C.S. Lewis

Book Review: “The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis” by Jason M. Baxter

C.S. Lewis was a man deeply influenced by myth. In The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis, Jason M. Baxter shows how Medieval thought and “great books” shaped C.S. Lewis’s mind and thought.

The book’s short length (165 pages of text) belies the deep insights found throughout. Baxter is clearly well-versed with medieval thought, and he brings this knowledge to bear on the life, thought, and works of C.S. Lewis. Whence some of Lewis’s insights about mysticism, death, and apologetics? The answer is medieval thought. Baxter traces medieval influence on C.S. Lewis’s life, but also highlights how influential this same thought was on his works, both theological, apologetical, and more. It is beyond clear, having read the book, that Lewis was deeply committed to medieval thinking, and used that thought to critique his modern world.

I especially enjoyed how Baxter made the insights in each chapter feel somewhat applicable to today. Rather than just outlining a one-to-one correspondence of Lewis with Medieval thought, he also highlights how that thought could have impact on our own lives. For example, in the chapter on prayer, much discussion is spent on the numinous experience, ultimately bringing it home with the analogy of Lucy from Narnia as an example of how to pray. Insights like this can be found throughout the book.

The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis is useful both to those interested in exploring the background to Lewis’s thought and to those who wish to learn more about Medieval Christianity and thought. It’s an intriguing look at deep topics.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

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——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Susan Pevensie, C.S. Lewis, and Enchantment

C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia is one of the most instantly recognizable and beloved series of children’s stories of all time. In the series, there is a land called Narnia into which human children occasionally stumble, frequently to epic and long-lasting effect. Susan Pevensie is one of these children. She’s the eldest daughter of the Pevensie clan, one of four children to enter Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She goes on to eventually become Queen Susan the Gentle.

Later, however, when readers encounter The Last Battle, an apocalyptic exploration of Narnia that includes many of Lewis’s own beliefs, we discover that Susan is, astonishingly, not with the other Pevensies. Susan, we are told by her somber brother Peter, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.” Apparently, she has taken to calling the former adventures in Narnia as just some games the kids played when they were younger, and she’s now much too grown-up for that sort of thing. Susan, we’re told, is much more interested in “nylons and lipstick and invitations” than she is in anything like Narnia.

I remember the first time I read this section. I was sitting in my parochial grade school, using the free time I had during the day to voraciously read anything that came my way. This book, I’d been waiting for. I’d been scared of reading it, because the cover with the unicorn, horn bloodied, was more than a little alarming. But I’d dived in, and discovered one of the strangest adventures I’d read. I didn’t know what to make of it, what with the deceitful animals, people who ignored reality right there in front of them, and more. But then Susan hit, and it hit me like a load of bricks. Surely Susan would never forget Narnia! It felt like a betrayal. Susan, who so practically believed what she saw. Susan, who thought of bringing coats into the always-winter Narnia. Susan, who was always the reasonable one. Susan, who was the Gentle. She was no longer a friend of Narnia? How was this possible? And how was it possible that Susan, who’d literally grown into adulthood as a Queen of Narnia, pretended it was all just a game? Was this the kind of horrifying thing that would happen to me when I grew up?

There has been a lot written about the problem of Susan. A friend shared a Youtube video that explained many of the problem(s) away by contextualizing some of the things within Lewis’s own world that he may have been referencing. I enjoyed it, but some of the explanation didn’t sit right with me because it felt so much like explaining away rather than simply contextualizing. A wonderful post on Tor.com, “The Problem(s) of Susan” by Matt Mikalatos, highlighted many of the issues I have with Susan as an adult. Mikalatos concludes:

“Jack [C.S. Lewis], believe me, if Susan looks for Aslan, she’ll find him. If she asks a question, he’ll answer. If she—even in her old age, even years and years from now—finds herself finds herself alone in that great house, and wanders into the old guest room and gently, not quite believing, raps her knuckles on an ancient wardrobe door, believe me, Jack, Aslan will be waiting to throw it open. And then at last the true happily ever after can begin.”

I love that, and I think it sits so well with me as an adult. Perhaps it is true that Lewis himself didn’t allow himself an expansive enough vision of Narnia–nay, Aslan’s–power. That’s something to think about.

The child in me wonders, though, if Lewis has outwitted me again. Perhaps that scene with Susan isn’t written for the adults–it’s for the children. It’s for children who, like me, would be stunned to think that Susan could forget Narnia. It’s a scene about the loss of enchantment, and one that teaches children to never let go of the enchantment of our own world–our own Narnia. A world in which God the Son entered human flesh and gave himself to die for us.

The notion of enchantment, wonder, and myth is absolutely central to Lewis’s writings throughout his life, whether from his younger period as an atheist, or as an old man. The idea that he might be sneaking this concept into one of his most powerful–and powerfully confusing–works doesn’t seem entirely impossible. If so, then Susan is a heartrending example of the loss of enchantment. Instead of Aslan’s call, she holds out for invitations to parties; instead of donning a bow, she cares deeply for nylons. It’s a tragic story, even as it stretches the limits of imagination given the character Susan has been established to be. Perhaps it is Susan’s nature as Susan the Gentle which leads her into disenchantment–she pursues the trappings of ostensible adulthood in order to continue to act as protector to her siblings. Her mannerisms and dedication lead her, tragically, towards disenchantment. It’s an awful story, and a jarring one. Perhaps it’s meant to be.

I don’t think that’s what Lewis was doing, but I wonder. Could C.S. Lewis have been playing a final twist, a final call towards enchantment for us–as children? A call to not give up on the world, and to realize that faith and hope really are powerful. I suppose I’ll always wonder whatever happened to Susan. Mikalatos’s answer is the one that resonates most with me. But I also like the idea of enchantment–as it feels exactly like something Lewis would do. Perhaps it is.

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SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Splendour in the Dark: C. S. Lewis’s Dymer in His Life and Work” by Jerry Root

C. S. Lewis’s writings loom large in the church today, whether because of the massive influence of The Chronicles of Narnia or his spiritual works like Mere Christianity. Jerry Root brings attention to one of his lesser-known works Dymer, a narrative poem that was written before Lewis converted to Christianity. In Splendour in the Dark, Root argues that Dymer shows Lewis’s development of spiritual growth, intellectual prowess, and writing skill in ways that reverberate through his later works.

The book begins with an annotated edition of the narrative poem, Dymer, itself (annotations from David C. Downing). This narrative poem encompasses over 100 pages of the book and is a valuable resource. The annotations from Downing consistently provide insights and points of interest for readers. The text itself is an interesting narrative though, as Downing and Root each note, it has its faults. What it does show, however, is a remarkable elasticity of thought and willingness to explore deep issues at work in Lewis’s earlier life.

Root’s chapters are composed of 3 lectures with responses about Dymer. Root highlights the importance of the narrative poem in Lewis’s life, as he had it come upon him all at once, but waited for some time before publishing it 11 years later (133). Lewis’s fascination with writing and classics included the belief that one should use “literary form to match what it was he [Lewis] wanted to say” (138). One can see this throughout his works. Lewis saw the importance of form to function and message.

The concept of mutability and change is present in Dymer as well, and Root argues that this theme is in Lewis’s notion that “reality is iconoclastic” (143ff, see also 230). The necessity of change means that indoctrination will ultimately fail (145), and that those structures humans attempt to make to endure will fall. Lewis’s fascination with myth looms large throughout the poem, and certainly in his later works (173ff). Root continues to draw from Dymer to show Lewis’s influences on his later works, though he doesn’t explicitly make those connections at times. Readers will need some familiarity and appreciation for Lewis’s works to get the most out of this book.

Each chapter has a response from another scholar in a related field. These responses are largely affirmations of what was in the lecture they append.

Fans of C. S. Lewis should consider Splendour in the Dark a must-read. It brings attention to one of his lesser-known works while also providing thoughtful analysis and application to everyday life for Christians. Recommended.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

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SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Becoming C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Young Jack Lewis (1898-1918)” by Harry Lee Poe

C.S. Lewis is a champion of the faith whose life story is familiar and oft-retold. Having read a couple biographies of Lewis, I was a bit skeptical of yet another biography of the man coming out–and a multi-volume one at that! What could be added? But then I saw that Harry Lee Poe wrote it, and having enjoyed some works from him in the past, I decided to give Becoming C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Young Jack Lewis (1898-1918) a try.

One thing that immediately sets the biography apart is that it is a look specifically at C.S. Lewis’s younger years. Harry Lee Poe argues persuasively that these early years of Lewis’s life were both incredibly formative and essential to understanding the man he would become. one major aspect of this book is showing Lewis’s own path of faith. The notion of Lewis going from an atheist to a Christian is well-known, but his move from being a Christian to an atheist is less commonly discussed. It’s clear from Poe’s work that Lewis essentially experienced a kind of milquetoast faith that did not appeal to him whatsoever, while eagerly pursuing certain vices as well. Some sordid details of his predilections are touched upon in this regard, and this helps readers understand Lewis more fully as well.

Another aspect of Lewis’s early life that Poe documents as being extremely important to the later man is his burgeoning interest in classics and myth. Whether it was in translating for himself some classic works or his own intense reading through various myths about King Arthur, Lewis’s interest in myth was found and nourished from an early age. There is little question that it stuck with him for the rest of his life and became essential to understanding the man he became. Lewis’s complex familial relations are also touched upon throughout this biography, as the influence of his brother and family on his life is drawn out by Poe in some detail.

Poe writes this biography in a voice that immediately grabs the reader. He is both sympathetic to the subject while also not excusing character flaws. His writing is well-suited to biography and as one reads Becoming C.S. Lewis, one feels as though one is engaged in a conversation with the author about the fascinating subject.

Becoming C.S. Lewis is a fascinating, detailed look at the earliest parts of C.S. Lewis’s life. Poe is a skilled author with a deep knowledge of the subject, and that makes this biography a must-read for those even remotely interested in the life, theology, or fiction of C.S. Lewis. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

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SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Richard Dawkins, C.S. Lewis, and the Meaning of Life” by Alister McGrath

Alister E. McGrath, in Richard Dawkins, C.S. Lewis, and the Meaning of Life, constructs a pithy look at the titular question through the lenses of two of the most famous (or infamous, depending your leanings) thinkers of the last century.

This short volume features four chapters about, respectively, why meaning matters, reasoned belief, whether there is a God, and what human nature is. C.S. Lewis and Richard Dawkins almost could not be more far afield in their answers to these questions, but McGrath does a good job integrating thoughts of each of them into the text so that readers can understand some of the answers they gave.

What may surprise readers at times is how Dawkins’s views effectively take to extremes some of Lewis’s cautions. For example, Dawkins is highly critical of myth and the notion of letting it control our lives. But Lewis isn’t an ignorant fool simply because he was a Christian. Lewis himself offers cautions regarding the way that myths can lead to stigmatization and false beliefs (13). On another extreme, Dawkins purports to believe that science is proof and effectively nothing else is. But Lewis notes that the very concept of proof is illusive even on some physical questions. Do we need to discount the possibility of any true beliefs simply because we cannot prove them?

What is perhaps most interesting is the very brief synthesis of thought McGrath offers near the end, where he notes that while these thinkers disagree sharply on the meaning of various questions, they agree that there are problems in the way of pursuing human goals and that there are limitations on human nature. For Dawkins, the primary thing in the way, so to speak, is our own genetic and evolutionary past, to which we may be dancing whether we want to or not. For Lewis, the captivity of sin has engulfed us and prevented us from pursuing goals.

Ultimately, McGrath leaves the questions open ended at the close of the book. What he accomplishes in Richard Dawkins, C.S. Lewis, and the eaning of Life is to get readers to consider these deep questions and perhaps how they may relate to each other. He also opens up avenues for further exploration.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church” by James E. Beitler III

Rhetoric is a discipline that is rarely taught or even discussed anymore, even in scholarly circles. James E. Beitler III attempts to show the importance of rhetoric not just to Christian witness but to a full Christian life in Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church. He does this by outlining how five major Christian voices used rhetoric in their lives: C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Desmond Tutu, and Marilynne Robinson.

C.S. Lewis is discussed in light of how he used rhetoric and worship to see the goodwill of Advent. His persuasive style and study of rhetoric helped him to become one of the most revered thinkers of the 20th century. C.S. Lewis addresses audiences on their own terms, adopted a humble stance, and cultivated communities. Again, this was centered around goodwill–the ultimate well-being of humanity through resurrection life with God (36-37). Dorothy Sayers used rhetoric and credal worship to emphasize the “energy of Christmastide” as Beitler puts it. Through vivid depictions and tranquil scenes, she made a rhetoric-filled argument for Christianity. Sayers’s He That Should come stirred up controversy in her own time, and Beitler quotes a remarkable defense Sayers offered of her portrayal of Christmas in which she talks about Christ being born “into this confused, coarse, and indifferent world… He was a real person, born in blood and pain like any other child, and dying in blood and pain, like the commonest thief…” The lifelike depictions of Sayers language comes through in the chapter dedicated to her, and shows how the persuasive rhetoric of her Christian witness played out.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is used by Beitler to exemplify the use of preaching the Word and epiphanic identification–the hiddenness and reality of Christ the God-man. The “strange glory” of epiphany is that Christ comes to be identified with us–to be a human person. Even more radically, Bonhoeffer’s rhetoric led to the identification with Jewish Christians and taking a stand against those who would refuse to do so in Nazi Germany. Preaching, for Bonhoeffer, involved bringing the Word to the hearers ears, which would itself lead to identification with the Word. The word of God itself “is the exclamation point that we do not need to add,” said Bonhoeffer (115-116).

The chapter on Desmond Tutu was particularly fascinating, both in noting how Tutu’s wholly religious rhetoric led to calls for repentance and reconciliation and also how that same religious fervor led to accusations of divisiveness and triumphalism during the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Tutu’s prophetic rhetoric issued a stirring call for repentance from racial division and unity of the body of Christ. Marilynne Robinson has become a significant voice in Christianity through her fiction, which, through the Gilead Trilogy, uses rhetoric to make “faith’s unseen realities more believable and faith’s central questions more significant for unbelievers” and believers (162-163). Beitler notes the use of themes in the trilogy that help usher in a sense of ethos of Easter that makes sense of Christianity in real-world ways.

Throughout the book, Beitler does a good job of putting forward the ideas of those speakers/writers he wishes to highlight while allowing his own narrative and writing to take a back seat. Seasoned Speech is itself an execise in rhetoric, calling readers to a better appreciation of and for both the content of the writings and speeches of the people highlighted but also to go forth and learn more. I, for one, ended up putting holds on a number of works about and by several of the authors discussed, and I look forward to continuing to learn about their “seasoned speech” (a reference to Colossians 4:6).

Seasoned Speech: Rhetoric in the Life of the Church is a remarkable call to enjoy and learn from several fascinating thinkers in recent Christian history. It is the kind of book that calls for reading and re-reading and absorbing. I highly recommend it.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

Links

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Haunted by Christ: Modern Writers and the Struggle for Faith” by Richard Harries

Haunted by Christ is a riveting look at how modern writers dealt with lingering doubts, anger, sorrow, and the question of Christianity. Richard Harries asks readers to engage with several writers to ask them questions that might not normally be asked, and he challenges readers in ways that are intricately tied into these authors’ lives.

First, it is worth pointing out that the concept of “modern” here is being used in the technical sense, related to modernism. Harries sets this period starting with Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) and Closing in the early 20th century. The authors Harries surveys are Dostoevsky, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edward Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Stevie Smith, Samuel Beckett, W.H. Auden, William Golding, R.S. Thomas, Edwin Muir and George Mackay Brown, Elizabeth Jennings, Graham Greene with Flannery O’Connor, Shusaku Endo, and Evelyn Waugh, C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman, and Marilynne Robinson. Readers familiar with the works of these authors will know they run the gamut from skeptics to devout Christians. What ties them together, in Harries reading, is that their works are “haunted” by the supernatural, and specifically through a grappling with the person of Jesus Christ.

As a reader, I was unfamiliar with many of the authors, not having read much from the modernist movement. (This line makes me want to say sorry to my English teachers.) Nevertheless, Harries gives enough biographical information on each author to understand the points he’s making. Indeed, most of the information in the book is biographical, as Harries draws out each authors’ struggle with faith and coming to terms with the person of Jesus Christ. Even the skeptics surveyed clearly interact with Christianity, even if in negative ways.

I found several chapters of particular interest. Seeing C.S. Lewis’s and Philip Pullman’s competing mythologies set alongside each other for examination was fascinating. The chapter on W.H. Auden and his quiet, almost “polite” faith drew to light the great impact culture can have on one’s perception of religion and the work of God. The chapter on Golding makes me want to read more from him, despite not enjoying The Lord of the Flies. Emily Dickinson as “smouldering volcano” was an insightful look at a phenomenally successful poet. Each chapter had something that struck me, though the book also left me wishing I did know more about the authors and their works. I suspect Harries would be pleased to know his work led me to reach out and start reading some of these other works.

The biographical way Harries writes integrates worldview questions into the writings of each author. It never felt as though he subverted their own personal narratives, however. He didn’t pull punches in describing the way a skeptic like Pullman spoke about religion. Nor did he cover up aspects of authors’ lives that some might find unappealing. It’s an honest, almost unyielding book. It made me uncomfortable at times, but in ways that challenged me to learn and understand.

Haunted by Christ is a fascinating work. Harries offers insight and vision into Christianity in ways that I hadn’t really thought of before. It made me want to read many of the authors mentioned. And it made me want to know what someone who actually was more familiar with these authors might think. Recommended.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

Links

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Mad or God?” by Pablo Martinez and Andrew Sims

C.S. Lewis’s famous trilemma is central to Martinez and Sims’s investigation in Mad or God? That trilemma states:

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… or else he would be the devil of hell…” (cited on page xi)

The trilemma, then, is that Jesus is, as many have put it, mad, bad, or God (or Liar, Lord, or Lunatic). In Mad or God?, Martinez and Sims examine the claim in light of whether Jesus can be read as a madman. What’s interesting is that, unlike many works on the trilemma (or ones which reference it), this one is written by two who have expertise in the topic. According to the author blurbs, Pablo Martinez is a psychiatrist and Andrew Sims is a “world-renowned authority on the study of the symptoms of the mind (psychopathology).”

The book is centered around chapters which examine Jesus’s words in the Gospels and looking at whether, from a psychiatric standpoint, they qualify as various forms of psychopathy. These chapters examine, then, whether Jesus was mentally disturbed, psychotic, suffered from mental impairment, had a questionable character, lived a consistent life, sustained healthy relationships, was tested by adversity, had a positive influence, and made claims that might be sustained.

Each chapter is fairly short and gets straight to the heart of the claim. While acknowledging the difficulty with psychoanalysis of people who are long-dead, the authors work with the information on hand–the words and acts of Jesus in the Gospels. For example, in the chapter on psychosis, the authors outline the symptoms of psychopathy and look at the accusation of the same for Jesus. Of particular interest is the reaction of Jesus’s family, which the authors argue is understandable given the claims Jesus was making. Then, the authors go through individual symptoms of psychosis and argue that Jesus does not cohere with these symptoms. This is essentially the model for each chapter of the book, making it an easy reference for those interested in the trilemma argument. If someone says that Jesus was mentally impaired, flip to that chapter and see why we may trust he was not. If they wish for positive evidence of soundness of mind, a perusal of the chapters on relationships and consistency will serve.

An objection that might immediately come up to this work is that if the Gospels are not trustworthy historical accounts of Jesus’s words, then the whole argument falls apart. Sims and Martinez essentially leave this argument to others, and indeed there are many, many works which seek to answer this objection. Essentially, this book’s aim is to show that if we take the words and actions of Jesus as having been reported in a trustworthy manner, then it is clear that Jesus is not a lunatic.

Mad or God? is a unique and pithy look at one of the most popular arguments for the deity of Christ. With its short length, it does not comprehensively deal with every issue that may come up, but as a quick reference for those wishing to make this argument, it is excellent.

Links

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “Lewis on the Christian Life” by Joe Rigney

Lewis on the Christian Life is another installment in the “Theologians on the Christian Life” series from Crossway. This time, the subject is the extremely popular Christian thinker, C.S. Lewis.

It is clear from the start that Rigney has a monumental task. Lewis wrote a lot and clearly had development in his thought throughout his life. Some of this is briefly touched upon by Rigney, but other aspects of it are skipped over (especially Lewis’s development of thought on men and women). Rigney makes it clear early on that he intentionally draws from many of Lewis’s lesser known works in order to try to bring some balance on people’s thoughts regarding Lewis. Rigney divides his look at Lewis’s theology of Christian living up topically, including such things as Prayer, Christian Hedonics, Healthy Introspection, “The Choice,” “The Gospel,” and more (17 different topics worth!).

Of particular interest to me were the sections on prayer and choice. Lewis’s theology is worked through with the idea of choice for the Christian and the person–whether it is heaven or hell. As Rigney puts it, “This is the Choice: God or self. Happiness or misery. Heaven or hell” (Kindle Location 468). People’s choices lead to right (or wrong) living and play out into eternity. This idea of choosing doesn’t meld very well with some forms of theology, particularly a more Reformed or Calvinist one–which is typically what the publisher Crossway leans towards. Rigney touches on some parts of this notion showing how he thinks Lewis’s thought may be compatible with Reformed thought, while also offering some critique. Rigney draws heavily from The Screwtape Letters to discuss many aspects of Lewis’s theology of Christian living, including prayer. I find this work fascinating, and was edified by Rigney’s many looks at aspects of it.

One area I thought was odd was how much time Rigney spent on Lewis’s doctrine of atonement. Lewis was no systematic theologian, but RIgney seems quite concerned to make Lewis one when it comes to the doctrine of the atonement. Particularly, he is keen to show Lewis affirmed penal substitutionary atonement. I’ve been surprised by how frequently this view of the atonement is seen by its adherents as almost equivalent to the Gospel, and this is no exception. I’ve always seen the scene with Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as more of a ransom theory notion of atonement, but Rigney takes it penal substitutionary, with a slight nod to how it could be seen as ransom theory. For myself, I don’t see a huge gap between the two, and also honestly don’t understand much of the debate. It seems clear to me penal substitution is found in the Bible, but so are many, many other aspects of the various theories put forward. Is not a holistic view more preferable because it easily integrates everything? Why must we be mutually exclusive? More relevant for this book, why must Lewis become one who endorses penal substitution when it doesn’t actually seem that clear from his writings? Such questions remain unanswered.

Lewis’s idea of Christian living also allowed for pretty much anything not forbidden. This doesn’t go well with more Puritan-like aspects of thought, but it is, I think, generally correct. Rigney, oddly, takes this as a chance to try to explore what is allowed or forbidden in worship services (kindle loc 4612ff). I didn’t really get how this was relevant or why it mattered, but that might be my own theological background showing through (as a Lutheran, I believe much of this is adiaphora).

Lewis’s views of male and female are certainly a product of his time, and Rigney, apparently endorsing complementarian doctrine, seems to delight in some of the frankly silly things Lewis said in some of his works. Particularly silly was the idea of the oh-so-manly Mars in the Space Trilogy. Why is it manly? Because it has Mountains ‘n’ stuff! Yep, no distorted cultural expectations of masculinity and femininity reflected there, right? Wrong. Rigney seems particularly affirming of these aspects of Lewis’s theology, which frankly seem like the strangest aspects to affirm. Moreover, there is debate over whether Lewis actually maintained this kind of strong complementarian doctrine throughout his life. For example, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwan dedicated an entire book to the topic.

Perhaps my biggest complaint with the book, which I’ve already touched on, is how much space is dedicated to correcting Lewis’s theology, which most frequently means moving him more in line with the kind of Reformed Baptist theology that Crossway promotes. I’ve read numerous books in this series of theologians on the Christian life (see more here by scrolling down), and there are some (like the one on Luther) that seem to fulfill the series’ mission of expositing the various theologians’ views on the Christian Life. This one offers much more by way of analysis than some of the others, and I think I have gotten more out of those that focus almost entirely on showing what the titular thinker had to say than what the author wanted to correct.

Lewis on the Christian Life is an uneven but interesting look at the breadth of C.S. Lewis’s theology of Christian living. Rigney opens up whole fields of investigation into Lewis’s thought, but spends a bit too much time on analysis relative to other books on the series. I recommend it for those interested in investigating what Lewis has to teach us about living life in Christ.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of the book for review by the publisher. I was not required to give any specific kind of feedback whatsoever.

Links

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Really Recommended Posts 9/9/16- Zionism, Lewis on Medieval Literature, and more!

Hello friends! I have gathered some links from around the web to share with you! Be sure to let the authors know if you find them interesting, and let me know what you think in the comments.

Notes on “Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature” by C.S. Lewis– Some interesting insights gleaned from Lewis’ work on writings of the period noted. Lewis was a fascinating literary critic, and these insights are worth reading through.

The Popular Bonhoeffer Quote that Isn’t in Bonhoeffer’s Works– One of the most popular quotes I’ve seen circulating from Dietrich Bonhoeffer may not actually be from Bonhoeffer. Check out this thorough investigation into finding the source for the quote. Be sure to let me know if you know of some actual citation from Bonhoeffer for the quote.

The New Christian Zionism- Introduction- Review-  The beginning of a thorough look at a book I’ve also been in the process of reviewing, The New Christian Zionism.

Celebrating 50 Years of Star Trek– Check out the series of posts in which I collaborated with The Sci-Fi Christian to celebrate 50 years of Star Trek.