C.S. Lewis: Still too popular after 50 years

Even though it has been 50 years since his death, the faithful at Headington Parish Church in Oxford, England, are constantly reminded of the loyal, but rather quiet, parishioner who always occupied the same short pew hidden by a sanctuary pillar. Going to church was never easy for C.S. Lewis, even before he became one of the world's most famous Christian writers, noted the Rev. Angela Tilby, in a recent service in memory of the Oxford don's death on Nov. 22, 1963 -- the same day as the death of British author, Aldous Huxley, and, of course, President John F. Kennedy.

Lewis considered church organ music far too grand and thought the words of most popular hymns were "a literary disgrace," said Tilby. Illogical sermons irritated him no end and he was highly critical of liberal trends in theology and biblical scholarship. As a former atheist, Lewis believed that far too many people in the modern world were slipping into an "easy," "fashionable" agnosticism.

In particular, Lewis was "aware of the way belief in an afterlife had come to be ridiculed by critics of Christianity as 'pie in the sky when you die' -- an imaginary compensation for those who had a raw deal in this life," she said, in a service broadcast on BBC Radio. "Lewis' response was to argue that hope for a better world could never deliver unless it was grounded in something more than the here and now."

Lewis lived to see his popular fiction -- especially "The Screwtape Letters" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" -- become bestsellers in England, America and around the world. Meanwhile, most of his Oxford University colleagues rolled their eyes at what they considered the merely popular Christian apologetics of his BBC commentaries and books such as "Miracles," "The Problem of Pain" and "Mere Christianity."

The bottom line: Lewis was considered a dinosaur from an earlier age and far too popular to be taken seriously. Half a century later, that verdict remains popular among many academics and liberal religious leaders.

Yet half a century after his death, to the day, a small stone marker in honor of Lewis was added in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, in the south transept near a variety of memorials for Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, John Milton, John Keats and many others.

Meanwhile, the entire Lewis canon is as popular as ever, with so many books in print, with so many publishers, that researchers struggle to total the numbers. More than 100 million copies of the seven Narnia books have sold worldwide, in 40 languages. HarperOne's C.S. Lewis Signature Classics series -- the non-Narnia Lewis works -- was created in 2001 and sales are nearing 10 million volumes. An estimated 18 million copies of "Mere Christianity" have sold in the United States alone since its publication in 1952.

Memorial stones are fitting, but it's significant that Lewis is best known for his books, said the Rev. Alister Edgar McGrath of King's College in London, who will soon return to Oxford to teach science and religion. He is the author of the recent "C. S. Lewis -- A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet."

"In the 1930s, Lewis declared that a writer is not a spectacle, who says, 'Look at me!' Rather, a writer is more like a set of spectacles, who says, 'Look through me.' ... The Christian faith, Lewis discovered, gave him a lens that brought things into focus," said McGrath, in the text for his sermon during the Headington Parish service.

This focus -- in his writing, in the classroom and in life -- included an unashamed belief in the reality of heaven and eternal life. Yet Lewis argued that focusing on heaven was the best way for believers to be truly serious about the actions and decisions that make up everyday life.

The ultimate goal for Lewis, said McGrath, was to "raise our horizon and elevate our expectations, and then to behave on earth in the light of this greater reality. ... The true believer is not someone who disengages with this world in order to focus on heaven, but the one who tries to make this world more like heaven.

"Lewis is surely right when he declared that the 'Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.'"

The Anglican wars roll on (and Holy Communion for dogs)

The German Shepherd's name was Trapper and he came to St. Peter's Anglican Church with his owner, a newcomer at the historic Toronto parish. At the end of the Mass, Trapper went forward with everyone else for Holy Communion. That's when the vicar, in what she later described as a welcoming gesture, served the dog some of the consecrated bread that Anglicans believe has -- in a mysterious manner -- become the body of Jesus Christ.

So one parishioner complained to the bishop and, in a flash, critics online were quoting Matthew 7:6 ("Do not give dogs what is holy...") and the controversy -- this story has had long legs -- even reached BBC with the headline, "Canadian priest sorry for giving dog Holy Communion."

It seems that strange and dramatic events of this kind happen year after year in the global Anglican Communion -- truly one of God's gifts to headline writers.

Also, it appears unlikely that this trend will change anytime soon. Recently, in a burst of candor in Mexico, the current Archbishop of Canterbury harkened back to the English Civil War and quoted sobering advice from Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who was under the patronage of Archbishop William Laud when the latter was executed in 1645 by the Puritan parliament.

The Most Rev. Justin Welby noted that Taylor warned: "It is unnatural and unreasonable to persecute disagreeing opinions. ... Force in matters of opinion can do no good, but is very apt to do hurt."

These are hard words in an era in which England's shrinking flock of Anglicans is still fighting over female bishops and, across the Atlantic, the shrinking flock of Episcopalians continues to fight over non-celibate gay bishops. Meanwhile, leaders in the growing Global South churches of Africa and Asia are calling for repentance and doctrinal discipline.

During an August 13 address in Monterrey, Welby said he sometimes worries that Anglicans are "drifting back" into a true civil war of their own.

"Not consciously, of course, but in an unconscious way that is more dangerous. Like a drunk man walking near the edge of a cliff, we trip and totter and slip and wander, ever nearer to the edge of the precipice," he said, in the released text.

"On one side is the steep fall into an absence of any core beliefs, a chasm where we lose touch with God, and thus we rely only on ourselves and our own message. On the other side there is a vast fall into a ravine of intolerance and cruel exclusion. It is for those who claim all truth, and exclude any who question. When we fall into this place, we lose touch with human beings and create a small church, or rather many small churches -- divided, ineffective in serving the poor, the hungry and the suffering, incapable of living with each other, and incomprehensible to those outside the church."

The problem? One bishop's "core beliefs" are another's cruel dogmas. And, according to Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, Christianity is entering another 500-year cycle of doctrinal reform similar to that of Martin Luther.

"The major shifts of focus of these periodic seismic events are profoundly unsettling to many people, but they seem to be necessary to God's mission," she said, in an August 15 address at the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Pittsburgh.

Anger and fear caused by rapid political and cultural changes have caused some members of liberal Protestant flocks to flee, said Jefferts Schori, whose denomination has declined from 3.6 million members in 1965 to 1.9 million in 2011. In the tumultuous past decade, average Sunday attendance has declined nearly 25 percent, to roughly 650,000 Episcopalians.

Jefferts Schori's flock is also aging rapidly, in part because -- as she boldly told The New York Times in 2006 -- Episcopalians are "better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates" than Catholics and other believers and because they "pay attention to the stewardship of the earth."

While other are seeing signs of peril, she said, progressives must see progress, especially when fighting for gay rights, racial justice and causes central to their faith.

"The challenges that both our churches have experienced around issues of inclusion of all human beings in recent years have reminded us that God is always at work -- on us, within us, and among us," said Jefferts Schori. "Some have judged our smaller numbers as faithlessness but it may actually be the Spirit's way of pruning for greater fruitfulness."

Wink, wink pulpit wars

The political endorsement was clear, although the words were carefully chosen. New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop clearly wanted to inspire his supporters, even his own priests, to back Sen. Barack Obama. Still, he stressed that his endorsement was personal, not corporate.

''I will not be speaking about the campaign from the pulpit or at any church function,'' the bishop told reporters, in a 2007 conference call that drew low-key, calm news coverage. ''That is completely inappropriate. But as a private citizen, I will be at campaign events and help in any way that I can.''

The reaction was different after the Rev. Luke Emrich preached to about 100 evangelicals at New Life Church this past weekend, near Milwaukee. Veering from scripture into politics, he said his beliefs about abortion would control his vote.

"I'm telling you straight up, I would choose life," said Emrich, in a text that is being sent to the Internal Revenue Service. "I would cast a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. ... But friends, it's your choice to make, it's not my choice. I won't be in the voting booth with you."

Like the liberal Episcopal bishop, Emrich openly endorsed a candidate. And, like the bishop, he made it clear he was speaking for himself. The difference was that Emrich spoke from a pulpit, not a desk at the top of a church hierarchy.

Legal or illegal? That's a matter of location, location, location.

Emrich is one of 33 pastors nationwide who signed up for "Pulpit Freedom Sunday," an attempt by the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge IRS code language that says nonprofit, tax-exempt entities -- including churches -- may not "participate in, or intervene in ... any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office."

While all the sermons during this initiative mentioned candidates, some of the ministers used different approaches, said Erik Stanley, the Alliance Defense Fund's senior legal counsel. The organization is voluntarily sending the sermons to the IRS.

"We did not mandate for these pastors what they should or shouldn't say. We didn't write the sermons," he said. "I know that we had pastors who said, 'I would not vote for so and so.' I know others said, 'I urge you not to vote for so and so.' Some said, 'I plan to vote for so and so, but I'm only speaking for myself.' "

There's the rub. For decades, many clerics -- liberal and conservative -- have practiced a variety of wink-wink endorsement strategies. For example:

* Supporters of abortion rights have long challenged the "Respect Life Sunday" events in Catholic parishes in early October. However, some priests use this day to stress Vatican pronouncements on the uniquely evil nature of abortion, which can be seen as a nod to Republicans. Meanwhile, other priests proclaim a broader "Culture of Life" agenda, stressing health care, the environment and issues that may favor Democrats.

* Some clergy, in a various ethnic churches and doctrinal camps, have invited politicians into services, where they are openly embraced and honored them with cheers that "this candidate is one of us." The congregation applauds and shouts "amen." Is this an endorsement?

* Pastors may deliver sermons that stick to a moral or religious issue and then say that it's sinful to support politicians -- while avoiding names -- who violate what the pastor says is the biblical stand on that issue. In this case, it doesn't matter if the issue being discussed is the war in Iraq, abortion, immigration or gay rights.

* Some religious leaders merely "recommend" candidates, rather than offering explicit "endorsements."

Finally, what if an endorsement is delivered from an office at the heart of a sacred bureaucracy, rather than from the pulpit in a sanctuary?

There's the big question, said Stanley. When do winks and nods become illegal? Are the rules applied the same way for liberals and conservatives?

"This is what we're trying to find out," he said. "How is a pastor supposed to know what he can and cannot do? Many pastors are afraid of crossing some line out there and they censor themselves, because they don't know exactly where it is. They want to address these great moral issues from a biblical perspective, but they don't know how far the IRS will let them go."