C.S. Lewis and the Evangelical Aesthetic (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, my name is Mike Abendroth. Somebody left here in my study, in the studio, in the office, in the compound, like a five -pound bag of M &Ms.

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Real time today, Prince just died. As the Bible says, it's appointed for man once to die and then the judgment.

It's too early to know what happened, I know he was sick on a plane, and I think he was dabbling with Jehovah's Witness stuff, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, reminds me of Ecclesiastes, and life is a vapor, and then what?

And so why are you living? To whom do you live? Who do you worship?

Wow, sobering, 57 years old. All right, what else is happening?

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I'm reading emails, I don't think I should probably be doing that. Today, part two, C .S. Lewis and the

Evangelical Aesthetic. Can you judge a book by its cover? Here's what's happening.

C .S. Lewis writes really well. He wrote really well. He wrote real good.

Ain't he a good writer? Where was you at? Where was you? That's a little

Brian Reagan for you there. My problem is not, does he write well?

My problem is Christians no longer think, they don't think very well, they don't think through issues, and here is a typical evangelical mindset.

He writes some things well, everything he writes must be biblical. Because he can write well, it must therefore be proper biblical interpretation.

I gave plenty of quotes last time to show to you, to prove to you, that C .S.

Lewis' style, while wonderful, was lacking evangelical substance, purgatory, prayers for the dead.

People weren't totally depraved, no literal creation, six -day creation.

What else? Denied penalty substitution as the key doctrine for the death of Christ. Very inclusive, non -Christians would be saved.

Very ecumenical. And I left out a couple things because we ran out of time, and again, here's my point.

My point is, if you read Mere Christianity as a new Christian, and you read it now as a mature

Christian, you probably wouldn't like it as much. I'm not saying if you quote C .S. Lewis you're a pagan or a heretic,

I'm saying that up until his death, he was not very popular in the evangelical circles.

So much so that even Martin Lloyd -Jones would say things about him like he is not an evangelical.

Quote, C .S. Lewis had a defective view of salvation and was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal view of the atonement.

But now, I think because we live in a watered -down age, I think we live in an age of style over substance.

I think we live in an age where you judge books by its cover. We're superficial in our understanding, and we're ecumenical in our understanding, so it works perfectly for C .S.

Lewis to be the poster boy of evangelicalism. I don't really read him anymore.

If I find a wonderful quote of his, I will say from the pulpit, a writer said, a

British writer said, or something like that, because when I quote people, I either want to identify them as, watch out for that person, or I want to say, this is a good person to read.

When MacArthur would say, Ralph Venning wrote a book called The Sinfulness of Sin, and I, John MacArthur, read it every year because it's good for me to reset my mind and think properly about sin,

I went and bought that book. I think it's pastoral malpractice for me to be promoting things that aren't going to be good for you.

And even if you think they're not horrible for you, that is C .S. Lewis' writings, wouldn't you grant me the good, better, best paradigm?

I'm trying to push people to the best stuff, and why push people to non -evangelicals?

I don't know what it is, but people these days, they want to be cool, and they're the cool

G .K. Chesterton quoters. When you go to Redeemer Press in Manhattan, and you listen to United Airlines' Rhapsody in Blue as the prelude, and then you've got a bulletin that's got

G .K. Chesterton and C .S. Lewis quotes on there, I think to myself, this is weird, is what

I think of. I have other thoughts regarding that, but I want to be pastoral as I quote things.

And again, I'm not a knee -jerk, reactionary person when it comes to this

Fighting Fundy, King James Only style. I just want you to know what you're getting into.

When he says, I believe in purgatory, that should say something to you.

When he says in the same book, Letters to Malcolm, of course I pray for the dead, that ought to say something to you, that you should get your theology from someplace else.

If you want to read Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, I read it to the kids early on, before I knew all this other stuff.

And then you have to go, let's see, pay the price to the witch for Edmund.

What C .S. Lewis said about hell in the Great Divorce quote, and every state of mind left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind is, in the end, hell.

In the book Problem of Pain, that the lost soul is eternally fixed in its diabolical attitude, we cannot doubt.

But whether this eternal fixity implies endless duration, or duration at all, we cannot say.

No duration of hell. He can't be sure about that. And here's the fascinating thing to me.

The neo -evangelicals, the neo -con -evangelicals, the large tent evangelicals, gospel coalition types, they would typically be reformed.

And for that, I'm glad. I'm glad for the renaissance of the Reformation. Can you say that?

The process whereby faith and works became a stock gag in the commercial theater is characteristic of that whole tragic farce which we call the history of the

Reformation. That's C .S. Lewis. English literature in the 16th century, excluding drama,

Oxford University Press, page 37. They're the ones, the industrial complexes, as Truman calls them, are the ones promoting

C .S. Lewis all the time. I would rather—this is going to sound kind of weird, but it just popped into my mind—I'd rather promote

Louis L 'Amour books. Now, technically, he wasn't as wonderful as a writer, but he still was an excellent writer.

And you didn't have to worry about—well, you don't have to worry about sex and drugs and swearing. Maybe D -A -M -N, he might say once, or H -E -L -L,

H -E double toothpicks, as they say in my house. But you weren't going to get bad theology.

You're going to get moralistic, good guy, bad guy, antagonist, protagonist, trouble, drama, redemption, good guy wins, white hat.

If you want to read good writing, well, that's fine. And you say, well, what about Scarlet Letter?

But that's anti -Bible kind of thing, and I like to read that because it's written well.

Okay, I understand it all, I get it all. I am simply saying that C .S.

Lewis was no evangelical, so don't act like he is. If you want to just quote him as a liberal, quote him as a liberal.

Carl Lewis was a great runner. He was a great hijacker, too—no, high jumper.

Carl Truman was—I can't believe, Carl, I just called you Carl Lewis. Whatever happened to Carl Lewis?

Is he dead at 57? I hope not. Carl Truman, don't evangelicalize these guys.

They're not. You can just simply say, here's this liberal, and he said such and such. See, that's my problem, but evangelicals, as I said last time, they're not really thinking through the issues.

When we have people who deny Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, how can he be so popular?

Roaring back, book sales, movies, and maybe that's the fascination. Not only is he a great writer, a great storyteller, but you've got the movies to give him the steroid shot of protein powder kind of thing to get you where you need to go.

Maybe if you can't get people through theology, you get them through fiction. I don't know. I don't think he really thought that way.

But I know he didn't think he was an evangelical, that is, C .S. Lewis. You don't always have to buy into stylish.

You can't always judge a book by its cover while we hear about that. But stylish isn't the most important thing.

If you could have style and substance, that would be nice. And actually, with the book of Hebrews, you get both.

Style of Hebrews is written very—I already used the wonderful moniker, so I need something else.

It's precise, beautiful, technical. He wields the

Greek language maybe like nothing else in the New Testament, close to Luke maybe in his style.

I didn't say he wrote it. But you've got the substance. Jesus is superior. He's greater than prophets.

He's greater than angels. He's greater than Aaron. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than the old covenant. Jesus is superior, and if you have him, you have it all.

So you can have style and substance. But here's the prod that I want to use today in the time we have left on No Compromise Radio.

You want to write us? Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you'd like to get sexual fidelity or things that go bump in the church, by the way,

I think it's a $15 book on sale for $7 .99. We've also moved the $4 .99

shipping and handling down to $2. So if you buy 40 books or one book, it'll cost you $2, so you can get

Things That Go Bump in the Night and the Church for $7 .99. And at least

I can say it on this one, some tongue in cheek, it's a great book.

At least the stuff that Clint and Byron wrote, excellent. That's how

I can say it. I'm just adding it in because I had the connections. Right thinking should yield, hmm, the cross didn't have much style.

That's my point for the day. How stylish was the cross? In your desire to be caught up in style over substance, stop, drop, and roll.

Think of the cross. Think of the cross. If you had to pick one thing, style over substance, well, you'd pick substance.

But in methodology, practically speaking, many evangelicals, well,

C .S. Lewis says lots of things that are good, and he writes so well. Why the anti -C .S.

Lewis deal? Well, what if Benny Hinn was a good writer? In my opinion, he's not a good writer, but what if he said a lot of good things in a wonderful way?

Now, C .S. Lewis was a theological liberal, and Benny Hinn is a word -faith person, so they're not exactly the same, but you get my point.

Right now, I want you to think about 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and the aesthetics of the cross. Are there any?

Style over substance? Is there any style to the cross? For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

How sensible, how does that appeal to your sensibilities? The rugged cross, the old rugged cross, well, we might think that way.

To us, the cross is precious, but I'm thinking about to those who are perishing. To them that perish, the lost people, the text says they think it's foolishness.

The word of the cross, the theology of the cross, is foolishness. It's contemptible.

We're not going to believe that. That kind of made -up, weird thing, God's wisdom is his son hanging on a tree, it's not very pleasant.

As a matter of fact, it's foolish. When you look at the word fool in the

Old Testament use, the Septuagint, the fool is the one who is oblivious to any self -destructive behavior.

And here, the word of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing. Style? Is there any style in the cross, or only substance?

Is the cross cool to the unbeliever? I think the unbelievers think the cross is foolish, number one, because it was a device used to execute slaves and lowlifes.

How can you put perfume on that? How can you put some nice flowers around the cross to make it better?

The punishment of slaves? Any style in that? On the contrary, it's embarrassing, it's shameful, it's reprehensible, disreputable.

Engel said the peculiar, cruel, and shameful death, which as a rule was reserved for hardened criminals, incorrigible slaves, and rebels against the

Roman state. That's the cross. And when you see, as some writers have talked about, people coming to work, or when you're talking around the copy machine and they have earrings with, you know, work brings freedom, concentration camp slogans, maybe the mushroom cloud of a nuclear bomb,

Nagasaki. How would you think of that? Well, the way you'd think of that is the way people would think of the cross back in those days.

So crude, so horrible. You don't talk about the crucifixion around people who have any sensibilities at all.

It's a swear word. It's a swear. It's a four -letter word. That type of thing.

I mean, I know it's not technically. That graffiti in Rome, there's a worshiper, and that worshiper is in front of a person who's crucified, except the person, it's a body of a person, but it's the head of a donkey, a jackass.

Alex Minas worships his God. Shameful. Nothing stylish.

Cicero, quote, the very word cross should be far removed not only from a person of a

Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. We're talking about capital punishment.

We're talking about death penalty. Any type of elevated, noble person would think this is awful, this is nasty, this is for the notorious, the negatively notable people.

I mean, they're going to go flog the victim, make him carry his cross beam, and probably rip off almost all his clothes, if not all of them, nail you to a crossbar, and then drop you down into the hole.

Hard to breathe. How many days is that going to last?

Some vulture's going to come eat you afterwards. Polite company, we don't talk about.

So why are we so concerned about style when the very centerpiece of our theology is

Jesus Christ crucified? When Sproul was talking about Christ's death, the guy in the lecture interrupted loudly, that's primitive and obscene.

Sproul said, I asked him to repeat his command so everyone could hear his complaint. Then he repeated it, and I said, you're exactly right.

I particularly like your choice of words, primitive and obscene. Sproul, if primitive is an appropriate word to describe the content of Scripture, obscene is even more so.

All the obscenities of sin are recorded with clear and forthright language in the Scripture. And what is more obscene than the cross?

Here we have an obscenity on a cosmic scale. On the cross, Christ takes upon himself human obscenities to redeem them.

It's obscene. And Stephen Chalke would talk about this violent pre -Christian thinking of substitutionary atonement.

It's dangerous, pastorally deficient, and even dangerous, he said. I mean, come on, it's boorish, it's uncouth, it's unrefined, it's loutish, uncivilized, uncultured, oafish, troglodytish, rude, crass, raunchy.

I love S. Lewis Johnson as he talks about the story of Harry Emerson Fosdick. I read

Fosdick's biography, quite interesting. Fosdick wrote a book called The Guide to Understanding the

Bible. And he said, according to the Bible, that man was primitive, and he had a devilish concept of God.

Fosdick would talk about Noah's God wiping out the earth with a flood, bloodthirsty kind of God.

Abraham's God, you know, he loves blood, animal sacrifices. Moses' God, volcanic fire from which

God speaks. David though, he started having a little bit better view of God.

You know, a few imprecatory psalms, you know, mixed in there, but there's some good stuff in there.

But by the time you get to the prophets, Fosdick, quote, God was really making improvement. He now hated unrighteousness and spoke out against crimes committed by men, and when

Jesus came along, well, Jesus gave men a beautiful concept of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

But there was always one thing that was faulty in Jesus' theology, and that is he was always talking about hell. But fortunately now, since Jesus is no longer with us, we've reached the place now where we have modern ideas of God that are worthy of the name.

He has no hell for the wicked, and man and God are able to have fellowship with one another because God has become so respected, respectable, that he can be worshiped in Highland Park and University Park and Richardson and any other of the places where nice people are supposed to live.

Bloodthirsty? Now better. I mean, you know, style over substance? How about the style where Jesus can't even save himself?

That makes the cross foolish, doesn't it? Why do unbelievers think the cross is foolish? Because from the naked eye, from the human perspective, he can't even save himself.

What virtue must be there in the cross? Matthew 27, 42, He saved others, he cannot save himself.

He is the King of Israel, let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. Mark 15, 31,

So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others, he cannot save himself.

Luke 13, 35, The people stood by watching, but the ruler scoffed at him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the

Christ of God, his chosen one. Can't see how his death might be working up there if he can't even save himself.

A message for the ambitious, a message for the stylish, a message for the trendy, a message for the upwardly mobile, a message for the yuppies, a message for the millennials.

Even the apostate Nietzsche, he said this is the metaphysics of a hangman. I mean, just how stupid is the cross?

How foolish is it to the unbeliever? You mean to tell me that if I believe in this

Jesus, that he raised himself from the dead, I get to go to heaven? My eternal destiny is determined of a man

I've never seen, who died on a cross 2 ,000 years ago, never met the guy,

MacArthur. That one man could die on a piece of wood on a nondescript hill in a nondescript part of the world and thereby determine the destiny of every person who has ever lived seems stupid.

Thousands of Jews crucified in Israel. Why this particular one? I mean, even if you look at why people think the cross is foolish, that cross as a religious symbol,

I mean, religious symbols that they knew back in those days, fertility, power, baskets of fruit, stalks of grain, sun swastikas for the

Hindus, Star of Davids for Judaism, menorahs. A cross?

Crazy. Well, you've been listening to No Compromise Radio's episode on style over substance, question mark, evangelical aesthetics.

People love C .S. Lewis, but they don't want to be bothered with what he really believes. Just tell me something that he wrote, that he wrote it well, superficially, and that it's

Christian, at least in a generalist sense, and I'll go by it. I just think you need to dig a little deeper, know what you're getting into.

That's all. That's all we're doing. Mike Ebendroth here at No Compromise Radio. J. Michael Beasley also has some good stuff on C .S.

Lewis. Unknown love, I think, is what he's talking about. Same people that don't like Rob Bell love

C .S. Lewis. How does that work when they had a lot of things essentially the same, at least with a hermeneutical mindset?