Bishop Robert Barron on C. S. Lewis

[Music] well two famous men died on November the 22nd 1963 the one in the most dramatic way possible assassinated on the streets of Dallas and full glare of publicity the second in a much quieter way dying in the upstairs room of his little home on the outskirts of Oxford England obviously john f kennedy's impact in the culture has been enormous but i do wonder now 50 years after their deaths if CS Lewis's impact has not been even greater at the time of his death he was 65 when he died Lewis's reputation was on the wane but in the year since his death it's been extraordinary revival of Lewis this Turner evoke he's enjoyed as two generations now have discovered his literary criticism his novels but especially his very clever and very insightful Christian apologetics now what explains Lewis's success as an apologist and an evangelist I see first of all something in his personal story appeals to a lot of people today because CS Lewis moved from dramatic non-belief to belief he was born and raised a Christian but it kind of lost his faith by the time he entered the university and so he had to go through a very painful halting anguish struggle from non belief to believe he was not someone for whom religious faith came easily or readily he had to battle his way to it I think that makes him very appealing to a lot of folks today who are going through the same kind of struggle and trial but the second reason why CS Lewis was so effective as an evangelist and that was he came at Christianity primarily as a literary figure rather than as a philosophical figure now I want to be careful here because Lewis certainly was a very smart man and new philosophy and used us sometimes very creatively in his apologetic work look at parts of mere christianity or look at his discussion in his book on miracles so he didn't know how to use philosophy nevertheless he was primarily a man of letters keep in mind his first published works were works of poetry his own writing and then in his professional life as a professor at Oxford Cambridge he was a specialist in sixteenth and seventeenth century literature in fact one of his really great books is a treatment of Milton they poet I think was this literary approach that enabled them to see something of tremendous importance namely that Christianity is primarily a story it's a narrative it's the narrative of these great things that God has done from creation through the choosing of people Israel through the sending of the Messiah and the achievement of salvation certainly abstract doctrine can be distilled from the biblical story and that's really much of what theology is I've spent most of my life studying that distillation but Lewis intuited correctly that fundamentally at bottom Christianity is a great story the way he would put it is the story of creation which is good sullied by sin and now restored through the return of the rightful king that's the narrative rhythm if you want of Christianity and once you see that you see it everywhere in CS Lewis's writings again look at mere christianity one of the real masterpieces of christian apologetics there he sees precisely this rhythm we don't have a dualistic view of good versus evil you have a good creation which has become compromised but it's through the return of God as the rightful king that the world is set right that's why he says it's a line I've always savored that the Christ child appears so quietly and clandestinely in this little outpost of the Roman Empire because he had to slip quietly behind enemy lines that's ingredient in this fundamentally narrative understanding of Christianity look at it - in the wonderful and much celebrated Narnia chronicles in that - fantasy story narnia is a fundamentally good place but has come under the thrall of the white witch who was now reduced into a permanent winter time how is it restored well through the return of Aslan this great lion who's the Christ figure who gives his life that the land might be restored what is that but the story of The Return of the King and then bring it down to a much more kind of pedestrian level the wonderful Screwtape Letters telling the story of how a very ordinary Christian is tormented by a low-level devil what is that but the story of this conflict the spiritual conflict what gives Louis the confidence to mock the devil in that book is his confidence that Christ has already won this great battle so it all this is writings you can see the same rhythm by the way you see the same thing in toking as well-known lewis and tokine were both members of this writers group called the Inklings that met on a very regular basis for a couple of decades they read their works to each other and Tolkien too saw this same rhythm where you have now a fundamentally good middle-earth but under the influence of Sauron this dark power symbolic of the devil and then you have the Return of the King Aragorn is through the return of the king and his conquest of the dark powers that the land is renewed not to mention is I've argued before Frodo is a symbol of Christ the priest just as Gandalf is a symbol of Christ the prophet and there's Aragorn the king and see what both these men were doing and Lois I mean very much here they were trying to evangelize the imagination they wanted to prepare the imaginations of their readers for the reception of this great story of of Christianity that's why something I find wonderful and very moving that in the last what 10 years or so the most popular movies in the world are the movies based upon Lord of the Rings and the Narnia chronicles stories that were invented by these of Daanish Christian gentleman in the back room of a pub in Oxford these stories have become the most popular of films in the world that can only be described it seems to me as a triumph of evangelization but in this beautifully surreptitious way that's I think part of CS Lewis's legacy you know something that the postmodern philosophers talk about a lot is the fact that you don't really convince people by arguing them argument is kind of going through a tough period right now you conquer a position by out there rating it but we have is own words competing narratives think of communism as a great narrative or even capitalism is a great narrative how do you battle an opposing narrative like secularism for example you have to out narrate it you have to tell a better story a more compelling story I think with CS Lewis knew and his bones was Christianity is the greatest story ever told and that's despite all of the excesses and sins of Christians up and down the centuries we all know about that Lewis knew about it he knew about his own weakness personally nevertheless Christianity is the greatest story ever told CS Lewis told it with a particular verb and bravado and incisiveness and panache and because of that it's all together well and good that we celebrate him on the fiftieth anniversary of his death [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 176,591

Rating: 4.9362874 out of 5

Keywords: Fr. Robert Barron, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan, White Witch, Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, Word On Fire, Catholicism, Christianity

Id: dlQuYXtkx0g

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 20 2013