Listening to the Giants

One of the most strange (and possibly disturbing) facets of Lewis’ life was his consistent commitment to a woman who is called, “Mrs. Moore”. A recent Lewis’ biographer sets the background, "Jack," as Lewis was known to his family, enlisted during the First World War while still a teenager. While undergoing training, he befriended a young man named Paddy Moore, who had a divorced mother (Mrs. Moore) and younger sister, Maureen, back at home. The young men promised each other that if one of them were to be killed in combat, the other would look after his friend's parent.” As providence would have it, Jack survived and made good on his promise…. a promise that would last for more than 30 years. To those who are unfamiliar with this feature of Lewis’ life, this commitment likely seems very noble and even ethical. Yet it was the degree of commitment and concurrent mystery surrounding this relationship that concerned many of Jack’s friends. Since Jac...

One of the most engaging seminars on C.S. Lewis was done by Dr. Knox Chamblin (who died earlier this year) at Reformed Theological Seminary. This series explored primarily Lewis’ life, his works and his theology. In one of the earlier seminars, Dr. Chamblin shared this historic interaction between the well-known fundamentalist Dr. Bob Jones Jr. and C.S. Lewis. Asked afterwards for an assessment regarding the Oxford Don, Dr. Jones stated, “That man smokes a pipe….and that man drinks liquor….but I do believe he is a Christian!” This quote leads us into the central thesis of this blog post, “What is the Christian’s position regarding alcohol and tobacco?” I admit grappling with this issue is nothing new in the blogosphere or in pockets of evangelicalism.  Furthermore, I will gladly confess that this blog post will not bring anything original to this provocative topic. Being a Christian is not about abstaining from alcohol or tobacco. I used to judge the indiv...

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.           C.S. Lewis Lately I have been obsessed with the writings of C.S. Lewis. I feel like I have been woken up from a 20-year nap with a Rip Van Winkle beard and new eyes, eyes that see through the lens of imagination. Recent personal examples: Reading Lewis’ The Great Divorce , I can actually imagine the Deep Heaven and the grey town (Hell). Reading The Magician’s Nephew , I imagine the horrific evil eyes and curved mouth of Queen Jadis and sit in fearful awe of the majesty Sovereignty of Aslan (Jesus Christ). Reading Perelandra (the second of Lewis’ Space Trilogy), I felt my imagination overtake me…in a way I haven’t experience since I read A Wrinkle in Time at the innocent age of 8. To paint the landscape, here is the scene in Perelandra that literally shook my inner soul: “There he (Ransom) stopped dead and stared at Weston (a man likely posse...

In his autobiography Lewis recalls his personal grief, “I must now turn to a great loss that befell our family when my mother became ill. There were voices and comings and goings all over the house. Our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing, as the house became full of strange smells and midnight noises. ... I remembered what I'd been taught — that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I set myself to produce by will power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful. It didn’t work. He later adds, “With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. And there has never been really any sense of security and snuggness since. I've not quite succeeded in growing up on that point. There is still too much of mommy's lost, little boy about me. My father's good qualities as well as his weaknesses incapacitated him for the task of bringing up two noisy and...

C. S. Lewis, or Jack Lewis, as he preferred to be called, was born in Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland) on November 29, 1898. He was the second son of Albert Lewis, a lawyer, and Flora Hamilton Lewis. His older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis, who was known as Warnie, had been born three years earlier in 1895. Early Days Lewis's early childhood was relatively happy and carefree. In those days Northern Ireland was not yet plagued by bitter civil strife, and the Lewises were comfortably off. The family home, called Little Lea, was a large, gabled house with dark, narrow passages and an overgrown garden, which Warnie and Jack played in and explored together. There was also a library that was crammed with books—two of Jack's favorites were Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A Painful Loss This somewhat idyllic boyhood came to an end for Lewis when his mother became ill and died of cancer in 1908....

I must admit this paragraph caught me off guard in Wycliffe’s latest biography. She writes, “No work in English which can be attributed with certainty to Wycliffe survives, nor is there evidence that he actively got the work of translating the Bible into English under way or was even directly involved in it.” Really? This man, who is known as the “morning star of the Reformation” and is bestowed the immortal honor of translating the Bible into the English language. So my question is, “Then why is Wycliffe highly regarded in the annals of church history?” For what I can gather there is one reason. The zealous words of John Foxe.  He wrote, “When Wickliffe recovered, he set about a most important work, the translation of the Bible into English. Before this work appeared, he published a tract, wherein he showed the necessity of it. The zeal of the bishops to suppress the Scriptures greatly promoted its sale, and they who were not able to purchase copies, procured t...

This blog post is for everyone, because everyone gets angry, even the great John Wycliffe.  His biographer states,  “Wycliffe found no rest at Lutterworth (where he stayed during the last two years of his life) and perhaps he did not really seek it. There was in every sense too much unfinished business, both positive and negative. He was full of anger and resentment. His language breaks into violence in sermon after sermon. It is hard to escape the impression that he had more enemies than close friends.” Anger and resentment. Yeah....I hear you.  Here are 4 things I try to remind myself about anger: #1--Anger is a serious sin. Don’t minimize it. Don’t rename It. (This is when we say things like, “I am frustrated” or “I am just working through some stuff” or “I am just processing”, etc.). Let us not forget that Jesus makes it clear that God takes anger very seriously. Matthew 5:21-22 "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT C...