack ) goes beyond the captivating nature of the books- from space fiction to the most difficult themes- of love, human suffering, and the reality of miracles- there is also, of course, his effortless and unique style.

He was, as many of you will know, Professor of Medieval English, and yet his writing was wholly unpretentious: reading ‘Mere Christianity’ was a like talking with a friend at a very deep level, and finishing it ,was like saying goodbye with some sadness, but carrying the memories of that friend with you.

Lewis, was not interested in winning arguments, but he was very definitely interested in sharing with the reader his own discovery of the rigour, and beauty, and overwhelming significance of God’s love for us- as manifested by His taking to Himself our humanity, suffering to the extent of dying by crucifixion, and rising from the dead so that we could share with Him a wholly new life in God.

‘In arguing against Him, you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all’

(CS Lewis)

 

Enormous integrity shines through, in the life, and writings of CS Lewis-and his willingness to go the hard road to where he saw Truth. The transformational event in his life was, of course, his conversion to Christianity-‘the most reluctant convert in all of England’, as he himself said. A transformation which, at first overwhelmed him, and then animated his view of himself, and the world, as well as his relationships with others.

‘Christ died for men precisely because they were not worth it; to make them worth it’

 (CS Lewis)

 

There was, first, the redemptive nature of life, in all of its aspects – and in particular relationships. We are aware  of this when we look around at the chaos and pain caused by greed in our economies, our banks- and in ourselves.

C.S. Lewis, I believe, would not be surprised at all, by the nature, and the scale, of the current global economic mess-which is primarily an ethical catharsis; knowing a good deal about this – it is a theme which runs directly through many of his books – neither would he  be  surprised by the consequences of this ethical catharsis.

 

We have succumbed to the ‘idolatry’ of the market place – and in so doing, subverted the very markets on which our globalised economy depends. We have allowed ourselves to be ‘led astray’ by our ‘wants’ – to use J.K Galbraith’s dichotomy – rather than working to meet the all too apparent ‘needs’ of our sisters and brothers

 

Lewis would have little to say on how to go about reconstructing our banking system and economy. But he would have a great deal to say on the principles on which we should set about this task. These principles centre on the reality that the good of the Human Person is the objective benchmark for economic as well as societal standards, and it has a very long pedigree.

He would have been appalled, at how corporate capitalism managed to corrupt an intrinsically sensible economic and social system. He would probably ,for example, have pointed out how the emphasis on power and money as primary goals in themselves have displaced the Virtues which transform power into service .and money into a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

This whole theme is played out in ‘That Hideous Strength’, which is the third in his space trilogy-where Lewis writes about the terrible collapse of a system, predicated on power ,and a distortion of science, and how even good institutions can get corrupted. Dare I suggest prophetic!

The whole theme of this trilogy is not just ‘what might have been’ (Voyage to Venus), but the reality of what is, and how this has to be ransomed by the same kind of self-giving love which he experienced in his life.

What stands-out for me is how the two main protagonists, the young sociologist and his wife, each wrapped up in their own self, find that redemption means a melting away of a fixation on self- when this redemption – through a free act of will on both their parts – occurs, it can only be described as, transformational.

Lewis himself, of course, experienced this in his own life. ‘The Four Loves’ which was written before he met his future wife Joy, deconstructs Love into its different elements: Friendship, Caritas, Eros and Affection.

 

Of these, I have always felt that Friendship and Eros are the ones that we most need to think about.

 The term ‘friendship’ has been emasculated from its original meaning – It has become an umbrella term covering what can signify a person’s immediate usefulness to us, and outside of which they would play no role in our lives.

 

Take for instance ‘friends’ on social networking sites, the friends we count-the numerical value often  being the measure of how we perceive our value as a person., and indeed their value as a person.

 Friends are increasingly seen as people we count- rather than-people we ‘can count on’.

The inebriated new best friends we meet at, soon to be forgotten, house parties: the friends we ‘make’ at business meetings-each intent on self interest and personal profit.  

Would he or she be there for us in a crisis? Would we introduce them to our family?

 

Would we take them into your homes and break bread with them?

Maybe  we would, or maybe not, but in order to call them a ‘friend’ it demands mutual understanding, trust, self-sacrifice, patience, and  ultimately, love. Yet, love itself requires knowledge – we must embark on a mutual journey of exchanging knowledge with a person before we can begin to call them a friend. 

 

Much the same can be said for Eros, which has been wholly taken out of its natural context and exploited and debased, and certainly misunderstood.

In his own life, Lewis did no such thing. He was in his 50’s when he met the eponymous ‘Joy’, and his book ‘Surprised by Joy’ is simply extraordinary.

More extraordinary still is the book that he wrote, in solitude and in pain, when Joy was taken from him-by death- after just four years, ‘A Grief Observed’ –it is grief laid bare- and there are resonances of the Gospels here. The Joy of the Apostles in the early part of Christ’s public life on earth and the starkness and bleakness of the Crucifixion, which is evident in the early part of ‘A Grief Observed’.

Lewis did have his faith-his Christianity to sustain him, and to help him make sense of what had been given to him, and then apparently taken back .He grieved deeply, but he was supremely confident that he would see, and know, ‘Joy’ once again.

He was certainly a man who knew about pain– he did after all write one of the great books on suffering – ‘The Problem of Pain’. He knew it up close and personal in the loss of his beloved Joy, and he knew it in the latter years of his own failing health.

C.s. Lewis died , one week before his 65th birthday on Friday, November 22, after a variety of illnesses, including a heart attack and kidney problems. He had resigned his position at Cambridge during the summer and was then elected an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His grave is in the yard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford

C.S. Lewis(Jack) was a very great man –and I would love to have known him personally. Then again, I feel I do know him through his writings; they open the door to all that made his life so worthwhile.