“Heresy In Narnia? Departures From Evangelical Orthodoxy in the Writings of C.S. Lewis”
By John H. Janzen
On finishing this book, one reader suggested that it could have been titled “Why C.S. Lewis Should Have Been Giving Evangelicals Fits Long Before the Arrival of Brian McLaren or Rob Bell.”
Lewis has long been a hero to evangelicals, but the careful reader might find this fact to be somewhat odd. In many areas Lewis held opinions that were out of step with those typically embraced by the conservative Christians who loved him. He believed that some stories in the Bible, like that of Jonah or even the creation story, could well have been fiction. He held biological evolution in positive regard. He didn’t see the necessity of adhering rigidly to any one theory of the Christian atonement. He believed that God didn’t banish people to hell, but that they chose it for themselves.
Yet, it cannot be said that Lewis was simply a theological liberal either. Lewis’s views on prayer, evangelism, and the existence of a very real spiritual realm endeared him to evangelicals. By looking at a cross-section of his fiction and apologetic work, this brief yet thorough examination reveals why Lewis continues to have such broad appeal, despite his endorsement of many evangelically unorthodox ideas. Lewis’s unique understanding of myth is explored as a potential bridge between the extremes of left and right. To Lewis, there was no such thing as “just a myth.” Myth’s were, in fact, central to human understanding of the universe and everything in it, and in Christ the “true myth,” reality finds its center.
John Janzen lives and works in Nagoya, Japan at Nagoya Gakuin University. He recently completed his M.A. thesis in English Literature and is continuing his research on C.S. Lewis.
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