[TruthTalk] the Sneaky Pagan
If you want to look like Lewis Tolkien read them - If you want to look like Jesus - Selah!! Let them "humanize" you or trust Jesus to send the Promise and make you part of a "New Creation" in Him. C.S. Lewis, the Sneaky PaganThe author of A Field Guide to Narnia says Lewis wove pre-Christian ideas into a story for a post-Christian culture.Interview by Rob Moll June 1, 2004 Colin Duriez is a frequent writer and speaker on topic related to C.S. Lewis and his Inkling friends. Duriez is most recently the author of A Field Guide to Narnia. His other books include Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia, and The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook. Duriez lives in Leicester, England and was recently in the U.S. Why do you think the Chronicles of Narnia are Lewis's greatest achievement and will last the longest? In the Chronicles, you get the presence of Lewis. You get the cast of his mind in a way that's unequalled in any of his other books. Lewis once said that the imaginative man in him was more basic than any other aspect. In the Chronicles, every part of him was brought into play: the depth of his intellect, the depth of his knowledge, the richness of his imagination. They all work organically together and achieved this remarkable series of not one, but seven connected books. It's folly to predict the future, but being a fool, I'll say that maybe in 150 years it will be the Chronicles of Narnia that are the most remembered of Lewis's work. In order to write to a post-Christian culture, Lewis used pre-Christian, pagan ideas. C.S. Lewis's ideas about returning to a paganism before coming to Christian faith still apply today. He recognized that we live in a post-Christian world, and for him that was the most basic category when trying to understand present society. We talk about modernism and now postmodernism, but if Lewis was around I think he'd still be saying that the fact that we're post-Christian is more fundamental. Contemporary people have no background at all in Christian faith. They need to be brought to paganism to prepare the way to become Christians, which is rather a provocative idea. But it was also part of the way he tried to rehabilitate the old Christian West. The "Old West" is what he called it. He and J.R.R. Tolkien tried to rehabilitate the values and virtues of this vast period, which goes back to the Classical times. I'm not an expert on that period, but it seems to be a blend of pagan insights that are completed by a Christian understanding. Lots of pagan things are Christianized like Christmas. That seemed to be a strategy in the medieval period and before. Lewis and Tolkien carried on this mentality of fulfilling the insights people have as ordinary human beings into the nature of reality. Lewis and Tolkien had a kind of natural theology where they felt you could have insights into the nature of God's reality independent of scripture. He uses that to sneak Christian theology into the pagan setting of the Chronicles. He self consciously sneaks in those Christian insights. One of his books, Till We Have Faces, retells the classical story of Cupid and Psyche. It was a myth which to him had great meaning and power. He retold it in the form of a modern novel. It's set in pre-Christian times, and he explores the insight that it is possible to have within the pagan imagination that prefigure Christian truth. Lewis's conversion was very much shaped by the arguments of Tolkien that the gospel narratives fulfill the very best of human storytelling and myth. They bring into clarity and sharp focus insights that are found throughout the world, not just in the West but also in the depths of human experience of reality. [Till We Have Faces] actually has a lot of affinities to Tolkien because The Lord of the Rings has a pre-Christian setting, a Northern European setting. There's a wonderful shift in consciousness in [Orual's] part. I'm beginning to get more and more interested in the way C.S. Lewis tries to change consciousness in the reader, and I think he was deliberately trying to do this. By presenting an alternative world imaginatively, you actually can experience a different kind of consciousness, which gives you a perspective on your own world. That perspective can bring the reader to being undeceived, as you call it. That's very evident in Orual in Till We Have Faces. She goes through this undeception. And there's lots of instances in the Narnia stories of this experience. It's something that's very important to Lewis because he'd gone through it himself because for many years he was an atheist. He was halfway through his life before he became a theist and then a Christian. So there was a huge undeception on his part. How did Lewis understand the power of a story to undeceive? Lewis was hugely influenced by Tolkien. Tolkien saw story as fundamental as language itself. He
RE: [TruthTalk] the Sneaky Pagan
If you read any of CSLs autobiographical writing you will realize that he was raised in private boys schools with a classical education. He used his typical education in mythology and applied it to Christian parables. I think that was a brilliant way to reach people in his culture. I think he brought hundreds or thousands to Christ, and for that we dont need to criticize him. He did the best he had with what he had when he came to Christ, and Ill be glad if I can do the same. iz From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Judy Taylor Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 8:47 AM To: truthtalk@mail.innglory.org Subject: [TruthTalk] the Sneaky Pagan If you want to look like Lewis Tolkien read them - If you want to look like Jesus - Selah!! Let them humanize you or trust Jesus to send the Promise and make you part of a New Creation in Him. C.S. Lewis, the Sneaky Pagan The author of A Field Guide to Narnia says Lewis wove pre-Christian ideas into a story for a post-Christian culture. Interview by Rob Moll June 1, 2004 Colin Duriez is a frequent writer and speaker on topic related to C.S. Lewis and his Inkling friends. Duriez is most recently the author of A Field Guide to Narnia. His other books include Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia, and The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook. Duriez lives in Leicester, England and was recently in the U.S. Why do you think the Chronicles of Narnia are Lewis's greatest achievement and will last the longest? In the Chronicles, you get the presence of Lewis. You get the cast of his mind in a way that's unequalled in any of his other books. Lewis once said that the imaginative man in him was more basic than any other aspect. In the Chronicles, every part of him was brought into play: the depth of his intellect, the depth of his knowledge, the richness of his imagination. They all work organically together and achieved this remarkable series of not one, but seven connected books. It's folly to predict the future, but being a fool, I'll say that maybe in 150 years it will be the Chronicles of Narnia that are the most remembered of Lewis's work. In order to write to a post-Christian culture, Lewis used pre-Christian, pagan ideas. C.S. Lewis's ideas about returning to a paganism before coming to Christian faith still apply today. He recognized that we live in a post-Christian world, and for him that was the most basic category when trying to understand present society. We talk about modernism and now postmodernism, but if Lewis was around I think he'd still be saying that the fact that we're post-Christian is more fundamental. Contemporary people have no background at all in Christian faith. They need to be brought to paganism to prepare the way to become Christians, which is rather a provocative idea. But it was also part of the way he tried to rehabilitate the old Christian West. The Old West is what he called it. He and J.R.R. Tolkien tried to rehabilitate the values and virtues of this vast period, which goes back to the Classical times. I'm not an expert on that period, but it seems to be a blend of pagan insights that are completed by a Christian understanding. Lots of pagan things are Christianized like Christmas. That seemed to be a strategy in the medieval period and before. Lewis and Tolkien carried on this mentality of fulfilling the insights people have as ordinary human beings into the nature of reality. Lewis and Tolkien had a kind of natural theology where they felt you could have insights into the nature of God's reality independent of scripture. He uses that to sneak Christian theology into the pagan setting of the Chronicles. He self consciously sneaks in those Christian insights. One of his books, Till We Have Faces, retells the classical story of Cupid and Psyche. It was a myth which to him had great meaning and power. He retold it in the form of a modern novel. It's set in pre-Christian times, and he explores the insight that it is possible to have within the pagan imagination that prefigure Christian truth. Lewis's conversion was very much shaped by the arguments of Tolkien that the gospel narratives fulfill the very best of human storytelling and myth. They bring into clarity and sharp focus insights that are found throughout the world, not just in the West but also in the depths of human experience of reality. [Till We Have Faces] actually has a lot of affinities to Tolkien because The Lord of the Rings has a pre-Christian setting, a Northern European setting. There's a wonderful shift in consciousness in [Orual's] part. I'm beginning to get more and more interested in the way C.S. Lewis tries to change consciousness in the reader, and I think he was deliberately trying to do this. By presenting an alternative world imaginatively, you actually can experience a different kind of consciousness, which gives you a perspective on your own world
