Sunday Reply

Good Morning,

I too am just a few pages into "The Lion's World." I'm fascinated by the book's concept as well as how we're starting this conversation. The truth is that I have very little familiarity with The Chronicles of Narnia. I haven't read all of C.S. Lewis' seven books. I really didn't care for what I have read or seen in the Narnia movies.   I'm more familiar with Lewis than with the series because I have read some of the author's other works such as Mere Christianity. I fairly readily set aside that book because I didn't agree with aspects of Lewis' dogmatic thoughts and imagery.

I therefore am acting much like someone you described in your post. I've hardly spent any time inside of the stories of CS. Lewis' Narnia. My impressions are shaped mostly by limited and dis-satisfactory exposure to the content as well as what I've heard secondhand about the books and movies.   In your words, I lack the full back story. At least, I haven't seen and discerned it all for myself. I find myself pondering this morning whether or not I need to be reading Lewis' Narnia chronicles before digging deeper into The Lion's World with you and our readers or if I should simply add another extant layer of thoughts and responses about Narnia through Rowan Williams' lens and wisdom regarding the material. Maybe I should read the chronicles before writing more about them?

This line of thought got me pondering about how important it is for me and other people to consider how and why we are climbing up "ladders of inference." Why do I think what I do about CS Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia, Christianity, or why the San Diego Chargers lost to the Denver Broncos yesterday? What's my selected reality versus what's real? What assumptions have I (or anyone) made about Christianity. All such inquiries are based upon a variety of assumptions, expectations, and interpretation of facts. I imagine you know a great deal more about such matters given your expertise in creating survey, evaluating statistics and so on.

In summary,  I agree with you that the assumptions and opinions people form about contemporary Christianity are definitely shaped by anecdotal or second hand experiences. I believe too, at least speaking for me, my impatience in dealing with something or someone that I  initially take offense to or find inaccurate assuredly impacts whether or not I'm going to sit with that matter or person for a longer period of time. God often has a way of indicating to me that perseverance and fortitude are instead the virtues I should be exercising.

Williams writes something else in the introduction that caught my attention this morning He writes:

"What he (Lewis) says here (in a 1959 letter to a schoolgirl asking about the his purpose for the books) does underline that he is not in fact casting around for a set of disconnected symbols to carry a piece of concealed religious doctrine but allowing his characters to emerge in the course of the story itself and according to its logic." (Williams, 2012, p. 3).

Perhaps that's what we need to invite people to do when we encounter them inside and outside of our church walls. How should we suggest that they have received a false message from someone else about the Christian Faith. How might we rather invite them in a radically hospitable way to assess with us the reality and facts of Jesus' life and narrative? What might we learn from one another and hold different perspectives in tension with whatever selective realities and/or interpreted realities they/we are using to reach a conclusion about the Christianity?

Maybe many folks don't in fact "know" and, as Williams suggests are not deliberately considering Christianity as a possibility. I happen to think that's less probable in the United States than in Great Britain while also believe there are more and more unchurched yet spiritual people than every before here in the U.S. I hope that one of the things this blog may accomplish for you and me and anyone else who happens to read it is that we will be able examine what's latent as well as what's active in our shared and personal faiths in a way that helps us to live into God's reign just as CS Lewis, Rowan Williams, and others have done and are doing.