In Reply to: Christian site totally bashing CS Lewis posted by reposter on December 06, 2005 at 16:13:01:
Hey--I'm a "zealous Christian", perhaps not in the way you might mean, Reposter, and my favorite beer is Shiner Bock--someone told me the other day that a local bar (he's a biker) was trying to sell it as an "import"--it's "imported" all the way from Shiner, Texas!
You know, that false assumtion about what constitutes Texas beer reminds me that some people can easily do a quick Google search, and present a couple of sentences as supposed evidence of a thorough study of a man like C. S. Lewis--my favorite author.
That isn't your intention, here; is it, Reposter? Jusst a quick rebuttal without substance? If so; tsk, tsk.
If not, I apologize.
I read him, and about him, every chance I get.
But you have to take the nasty, anti-intellectual SUB-christian NUTS calling Lewis a pagan with a great deal of salt; say...a BOXCAR-FULL.
One has to have actually read Lewis to understand what he said and meant about myth, and not only its significantly great power over minds throughout history, but its significance today, especially in the post-modern age.
Lewis wrote in the MODERNIST age; by contrast, but his main point on this subject still holds; quite strongly, in fact.
I can recommend a very good URL on this topic, at:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/006/1.32.html.
If you cut and paste it and read the article you can easily see that the point i'm making about Lewis is true.
For instance, here is a very good quote from that Christianity Today article (not that I always agree with that particular magazine), and its author obviously has actually studied Lewis' position on the importance of myth, and what the out-of-place quote just posted actually meant TO LEWIS:
"If we are to win back the neopagans, we need to rediscover our awe at the majesty of God and his Creation, an awe that has little to do with the current warfare over worship styles and everything to do with that breathless sense of the numinous that we first encountered in the nursery when a timeless tale from mythology or folklore or legend ushered us into the world of faerie."
"But this renewal of wonder represents only one prong of a Lewis-inspired response to the New Age. It is not enough only to revive the part of us that yearns for myths; we must also channel it properly. One of Lewis's greatest services as an apologist was to demonstrate that in the person of Christ we encounter a figure whose life, death, and resurrection, far from standing in opposition to the mythic heroes of paganism, in fact present a literal, historical fulfillment of what all those earlier myths were really about. To put it another way, just as Christ came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, so he came not to put an end to myth but to take all that is most essential in the myth up into himself and make it real. In "Myth Became Fact," a seminal essay anthologized in God in the Dock, Lewis argues forcibly that
[t]he heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens—at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle."
"God is more than god, not less: Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic—and is not the sky itself a myth—shall we refuse to be mythopathic?"
"If we could understand fully all that is suggested in this passage and apply it to our interactions with neopaganism, we would find ourselves better able to address the needs of a growing segment of our society. As evangelicals, we are quick to say with Paul that we are not ashamed of the gospel; let that boldness include not only the doctrinal elements of the Good News, but also its elements that answer the questions posted by great myths."
"The urge to return to paganism is not so much an offshoot of modernist thought as it is a reaction against modernism's narrow focus on the material world. This puts Christians in the precarious position of criticizing the excesses of New Age thought while yet participating in its central goal of restoring a spiritual focus to a society that generally resists any serious consideration of the supernatural."
Readng the whole article is even more explanatory, and worth the read; IMHO.
SIncerely,
OT2 (oldtimerToo)
P.S. I love neopagans--where there is life there is hope--IN CHRIST!
I love Shiner Bock, too, but in a much different way.