Book Review: The World’s Last Night and Other Essays

This is classic Lewis. Seven essays all thought provoking and dealing with a lot of issues that are as important as they have ever been: The efficacy of prayer, belief, culture, religion, etc. There was also another appearance of Screwtape. Probably my favorite piece was the piece on Good Work versus Good Works and how our good works must also be good work. Lewis is brilliant. Remember there is Lewis the author of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and there is Lewis the theologian/professor. They are both the same person, but the words are very different. This is, for the most part, the theologian/professor. It is not an easy read, but the brilliance is worth the effort.

Uncle Screwtape on Patriotism, Pacifism and Partisanship

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis shares letter written from a demon named Screwtape to his nephew and underling Wormwood, telling him how to corrupt the soul he is tasked with corrupting known as the patient. Given the state of politics in our world, I found this portion “enlightening.” The topic is whether Wormwood should try to make his “patient” a patriot or a pacifist. “Screwtape” writes:

“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the patriotism or pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ’cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the British war effort or of pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more religious (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cage full down here.

Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape”

Lewis as usual nails it. Keep in mind the character Screwtape is a demon wanting to help his underling Wormwood to destroy his patient. It’s fictional, but I have seen the tactic work splendidly by Satan’s standard. This is story telling at it’s finest, and it is used to call attention to a technique virtually as old history itself. Christians need to follow Christ over and above everything else.

The Ultimate Choice: C.S. Lewis and the Great Divorce

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a collection of eight books by C.S. Lewis. So far I have read four. They are amazing. These are not the Narnia books, but rather his philosophical books. I have to admit that while I am enjoying them, they are definitely at the top end of my reading level, and I’m not getting it all. No worries I can always reread them at a later date and even at this point I am learning a lot.

The book I’m reading now is different. This book is the Lewis I really love. The allegorical kind, where Lewis teaches great truths in the guise of stories. The book is called The Great Divorce, and no, it has nothing to do with marriage. It’s about heaven and hell and Salvation. In this allegorical story, Lewis imagines a bus trip from hell to heaven where the passengers are allowed to stay if they want. I know this is nowhere near correct theological but again remember, it’s an allegory. The stories relate to people now alive and their attitudes toward life, faith and the afterlife. One particular account features the protagonist (who seems to represent the author himself) is speaking to his “guide.” He at first is wondering why “the solid people” (the residents of heaven) don’t go down to hell to rescue those who are there. His question then goes to what about the people who never board the bus for heaven, who he calls “poor souls.” His guide, who he calls George MacDonald (a man who was a strong influence on Lewis in real life). This is his response.

Everyone who wishes it does. Never fear. There are only two kinds of people in the end; Those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says “Thy will be done.” All that are in hell choose it. Without that self choice, there would be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock, it is opened.

Again this is allegorical language, not necessarily theological and yet there is a lot of truth here. The point is very simple. Salvation is offered to everyone who will believe, and everyone who believes will receive. So many people want to overthink it, or look for the loophole, or try to outsmart the Lord. So many are caught up in their own plans and contrivances and beliefs that are not scriptural. The simple truth of the matter is Jesus is the way the truth and the life. He is the only way. He sets the terms and if we enter, we enter through Him alone.

Lewis is a powerful storyteller, who brings the point home masterfully. Those of us with creative gifts were given those gifts to share the Gospel truth. How would you tell His story?

Miracles and “Chosen People”

So right now I am reading the brilliant book Miracles by C.S. Lewis, I came upon two passages that I think really bear repeating. I thought I’d share them here today as a little bonus.

The mention of that nation [Israel] turns our attention to one of those features of the Christian story which is repulsive to the modern mind. To be quite frank, we do not at all like the idea of a “chosen people.” Democrats by birth and education, we should prefer to think that all nations and individuals start level in the search for God, or even that all religions are equally true. It must be admitted at once that Christianity makes no concessions to that point of view. It does not tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God, for, to, and about Man. And the way in which it is done is selective, undemocratic, to the highest degree. After the knowledge of God is universally lost or obscured, one man from the whole earth (Abraham) is picked out. He is separated (miserably enough, we may suppose) from his natural surroundings, sent into a strange country, and made the ancestor of a nation who are to carry the knowledge of the true God. Within this nation there is further selection: some die in the desert, some remain behind in Babylon. There is further selection still. The process grows narrower and narrower, sharpens a last into one small bright point like the head of a spear. It is a Jewish girl a her prayers. All humanity (so far as concerns is redemption) has narrowed to that.

A little bit later in that same chapter, Lewis refines his point.

For when we look into the selectiveness which the Christians attribute to God, we find in it none of that “favoritism” which we are afraid of. The “chosen people” are chosen not for their own sake (certainly no for their own honour of pleasure) but for the sake of the unchosen. Abraham is told that “in his seed” (the chosen nation) “all nations shall ve blest.” That nation as been chosen to bear a heavy burden. Their sufferings are great: but as Isaiah recognized, their sufferings heal others. On the finally selected Woman, falls he utmost depth of maternal anguish. Her Son, the incarnate God, is a “Man of Sorrows;” the one man into whom Deity descended, the one Man who can be lawfully adored, is pre-eminent for suffering.

Leave it to Lewis to break down the point of what He calls (and this writer agrees is) God’s greatest miracle; the incarnation. God always knows what He’s doing and He is always working for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Trust Him!

Book Review: The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis

Well it’s two days after Christmas and I am pleased to report that my family blessed me with a total of ten books, eight of which are a boxed set of classic theological books by C.S. Lewis. I was thrilled to dig in.

I have to be honest. When one reads some of C.S. Lewis’ works of fiction, amazing though they are, their clear language and understandability make it easy to forget that he was a professor at one of the top. There is no such difficulty with this book. This is heady stuff, that will no doubt require several more reads over the course of this life. Breaking it down to it’s simplest elements this book is, as the cover blurb states, a defense of universal values. Lewis calls these values the Tao, and he goes to great lengths to show how these values occur almost universally to all cultures, religions, etc. To violate these values is to lose our humanity. I found this book fascinating and I will not doubt read it again.

Lewis on the Human Condition

Want to understand the human condition? “What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than man which will make him happy. The reason it can never succeed is this. God made us, invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way, without bothering about ‘religion.’ God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Encouragement from C.S. Lewis

Ten… Make That Twelve… Books You Need to Read

I don’t usually post across platform (i.e. the same post to all my different blogs) but today I am going to make an exception. Yesterday, a friend of mine was talking me about trying to get more into reading and asked me for some recommendations. Then today as I was working my way through today’s assignment in Become An Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century I was asked to write about ten books that I love and why they impacted me. As I began to think of all these great books, it was hard to pick the top ten (I ended up with 12). but these are some of the best books I have read in the past few years and al of them would be beneficial to any creative. If you’d like to read any of these books, please click the image beside them and order them from Amazon. If you do, a very small portion of the purchase price will go to support this website.

1. 
   The Bible because it is the Word of God and contains so much information necessary to life on this planet and in the world to come. Nearly every time I read it, I see something new.
2. 
   Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park because it showed me the power of research in telling a story. The science in the book makes the premise so plausible that one begins to wonder is this being done.
3. 
   Andy Andrews The Traveler’s Gift. I read this book at a time when I was feeling very depressed and self-absorbed and it reminded me that there was more to life than what I was seeing and that there are principles that can help everyone all the time. This book also introduced me to Andy Andrews and secured in me the desire to become a professional speaker.
4. 
   Andy Andrews How Do You Kill 11,000,000 People? This small book is an exploration of the holocaust and the thinking behind it showed me that evil prospers when good people do nothing and the evil power of lies.
5. 
   The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read this book because I had to for a school assignment, and several times since because I wanted to. Tolkien tells the story of a comfortable little man living a comfortable little life who discovers a big world full of problems and decides to do something about it. It’s a classic coming of age good versus evil story where good prevails. Of course one cannot speak of The Hobbit without the follow up epic, THE LORD OF THE RINGS
   . There are so many great things in these stories, but I guess the biggest thing I took away was it doesn’t necessarily take the most powerful to make a difference. Sometimes all it takes is for ordinary people to step up.
6. 
   The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It almost seems wrong to mention Tolkien without Lewis. These two contemporaries and friends wrote some amazing stories. In the Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis gives one of the truly great examples of allegorical story telling. From this book, I learned that you can tell a great story that makes a fantastic point without beating people over the head.
7. 
   Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This book was one of the quickest books I have ever read which is strange for a memoir. I didn’t agree with everything in this book, but it really challenged me to look at how I communicate and live out my faith. The other reason I loved this book is because it got me to read…
8. 
   A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. So here’s what happened. Miller writes Blue Like Jazz and it sells like a zillion copies so of course some film makers decided to make a movie out of it. In their meetings with Miller, he discovers they are taking a lot of liberties with the story. What Miller discovers is a great book does not always translate to a great movie. The problem though is BLJ is in many ways Miller’s life story. He begins to question how you live a better story and sets out to live one. This book made me check the story I am living and set out to live a better one too.
9. 
   Tribes by Seth Godin. This short little book has a basic premise. There are all kinds of people out there with all kinds of interests, and what they need is for someone to bring them together into community and lead them. This book was a huge influence on what I do. I started blogging immediately after reading this book and helped to bring so much of what I was trying to do in this world into focus.
10. 
    Linchpin by Seth Godin. This book talks about living artistically whether one is an artist or not. Living a remarkable life and being remarkable, living one’s life as a gift to the world and becoming indispensable. This book also made me look seriously at my life and the way I am investing my talents, abilities and pretty much my life in general.
11. 
    Re-Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson This is a business book, with a lot of really great ideas for creative folks. In addition to all the great content, I loved the way this book was formatted. It inspired the way I designed my own creative ministry book Running A.M.O.K.: Random Musings for the Creative Hands of the Body of Christ
12. 
    The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. This book was a huge influence on me. I got it after reading about it in Linchpin. This book deals with the resistance that keeps people from creating and how to overcome it. This book is a must read for every creative. It will help you smash through creative block and also to fight the resistance.

If any of these books looks appealing to you, click the image to order them from Amazon

A Light In the Dark Book Review

So a couple weeks ago I got an email from an author (William M. Beck, Jr.) who was interested in my creative arts ministry. As it turns out, he is not too far from me and so we may actually get to meet soon. He is pastoring a local church. We ended up hatting on the phone and that is when he told me about his book A Light in the Dark. It seemed like it might be something I would enjoy so I picked it up. I was not disappointed.

This is a fantasy novel in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. It’s also a real page turner. Anthropomorphic animal characters need to learn to work together to fend off a huge threat and in the process learn the values of friends, family and community. This book is well written and thoroughly enjoyable with plenty of action. A nice added feature is found in the last few pages of the book where Beck plus back the curtain and tells the reader some of the stories and motivations behind the story.

I highly recommend checking this one out. You can get to the page by clicking the image of the book cover above.

The King of Perelandra

Over the holidays, I got a new video camera and so I had to do an experiment. The good news is, I am able to make art videos again! I have some learning to do on the new software, but this piece came out alright as an experiment.

I wanted to do a simple painting that I could finish quickly for the purpose of the experiment, and having just read Perelandra (Cosmic Trilogy)
by C.S. Lewis, I decided to do a sketch painting of one of the characters, the king of Perelandra. The book is what Lewis did best, an allegorical tale of life on Venus and what would have happened at the dawn of our world had sin never entered the picture. It’s a book well worth reading, the second book in Lewis’ Space Trilogy.

By the way, if anyone likes the painting and would like to purchase it, let me know. We have taken on an additional Compassion child (our church formerly sponsored him) and so proceeds from the sale of this painting will help toward his support. (More on this coming soon.) I’d like to get at least $40 plus shipping.