[thelionscall] Interview with C.S. Lewis - part 2
Editor's Note: It is believed that this article represents the last interview of the great 20th century Christian author, C.S. Lewis.
The hour and a half I spent with Mr. Clive Staples Lewis in his quarters at Magdalene College, Cambridge University, will remain a treasured memory. I found Professor Lewis in his modest establishment, surrounded by the historic atmosphere of the old university city, engaged in the quiet daily stint of teaching medieval classic literature. It was hard to realize that this unassuming man is probably the outstanding Christian literary figure of our age. I was prompted to say to him:
Wirt: Professor Lewis, your writings have an unusual quality not often found in discussions of Christian themes. You write as though you enjoyed it.
Lewis: If I didn't enjoy writing I wouldn't continue to do it. Of all my books, there was only one I did not take pleasure in writing.
Wirt: Which one?
Lewis: The Screwtape Letters. They were dry and gritty going. At the time, I was thinking of objections to the Christian life, and decided to put them into the form, "That's what the Devil would say." But making goods ‘bad' and bads ‘good' gets to be fatiguing.
Wirt: How would you suggest a young Christian writer go about developing a style?
Lewis: The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right, the readers will most certainly go into it.
Wirt: Do you believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to the world through Christian writers today?
Lewis: I prefer to make no judgment concerning a writer's direct ‘illumination' by the Holy Spirit. I have no way of knowing whether what is written is from heaven or not. I do believe that God is the Father of lights – natural lights as well as spiritual lights (James 1:17). That is, God is not interested only in Christian writers as such. He is concerned with all kinds of writing. In the same way, a sacred calling is not limited to ecclesiastical functions. The man who is weeding a field of turnips is also serving God.
Wirt: An American writer, Mr. Dewey Beegle, has stated that in his opinion the Isaac Watts hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," is more inspired by God than is the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. What would be your view?
Lewis: The great saints and mystics of the Church have felt just the opposite about it. They have found tremendous spiritual truth in the Song of Solomon. There is a difference of levels here. The question of the canon is involved. Also we must remember that what is meat for a grown person might be unsuited to the palate of a child.
Wirt: How would you evaluate modern literary trends as exemplified by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, and Jean-Paul Sartre?
Lewis: I have read very little in this field. I am not a contemporary scholar. I am not even a scholar of the past, but I am a lover of the past."
Wirt: Do you believe that the use of filth and obscenity is necessary in order to establish a realistic atmosphere in contemporary literature?
Lewis: I do not. I treat this development as a symptom, a sign of a culture that has lost its faith. Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse. I look upon the immediate future with great apprehension.
Wirt: Do you feel, then, that modern culture is being de-Christianized?
Lewis: I cannot speak to the political aspects of the question, but I have some definite views about the de-Christianizing of the Church. I believe that there are many accommodating preachers, and too many practitioners in the Church who are not believers. Jesus Christ did not say, "Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right." The Gospel is something completely different. In fact, it is directly opposed to the world.
The case against Christianity that is made out in the world is quite strong. Every war, every shipwreck, every cancer case, every calamity, contributes to making a prima facie case against Christianity. It is not easy to be a believer in the face of this surface evidence. It calls for a strong faith in Jesus Christ.
Wirt: Do you approve of men such as Bryan Green and Billy Graham asking people to come to a point of decision regarding the Christian life?
Lewis: I had the pleasure of meeting Billy Graham once. We had dinner together during his visit to Cambridge University in 1955, while he was conducting a mission to students. I thought he was a very modest and a very sensible man, and I liked him very much indeed.
In a civilization like ours, I feel that everyone has to come to terms with the claims of Jesus Christ upon his life, or else be guilty of inattention or of evading the question. In the Soviet Union it is different. Many people living in Russia today have never had to consider the claims of Christ because they have never heard of those claims.
In the same way we who live in English-speaking countries have never really been forced to consider the claims, let us say, of Hinduism. But in our Western civilization we are obligated both morally and intellectually to come to grips with Jesus Christ; if we refuse to do so we are guilty of being bad philosophers and bad thinkers.
Wirt: What is your view of the daily discipline of the Christian life – the need for taking time to be alone with God?
Lewis: We have our New Testament regimental orders upon the subject. I would take it for granted that everyone who becomes a Christian would undertake this practice. It is enjoined upon us by our Lord. Since they are his commands, I believe in following them. It is always just possible that Jesus Christ meant what he said when he told us to seek the secret place and to close the door.
Because Professor Lewis has written so extensively, both in fiction and nonfiction, about space travel (see his trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength), I was particularly interested in what he would have to say about the prospects for man's future.
Wirt: What do you think is going to happen in the next few years of history, Mr. Lewis?
Lewis: I have no way of knowing. My primary field is the past. I travel with my back to the engine, and that makes it difficult when you try to steer. The world might stop in 10 minutes; meanwhile, we are to go on doing our duty. The great thing is to be found at one's post as a child of God, living each day as though it were our last, but planning as though our world might last a hundred years.
We have, of course, the assurance of the New Testament regarding events to come. I find it difficult to keep from laughing when I find people worrying about future destruction of some kind or other. Didn't they know they were going to die anyway? Apparently not. My wife once asked a young woman friend whether she had ever thought of death, and she replied, "By the time I reach that age science will have done something about it!"
Wirt: Do you think there will be widespread travel in space?
Lewis: I look forward with horror to contact with the other inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only transport to them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness and establish a new colonialism. I can't bear to think of it. But if we on earth were to get right with God, of course, all would be changed. Once we find ourselves spiritually awakened, we can go to outer space and take the good things with us.
That is quite a different matter.
This article was taken from Decision magazine, September 1963; © 1963 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Dan Stanley
Sunday School Training Coordinator
District C.E. Director Liaison
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