Psalm 1: Two Ways

In the spring of 1945, C. S. Lewis published a little book he called, The Great Divorce. He realized, naturally, that the title would raise a lot of eyebrows. How could anyone talk about a good divorce? And here was a book about a great one?

But Lewis wasn’t speaking of divorce in the usual sense of that word. He wasn't talking about marital divorce. He meant instead the divorce between Heaven and Hell; the real opposition between truth and falsehood; the radical distinction between good and evil. There is a real choice we have to make between the two, he said. And that choice of ours leads us to one of two very different destinies.

Why would he need to write a book about that? Because, explained Lewis, we fallen human beings want to accept a dangerous idea that just isn’t true. We somehow want to believe

that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain (p. 5).

Lewis was rejecting the notion that when it comes to how we live our lives, we can have it both ways. Instead, we must recognize a distinction and choose between right and wrong. In the end, such choices will make the difference between Heaven and Hell.

The Great Divorce was a strong attack against muddled thinking and life with no integrity. But those things haven’t gone away, have they? Sixty years later, people continue to accept the idea of no absolutes. When it comes to matters of faith we’re told that “All roads lead to the same place.” When it comes to morality and ethics, we’re told that you and I might hold convictions that completely contradict each other. But each is perfectly right to retain them as individuals. I can have my truth, and you can have yours. Nobody has to give up anything.

I don't know if it's true or not, but it makes a good story. You've heard it, I guess. A well-known philosopher gave a speech advancing the idea of relativism, no such thing as consistent, unified truth. In the question-and-answer session, he was asked, “Are you certain that you’re right?” to which he said, “Absolutely.” But no discrediting or embarrassment of such thinking will make it go away. People will keep believing and saying that, when it comes to how we live, we can have our cake and eat it too. Why? Because, deep down, that’s what we would like.

Into our world, sick with sin, enters the very first Psalm. It announces that there are only two ways; that those two ways are diametrically opposed; that they run in completely opposite directions:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law he meditates day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish (KJV, retouched by FVB).

Two ways, says the writer. Many centuries later, Jesus himself would affirm this view:

Enter by the narrow gate: for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few (Matthew 7:13-14, RSV).

Two ways. Paul said the same thing:

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8).

Two ways.

I'm Reading Old Books in '08

I plan to do something different this year. Actually, I've been meaning to do this for sometime now, but just never have taken the plunge. Here's the plan: In the year 2008--with a possible exception or two--I'm going to read nothing but older books. By "older" I mean at least 50 years old. But most of my reads will go back much further than that. I'm doing this mainly because of something C.S. Lewis said.

In 1944, Lewis wrote an introduction for a then-new translation of St. Athanasius' book, The Incarnation of the Word of God. Sometime later, the piece was published as an essay under the title, "On the Reading of Old Books." You can find it in the classic collection God in the Dock.

Here's why, says Lewis, people ought to read plenty of old books. First, by reading old books (and what he especially has in mind are classics) a person doesn't have to sort through all of the secondary works on, say, Plato. A person can go straight to the great source and read the Symposium. Lewis says that most people avoid classics because they don't think they'll understand them. They believe they have to read some much later book written by a scholar on the subject. The impulse of humility is a good one. But here it's misguided. Most of the time the secondary works are much harder to understand than the primary ones. So that's what people should read.

Second, by reading old books (again, Lewis means classics) you don't have to wonder if it's a good book. We know the old books because they have stood the test of time. Some of the new books, not many, will eventually stand up. But you don't know which ones. In the case of old books, we know. (There's an argument that could be made here about church music too. But I won't go there, . . . as though I just didn't).

Third, by reading old books a person prevents himself from becoming enslaved to contemporary thought. On this point, Lewis says that, as a corrective, a person should read an old book for at least every new one. Think about it, he says, you already know the genuine and general truths of our time because you live in this time. So if you read only recent books, you will only hear again what you already knew. But, you will also be indoctrinated in the errors of our age. On the other hand, when a person reads old books, he easily and immediately detects the mistakes of that previous age. But he also hears truths that are hardly known in his own age. So, Lewis says that reading old books is, to use the phrase, a win-win.

Fourth, by reading old books--specifically, old books written by Christians--a person becomes acquainted with what Lewis called "mere Christianity." Lewis observed that there is general, basic, irreducible faith to which all Christians hold no matter what the time and place. He says that if you don't believe it, you should know that unbelievers certainly do believe it. He knows, he says, because he used to be an unbeliever. And what he experienced back then was that Christians from various times and of various stripes all smelled the same.

So often, Christians looking at the current scene see nothing but division. Lewis admits that there's a lot of division and that it's lamentable. However, when a person reads Christian classics, he sees a unity of Christians across time and place. As I was reading this part of Lewis's essay, I couldn't help but think of some of the extreme and narrow believers I have known. Almost to a one it seemed as though they had never read anyone besides someone of their own time who already agreed with them. What Lewis basically says is that, by reading old books, you have a much better chance of getting over any sectarian tendencies. And you have a much better chance of being right when you think of someone else as a heretic. So, it's old books in '08. And I already have a short list. So far, I plan to read the following:

1. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana. Maybe the City of God and/or the Confessions.

2. Pascal, Pensees

3. Aquinas, one of the summas

4. Thomas Paine, Common Sense ('cause I want to).

Some of these I've dabbled in before. But I've never read any of them all the way through.

Do you read very many classics? What was the best old book you ever read? Got any recommendations?

C. S. Lewis: A Sexist?

Nearly sixty years ago, when he argued against the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England, C.S. Lewis wrote:

"We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one [who opposes the ordination of women] is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office" (God in the Dock, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970, p. 235. You can read his essay, "Priestesses in the Church?" here).

There are some obvious differences between the context in which Lewis wrote those words and the situation in which members of the Churches of Christ find themselves as we go round and round about "women's role in the church."

Lewis, for example, believed in the priesthood of the priest, not the priesthood of all believers. As he maintained his position on this question, he sensed no need to explain the passages in both Old and New Testaments that speak of women prophets. They were, as Lewis pointed out, prophets, preachers, but not priests.

But here's the connection I want to make. Those who might disagree with Lewis should not call him a sexist; the ideas connected with that word include prejudicial stereotyping against women. He's not guilty of that.

And neither are my brothers and sisters in the Churches of Christ who maintain traditional opinions about this question.