Category Archives: C.S. Lewis

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Book Review: “God In The Dock” by C.S. Lewis

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An excellent anthology of Lewis’s essays.

I continue to work my way through the writings of C.S. Lewis, hoping to get through them all in my lifetime. I got a late start on it, so am having to read them a little faster than I would like. Thus, I’m not sure I have the comprehension I want of his works.

The most recent book of his I completed was God In The Dock. This is a collection essays Lewis wrote over his lifetime, many of which were published in magazines, a few being pulled from things never published. The book itself was published posthumously by Lewis’s editor, Walter Hooper. The book is divided into four parts: theological essays; semi-theological essays; and essays on ethics rather than purely Christian. The fourth part to the book is excerpts from a number of letters that Hooper felt made a good addition to the book, consistent with the other subject matter.

I read this book in three different time spans, one each for parts 1 and 2 and a third for parts 3 and 4. I think this was a good way to do it. It kept me from becoming bogged down reading the same kind of things all over again. And the short nature of essays made it easier to concentrate on what Lewis was saying in them, as compared to his longer works that caused me to zone out.

One essay that particularly stood out to me was “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”. Lewis wrote it in 1949 when the U.K. was debating whether incarceration should be retributive or healing. Lewis makes a good case that maintaining a prisoner in jail until he is “healed” can be a form of tyranny. Never declare the patient healed and you can hold him forever. The article, which was published in an Australian magazine, prompted response letters and a rejoinder by Lewis. Oh, he did live to argue and debate! I intend to study this sequence of article and letters more to get a better handle on the subject. It’s always good when you can

I think Hooper did a very good job in putting this anthology together. But it does get a little confusing. The version I had was in an even larger anthology titled The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis. But God in the Dock was also published as a stand-alone book. But as I look at the contents, it seems that several essays varied depending on the edition of the book.

Also, Lewis had one specific essay titled, “God in the Dock”, from which the book title is derived. That creates some difficulty. When someone says, “Lewis said this in God in the Dock, are they referring to the essay or the anthology? And which essay within the anthology? It makes citing the work somewhat difficult.

I give the book 5-stars. Although some of the essays weren’t stellar, that will be true in any anthology. I’m keeping the volume in my growing C.S. Lewis collection. Most likely I’ll never read it again cover to cover, but I’ll re-read different essay in it and perhaps write my own in response.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis

Book Review: “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis

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The first of Lewis’s Christian apologetics books, and I didn’t understand it.

One of my life goals is to read everything that C.S. Lewis wrote. I’m a long way from meeting that goal, but inching along, book by book, essay by essay, article by article. I’m sort of going in order that the books were written—though not exactly. I’m putting off reading his fiction, the space trilogy, in favor of non-fiction. I may not stick with that, but that’s what I’m doing right now.

So, after finishing and reviewing my last book, I decided it was time for a C.S. Lewis book. The next one in order was The Problem of Pain, his 1940 book, written by request, to help explain to the common man what Christianity was all about. The world was at war—at least Europe was , so Lewis took up the challenge. Thus this was his first book written on what we call Christiam apologetics, a fancy word for defense of Christianity.

Alas, I struggled with the book, much as I did the first two or three times I tried to read Lewis’s later book Mere Christianity. Lewis lost me early on when he mentioned the “Numinous”. Here is, I think, his first reference to it.

In all developed religion we find three strands or elements, and in Christianity one more. The first of these is what Professor Otto calls the experience of the Numinous.

Huh? What the heck is a Numinous?

Lewis took a long paragraph to explain what Numinous was, but this brought no clarity to me. Since this was in the Introduction, it seemed, as I read, that grasping what that meant perhaps was essential to understanding the whole book. Since I didn’t understand it, I suspect it caused me to partially shut my mind off. I read the rest of the book, but truthfully I didn’t comprehend what I was reading.

Alas, I never really recovered from the partial mind shutdown. I say that to my shame. I know this is Lewis’s way, to bring up terms and -isms in a shorthand way, expecting his less-well educated audience to somehow grasp the concept. I kept feeling that in Mere Christianity, and in a very deja vu kind of way with The Problem of Pain.

So, how do I rate this book, is it a keeper, and will I ever read it again? 3-star, yes, and yes. I think I really need to understand this to understand Lewis. I’m sure there’s good stuff in it, stuff that will help me in my Christian walk. But I won’t get back to this very soon. It’s on to the next book, whatever that is.

C.S. Lewis, Documenting America, family, The Forest Throne

Immersing in Reading

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Dateline: Thursday, 28 September 2023, 2:20 p.m.

It may not be selling, but at least my grandkids are reading it and seem to like it.

This will be somewhat of a short post. Lynda and I are currently on grandparent duty while our daughter and son-in-law are away at their annual ministers and spouses retreat. Four children, three cats, one dog, one bearded dragon, and five foster cats that will soon be going to the shelter (I hope I hope). Just for two days and two nights.

The last two days I went with my daughter on the school drop-off and pick-up run so that I could get a feel for routes and timing. Yesterday morning, I was quite stressed out about it, but after that, with some study of the map and two more times to run the route, I think I’ll be okay.

As I’m between writing projects, my free time is taken up with reading. I’m close to completing Darwin’s Century, having only 30 pages to go. I should finish it Sunday or Monday. I’m also reading a collection of C.S. Lewis’s essays on literature. These are not his real scholarly essays on medieval or renaissance literature, but rather shorter things he wrote for magazines: book reviews; criticism; stories on genres of literature; etc. They have been good, if not terribly inspiring. I imagine I’ll be another two weeks in that. I’m also going back and re-reading a book on “The Inklings,” Lewis’s and Tolkien’s literary group.

Last evening, grandson Ezra and I managed to read four chapters in Proverbs together as Ezra continues on his quest of reading the Bible through cover to cover. The previous two trips, we didn’t get in any reading time. But, then, he was gone parts of those trips and we only overlapped a day or two each time. I was also able to read with grandson Elijah in a Bible stories for children book. That was the one he picked out last evening. I’m hoping to read with granddaughter Elise a little. Yesterday, in their grandfather-imposed 30 minutes of reading time, she said she was reading in The Key To Time Travel. I didn’t see it so I’m taking her at her word. Maybe today I’ll get to observe her reading.

So far this has not found an audience on Kindle Vella. But I will stay the course and publish all 32 episodes there, the bring it out as a book at the appropriate time.

Possibly tomorrow I will begin putting a few words together on my next writing project. I’ve already created the file and the diary. That will be beating my goal by a couple of days. I don’t think that’s ever a bad thing. Meanwhile, episodes of Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution continue to post to Kindle Vella on schedule. Episodes 1-6 are live and available for reading. Episodes 7-11 are scheduled for publication. Episodes 12-18 are edited and waiting to be scheduled. And Episodes 19-32 are written and waiting to be edited. It’s not selling either, but that’s somewhat true for everything I write.

Discoverablility is everything, and so far I ain’t got it.

C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Screwtape: The Law of Undulation – Part 2

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Lewis, probably 15 years after he wrote “The Screwtape Letters”.

In a recent post, I talked about how the Law of Undulation was featured in a chapter of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. That all came from Letter #8. Then, in Letter #9, Screwtape tells Wormwood that, while God uses the valleys (troughs) people go through for their growth and maturing as Christians, it is also a good time to tempt “the patient.” He provides three specific pieces of advice.

In the first place…Trough periods of human undulation provide excellent opportunity for all sensual temptations, particularly of those sex.

While God will use the trough periods for our strengthening, they are also a time of danger, for temptations seem stronger when we are at our weakest. “The attack has a much better chance of success when the man’s whole inner world is drab and cold and empty,” wrote Screwtape.  Yet, if the Christian can just get through it, he/she will be the stronger for it.

That moves us on to the second suggestion from uncle to nephew.

But there is an even better way of exploiting the Trough; I mean the patient’s own thoughts about it.

Screwtape has previously advised his nephew that clarity of reasoning is not in the devil’s interest. Best to keep him in confusion, use lots of jargon. Convince him that his Christianity is just a phase, like other phases he has been through in his life.

Another possibility is that of direct attack on his faith.

The patient, still a new, adult convert to Christianity, probably thought his high following conversion would last forever. Now he’s in a trough. Wormwood should try to say to him, “Aha! It’s just a phase, this Christian thing. See, you’re right back where you were before that prayer you made a few weeks ago.” That’s not true, of course. The patient’s standing before God depends on the fact of his conversion, not the rise and fall of his feelings.

Lewis was an intellectual who came to faith by way of reason, not emotion. In this book, you actually see a lot of Lewis in the patient. The temptations that Screwtape suggests Wormwood use are likely such as Lewis himself faced. Since I last read this book about 15 years ago, I’ve learned much more about Lewis’s life and read many more of his writings, including the three volumes of his collected letters.

The Screwtape Letters has been called a work of Christian apologetics. But I don’t see it as that. To me, it’s a discipleship book. It is chock full of advice of how to live a more consistent Christian life, to be stronger in the face of the world’s temptations, and end your Christian walk stronger than you began it. I first read this in 1975 (or was it late 1974?) when I was a baby Christian. This book so helped me in my beginning Christian walk, it has been a book I’ve gone back to several times through the years, and I’m sure I will go back to it again.

As we go through this study, I may make other posts about it. I won’t let it hog the blog (ooh, I like that), but I’m sure I’ll have several more posts about this, one of the greatest books of the 20th century.

C.S. Lewis, miscellaneous, Writing

Writer’s Block

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This week, I’ve been unable to write anything. My work-in-progress, Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution, sits more or less where it was on Monday morning. I think I got a few words written on Monday (completing a chapter I left undone on Friday), but no more.

On Tuesday, I sat in The Dungeon as usual, pulled up the next chapter to write, and…nothing came to me. I couldn’t make sense of the source document, already edited to length. So I put that aside and came back to it on Wednesday. And on Thursday. Nothing. I still couldn’t see how to write the chapter.

Part of the problem is my hurting left shoulder. Did I write about that before? It was severely strained when I was walking Nuisance, our daughter’s family’s dog, in early June, and the dog had an encounter with a snake. They saw each other before I saw the snake. They lunged at each other, and in restraining the dog, boom. My shoulder was damaged. It’s not broken or dislocated, but it hurts like the dickens (as Dad used to say). Having my arm in the typing position seems to be where it hurts the most.

So I’ve been doing other things this week. I wrote a couple of long-hand letters. Organized some e-mails. Worked on my correspondence files from 2018 and 2019, deleting duplicates. Digitized some genealogy papers. That still hurts my shoulder, but I have enough breaks from holding my arms in place on the keyboard.

Oh, one other thing that’s been taking up some time and brain power is arranging for repairs to be done on the house. Dealing with contractors, getting estimates, scheduling work. I always find that draining. One item is now under contract and will be done next week. I should get the final estimate on the second one today. The third I’ll deal with next week.

So that’s where I’m at. Writer’s block for the first time in my writing “career.” I’ll try again today and see if the words will come. Maybe Monday I’ll be able to write that second C.S. Lewis/Screwtape post.

Bible study, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Screwtape: The Law of Undulation

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Screwtape tells Wormwood the law of Undulation can work in the tempter’s favor; alas, he says, it is also one of God’s most effective tools for Christian growth.

Our adult Sunday School class continues in to study C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Yesterday, my co-teacher taught Letters 8 and 9, which were closely related. Screwtape began Letter 8 to Wormwood by saying, “Has no one told you about the law of Undulation?”

Undulation is ups and down. Think of a sine wave diagram; or, if you never took trigonometry, think of waves at a beach. Or, if you’re an inlander and have never spent much time at a large water body, think of the ripples that occur when you plunk a stone into a pond. Peaks and troughs go out from the source. At the ocean beach, waves of irregular size and duration crash to the shore. A sine wave diagram is a nice, clean, consistent show of ups and down: always the same height, always the same width. Boring, if you’re looking for adventure. The ocean waves are much more exciting.

Screwtape says that this cycle of undulation can be used against the humans. Wormwood can attack his “patient” during the troughs. In Letter 9, he explains how to do this. But, the senior devil says, God can also use the troughs. In fact, God uses them more than the peaks to see the Christian grow.

Screwtape explains that God could use his sovereign power to carry the human through, over, or around the trough. He could make it easy on the human. He kind of does a little of that when the person is a new convert. But as the person begins to mature in his Christian walk, God backs off. In fact, when the next trough hits, the Christian can feel abandoned by God. How does this help? Screwtape explains it this way, using his twisted, reverse logic.

He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. …Our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obey.

That’s good stuff. Satan tempts us through the trough. But God gives us hidden strength to get through it, to continue in our devotion to him even though we can’t see him, can’t hear him, can’t find any evidence of his presence. In so doing, we are strengthened more than when we do the same thing during life’s peaks. Devotion is easy during those times and, while we are encouraged and enthusiastic, we do not necessarily grow in grace to the extent when we go through the trough and come out victorious.

I had more to say about this, but will end here. Possibly on Friday I’ll pick it up again.

 

books, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

The Reverse Reasoning of Screwtape

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Reading it for the fourth time, studying it in Sunday school for the second.

A few months back, I asked our adult Sunday School class for ideas on what they wanted to study. We were in the midst of a video series, and had a plan for ten lessons on Holy Week before and after Easter. So this was some medium-range planning. At that point, I asked the class to write down what they wanted to study in the coming year. Several people wrote “The Screwtape Letters”.

I wasn’t terribly happy at first. It wasn’t so long ago, maybe 15 years, that we studied this book by C.S. Lewis. It’s a great book, one of three books I would say that had the most influence on me in my Christian walk. But to study it again? But, if that’s what the class wanted, we would do it.

We finished the study we were in, had the Holy Week study, did one or two weeks of fill in stuff, and started the Screwtape study on June 18. I taught that week and got through the Introduction and Letter #1. The next week my co-teacher taught Letter #2.

That got us into a rhythm of one letter per week. Last Sunday, I taught Letter #7. What I’ve found, and I think my co-teacher has found, is that we can easily study at this pace without it being an overwhelming burden on us to prepare. But, with 31 letters in the series, plus that toast that Screwtape makes at the end, this study will take a long time.

Last weeks was quite interesting. World War 2 has broken out, and the new adult Christian that the junior devil, Wormwood, is tempting, is confused. Screwtape advises the young devil, who is his nephew, to work on that confusion. Keep confused if you can, or tempt him into becoming either an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. Screwtape wrote,

“All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.”

The Enemy is Screwtape’s word for God. He sees God as the enemy, wanting to see all men live in extreme devotion to Him.

That rang true to me, but only once it was combined with Screwtape’s next advice. The extremes give rise to the “Cause”, something that is extremely important to the man being tempted (called the Patient) that he begins to mix it in with his religion. It become Christianity and the Cause. Religion becomes the reason for the Cause. Then, the Cause and religion are on equal footing. Then the Cause becomes primary, and religion is what justifies the Cause.

This gives rise to factions and cliques. The Cause becomes so important that a small group forms around the cause. Believers in the Cause are freely admitted; non-believers are excluded and looked down upon. Even if the Cause is a godly thing, with just a little tempting on Wormwood’s part, the sequence that turns the godly cause into an evil Cause is not that big of a stretch.

This is something we need to watch out for in the church. Each denomination has its Cause, i.e. its own doctrine, its own reason to be. Once we begin to think we are the only ones who get it (Christianity) right and look down on all others, the Cause has supplanted God as our reason to be. That can happen with denominations, with individual congregations, or with any small group within a congregation. It is something for us to watch out for.

I think I’m going to like this Screwtape study. I have some study materials from last time, and I’ve found much more available on-line. This is at least my fourth time to read the book, and I have found much help in it for myself even on this re-read.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Book Review – Christian Reflections

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‘Twas in this book that I found the essay “Christianity and Culture”. I will need to read it another time or two to fully understand it. Meanwhile, I have completed the second of three books in this volume.

The book Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis is actually three books in one volume. The first is The Pilgrim’s Regress, the first book he wrote after his conversion to Christianity, which I read earlier this year and reviewed.

The second is Christian Reflections. This is a compilation of Lewis’s papers, talks, and essays published in 1967, four years after his death. They were collected, edited, and published by Walter Hooper, who was Lewis’s secretary near the end of his life and became his literary executor after his death. He took on the job of organizing the mass of Lewis’s writings into collections.

This book has items composed from 1939 to 1962. The fourteen items are arranged more or less chronologically. The first is “Christianity and Literature”, a paper Lewis read to an Oxford society in the 1930s, and which was included in his first collection of essays, Rehabilitations, published in 1939. I read this in one sitting back in 2019, and found it to be a great help. I found several things to inspire my writing.

The next was “Christianity and Culture”. Published in a magazine in 1940, this essay generated a debate with several critics—a debate that played out in the pages of the magazine. This book includes Lewis’s three contributions to the discussion, the original essay and two responses to his critics. I’ve been looking for the other site of the discussion. I found one item. When I find the other, I’ll come back to this for a fuller reading. I reviewed this essay previously on the blog. I read this in both August 2019 and September 2021, though I’m not sure I finished it the first time.

After this, the essays are a mixed bag. I’m not going to give all the titles here. I read them slowly, in many sittings, in 2021 and 2022. Many of them I found hard to digest. Several I don’t remember at all. I read them, at least according to the notation in the book I did, but I couldn’t tell you what they are about. Were they too difficult for me, or did I read distractedly, without the wherewithal to comprehend what Lewis was saying? The only way to know is to read them again.

And that I shall do, though I know not when. The third book in this volume is God in the Dock, another of Hooper’s posthumous collections of Lewis essays. I’ve read a couple in this, but have yet to tackle this formidable looking document. I’m going to read something lighter before I do.

What about Christian Reflections? Is it worth reading? Is it a keeper? Yes, it is worth reading, but probably only for the dedicated Lewis reader. It is available as a separate volume, if you want to pick up a copy. As to it being a keeper, yes, for sure. Not only because I have more to read in this 3-in-one book, not only because I don’t want to break up my C.S. Lewis collection just yet (if ever), but also because I need to re-read some of these, sometime years hence. Perhaps I’ll still be posting at this blog, and will have something more to say about it.

 

C.S. Lewis, critique group, family, Health, letters, miscellaneous, reading, research, Stars and Stripes, The Forest Throne, Writing

A Busy Week Ahead

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I hope to do some writing on the sequel to this this week.

It’s Sunday evening as I write this, multi-tasking as we watch the specials about 9/11. I’m looking ahead to tomorrow, and realize I don’t have time to write the type of post I’d hoped to have for Monday. Even Friday is a little iffy for a post that takes a lot of time.

This is a killer week. Not so Monday and Friday, but the other days have a lot of activities and appointments.

First, I have two “gigs” this week. On Tuesday, I will repeat my presentation on the Universal Postal Union to the NW Arkansas Letter Writers Society. I made this presentation in May, but almost everyone who normally attends was gone that day. So I’ll do it again. Fortunately, all I have to do is dust off my PowerPoint and run through it once or twice.

Then, Wednesday morning, I am to be at John Tyson Elementary School in Springdale (40 mile drive), where I will make a presentation of There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel to Henry and Izzy, the two students I had Zoom meetings with about a writing project they were doing, then had them be beta readers for my book. They don’t know I’ll be there and giving them the finished book. This will be at 9:00 a.m.

I have several hundred more of these WW2 newspapers to inventory.

Then, at 12:00 noon, I have an appointment with my cardiologist’s P.A. Hopefully I’ll learn how well the cardio rehab program went. Between those two appointments, I’m hoping to meet someone for coffee. We’ll see if that happens.

Then, Wednesday afternoon, Lynda and I have dental appointments. I’ll barely have time to get home after seeing the cardiologist to leave for the dentist. But, unless we head to church that night, that will end appointments on Wednesday.

At noon on Thursday, Lynda will have her MRI to find out what, exactly, caused her sciatica attach in July. That has been twice delayed, not because of us, but because of insurance and provider problems. Then, that evening, is a semi-monthly meeting of the Scribblers & Scribes critique group. I’ll have some preparation time required for that.

In addition to this, I have my normal activities, which at the moment include:

  • morning 2-mile walks
  • digitizing a minimum of 10 printed letters a day
  • inventorying a minimum of 30 issues of the Stars and Stripes
  • whatever writing I can squeeze in, most likely on The Key To Time Travel, though I have other projects to work on as well, if I want to do so.
  • A little bit of yard work, although the work I got done on Saturday puts me a little ahead of where I normally am.
  • reading for research as well as for pleasure, including a couple of C.S. Lewis writings.

At some point, I need to begin the strength exercise program recommended in the cardio rehab program. I hope to begin that on Monday.

So yes, it will be a busy week. Hopefully I’ll be able to see progress on all my tasks.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Book Review: “C.S. Lewis: His Life & Thought”

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If you don’t know much about C.S. Lewis but would like to, this book is a good place to start.

When we traveled to Meade Kansas for an event at my wife’s home church, we discovered the library there had a sidewalk sale of surplus books going on. Naturally we had to go to it and look for bargains. I bought two books. One of them was C.S. Lewis: His Life & Thought by Terry Glaspey. I read this in about eight sittings in June.

It’s hard to get a bad book by or about C.S. Lewis. The eminent scholar and Christian apologist has had a major influence in the world and in my life. I try to always be reading a book of his or about him. This is the third or fourth I’ve read this year, and I’m reading in the second volume of his collected letters currently.

This book is in two sections. The first is a summary of his life, in short chapters covering brief periods or episodes. This is less than a biography, more of a series of vignettes.

The second half covers Lewis’s beliefs, again in short chapters, about various Christian doctrines and practices. These include quotes from Lewis’s writings as well as commentary by Glaspey. This section is well done, well worth reading.

The book includes a third section: C.S. Lewis: His Legacy. This is only ten pages long. Like the first two sections, it is also well done.

The entire book reads as a summary of Lewis’s life and beliefs, and a good part of his works. If you are looking for an introduction to C.S. Lewis, this would be a good book to start with.