Probably the most useful book I read during Season 2 of Pints With Jack was C.S. Lewis Goes To Heaven by David Clark. In today’s episode I interviewed Dr. Clark to discuss his book and wrap up our discussion of The Great Divorce.
00:12 – Introduction 01:51 – Brief biography of Dr. Clark 02:58 – Drink-of-the-week and quote-of-the-week 03:33 – When did you first come across C.S. Lewis? 04:35 – How has Lewis shaped your spirituality and teaching career? 07:28 – Is The Great Divorce your favourite of Lewis’ books? 08:34 – Did the book take you long to write? 09:14 – What’s does Lewis want us primarily to take away from his book? 10:31 – What is the structure of your book? 11:54 – What are the sources which influenced Lewis concerning this book? 14:52 – What ideas are covered in Part I, the “Sociology” section of your book? 17:35 – Do you have a favourite ghost? 19:03 – How did you go about identifying the real-life counterparts to some of the ghosts? 21:01 – What are the geographical features you discuss in Part II? 23:00 – What is the significance of Botley? 25:24 – What kinds of things do you discuss in Part III? 30:32 – How should readers read your book in relation to Lewis’? 32:59 – What advice would you give someone reading The Great Divorce for the first time? 34:13 – Where did the pictures in the book come from?
I was recently interviewed as a guest on two different podcasts: The Counsel of Trent and the Classical Theism Podcast. I would strongly encourage you to listen to the full episodes on the respective podcasts:
00:40 – Clip from Counsel of Trent, Episode #190 04:44 – Clip from Counsel of Trent, Episode #191 10:05 – Clip from the Classical Theism Podcast, Episode #59
This episode is quite different from our usual Pints With Jack episodes. Rather than interviewing a scholar or discussing a chapter of Lewis’ work with Matt, I’m going to be reading an article I wrote which gives a rough outline of Lewis’ life.
If you have read any material related to Islamic apologetics, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the names Ahmed Deedat and his one-time pupil, Zakir Naik. I came across a video on YouTube of Deedat tutoring Naik. He was supposedly teaching him how to refute Christianity, using training materials apparently known as “The Combat Kit”.
This teaching session is extremely enlightening and I would like to walk through the video and break down the advice Sheikh Deedat gives to his pupil in this video. I thought this would be a worthwhile exercise because I think it demonstrates some of the fundamental misunderstandings of Christianity held by even well-known Muslim apologists, as well as showing flaws in their methodology.
Jihadic Judo?
Deedat’s English is rather stilted and, although his voice is calm, what he says at the start of the video isn’t exactly pleasant.
“[The Christian] is trained…he smells a rat…the shit…he wants to change the subject...”
Ahmed Deedat
Deedat tells Naik that, when disputing with Christians, he should get the Christian to hand over his Bible and use it to show him that Christianity is false.
“[Tell the Christian] ’Give it here’…. don’t be shy… their women…they don’t care a damn. This is the book, want to push it down your throat. They want to steal your Imam.”
Ahmed Deedat
Immoral Prophets?
Deedat then alludes to Genesis 19:30-38 and tells Naik to use it to shame the Christian. Deedat says this because in that passage, Lot’s daughters get their father drunk and sleep with him in order to get pregnant. Naik seems to think that this scandalous event is some kind of refutation of the Old Testament. However, it’s not for two reasons:
1. He’s comparing it against an Islamic standard The doctrine of “Isma” in Islam says that all Prophets are sinless. Now, if you hold that belief, it’s understandable why you might be scandalized by this passage, as well as many others in the Old Testament. However, neither Jews nor Christians hold to this doctrine! Although the prophets were indeed used by God, they were also flawed human beings, so their sin shouldn’t really surprise us. Why would he expect Christians to judge Old Testament prophets and patriarchs by a standard exclusive to Islam?
2. He’s performing a basic error in Biblical interpretation Simply because the Bible records something, does not mean that it condones it! This is basic exegesis. Some texts are prescriptive while others are simply descriptive! Some passages tell us about the good things that we as readers should do, but other passages tell us about the good and bad actions of Biblical characters.
For example, just because King David committed adultery and murder, doesn’t mean that God endorsed his actions or wants Christians to do likewise! What’s funny is that Deedat repeatedly a question:
“Ask the Christian: what is the moral, what is the lesson?”
Ahmed Deedat
Clearly the answer is: don’t get drunk and don’t commit incest! Deedat asks whether the Christian would read such a passage to his mother or daughter. This is a strange question, implying that a text has to be PG-13 in order for it to be the Word of God.
Next in the video, we then see another man enter the room, calling out “Salaam alaikum!”. Rather than giving the customary response (“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam”), Deedat sends him away with “I’m busy now!” and then moves on to the next Bible passage which scandalises him…
Son rapes his mother?
Deedat then gets Naik to turn to Genesis 35:22 and to write in large letters above it “Son rapes his mother”. If you look in the text, you’ll see the following:
While Israel dwelt in that land Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard of it.
Genesis 35:22
Naturally, Deedat makes the same mistakes as noted in the previous section, concerning the sinlessness of Biblical characters, as well as the difference between prescription and description.
Of course, there are three other problems with describing Genesis 35:22 as “Son rapes his mother”. Firstly, the text does indeed say that fornication takes place, but there’s nothing to suggest that it was a violent act of rape. Secondly, as the text says, Bilhah was Israel’s concubine, not wife. Finally, Reuben’s mother was Leah, not Bilhah. Deedat attempts to justify his assertion by saying that “Concubine and wife mean the same thing”.
What exactly is Deedat’s main problem with this passage? After all, didn’t Muhammad’s adopted son divorce his beautiful wife Zaynab so that Muhammad could marry her? What is the real problem concerning Reuben in Genesis 35:22? Deedat goes on and explains.
“[People told Jacob] he screwed your wife and [Jacob] didn’t lose his temper, he didn’t spank him, he didn’t scold him and God Almighty didn’t give him AIDS, Syphilis or Gonorrhoea, nothing. That’s all. The man didn’t react. Nothing. There is not one word… It starts and end… The subject changes”
Ahmed Deedat
Once again, Deedat demonstrates his ignorance of what is happening here, as well as his Biblical knowledge concerning the consequences of Reuben’s sin.
In this passage, Reuben is asserting his dominance. He is attempting to ensure his continued authority over his other siblings. Did Reuben suffer consequences for his sin? He did indeed, but we can’t simply look to the next verse to discover them. We must look later in the narrative, namely at the end of his father’s life. Reuben’s actions result in his being deprived of the blessing and the inheritance from Jacob/Israel that he would have naturally received as the first-born son:
[On his deathbed, Jacob said]: “Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power. Unstable as water, you shall not have pre-eminence because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it—you went up to my couch!”
Genesis 49:3
Reuben’s birthright instead passed to his younger brother, Joseph:
The sons of Reuben the first-born of Israel (for he was the first-born; but because he polluted his father’s couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright; though Judah became strong among his brothers and a prince was from him, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph)…
1 Chronicles 5:1-2
Once again referring Naik to his “Combat Kit” study materials, Deedat moves onto a supposed Biblical contradiction…
Wife or Concubine?
In an attempt to demonstrate a contradiction, Deedat first refers to is Genesis 25 where the text speaks about Abraham’s new wife, Keturah:
Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.
The sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine: she bore Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midan, Ishbak, and Shuah. The sons of Jokshan: Sheba and Dedan.
1 Chronicles 1:32
Only a few minutes ago, Deedat was saying that “wife” and “concubine” mean the same thing, yet when there is the opportunity for a polemic against Christians, they are suddenly have very different menings! Deedat mockingly asks why God would be confusing people by saying two contradictory statements. He continues repeating this for some time. He ends by saying that, if the Christian replies that “wife” and “concubine” are basically the same thing, then Deedat’s earlier claim that Reuben “raped his mother” is thereby validated.
If Christians treated the Qur’an in this way they would be rightly chided. Does Deedat know whether there are Christian responses to this supposed contradiction? There are indeed. Firstly, there is the possibility that each passage is simply referring to a different point in time, meaning that Keturah began as Abraham’s concubine and eventually became his wife, much in the same way that a woman today might transition from being a man’s mistress to being his second wife. Secondly, even in Genesis it appears that the term “wife” had a degree of flexibility. For example, in Genesis 16:3, Hagar is referred to as Abraham’s wife, but a few chapters later in Genesis 25:6 it is implied that she was his concubine. It is entirely possible that at this stage of Hebrew culture, the term “wife” was somewhat elastic and was used imprecisely to sometimes refer to concubines. Either way, once again Deedat is applying an Islamic standard of literalism which might be problematic for Islam, but not for Judaism and Christianity.
Dangerous Liaisons?
Deedat moves to his next example found in Genesis 38, the illicit liaison between Judah and his daughter-in-law, Tamar. It’s at this point that the video stops, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s very likely that he’s going to make exactly the same mistakes as above.
When I lived in London and interacted with Muslims at Speaker’s Corner, I often found that they were very well prepared, no doubt receiving the same kind of training we see here from Deedat. However, as we’ve seen in this video, this training comes along with fundamental methodological flaws, as well as basic misunderstandings concerning what Christians believe and why…
It has been my desire for a while to introduce the listeners to other members of the Inklings, as well as authors who greatly influenced Lewis. Today we look at G.K. Chesterton and our special guest who will be introducing us to this great man is renowned Chesterton scholar and champion, Dale Ahlquist.
S2E28: “After Hours” with Dale Ahlquist (Download)
In case your podcast application has the ability to jump to certain time codes, here are the timestamps for the different parts of the episode.
00:30 – Why we’re talking about G.K. Chesterton 02:02 – Introduction of Dale Ahlquist 03:13 – The drink-of-the-week (and GKC’s favourites) 04:13 – The quote-of-the-week 04:45 – How did you first encounter G.K. Chesterton? 09:00 – What are some of your favourite Chesterton aphorisms? 09:44 – Who was Chesterton? 12:49 – What was his faith background? 16:27 – What was his dynamic with his wife, Frances? 21:24 – What kinds of things did he write and what were some of his most famous works? 24:24 – What was The Everlasting Man about and why did it have such an effect on Lewis? 26:41 – Why is Chesterton not better known? 29:05 – How should people go about starting to read Chesterton? 30:39 – What tips do you have for someone reading Orthodoxy for the first time? 32:10 – Which biography will give you the best sense for the man himself? 33:28 – What do you think of the decision not to open Chesterton’s cause for Sainthood? 37:37 – Is it true that Chesterton inspired Michael Collins and Mohandas Gandhi? 40:17 – How can listeners find out more about The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton? 42:28 – Book giveaway information
Today’s post is a continuation of yesterday’s article, introducing the readers to twenty things they might not know about C.S. Lewis…
11. Lewis addressed the nation during World War Two
After the success of his book, The Problem of Pain, Lewis was invited by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) to speak on the radio to the nation during World War Two. These radio addresses later became the basis for one of Lewis’ best known books, Mere Christianity. As well as arguing for the existence of God, he used these broadcasts to defend the basic tenets of Christianity which are held across all Christian denominations.
12. He wrote many books, across many different genres
Mere Christianity was just one of the thirty or so books Jack wrote. What is particularly amazing about his vast literary output, even aside from the fact that he wrote every line with a dip pen, is that his works are of many literary styles. Lewis produced apologetics, fairy tales, science fiction, essays, autobiography, poetry and anthologies, as well as his academic work in literary criticism. In fact, you might say that he was a “Jack of all genres”…. 😉
All these successful books earned Lewis considerable wealth, but he gave away about two thirds of his income. He did this anonymously through The Agape Fund which he established.
13. There’s more to Narnia than you might think…
Probably Lewis’ most well-known works are The Chronicles of Narnia. Many of these have received TV and movie adaptations. These books were read to me as a child and, while the Narnia stories seemed to me somehow familiar, I didn’t fully grasp the Christian nature of these books until much later. However, Lewis was very quick to argue that Narnia wasn’t simply Christian allegory. Instead, he called it an “imaginative supposal”. He said:
Suppose there were a Narnian world and it, like ours, needed redemption. What kind of Incarnation and Passion might Christ be supposed to undergo there?
C.S. Lewis
Lewis understood the power of story-telling and its ability to smuggle ideas past our “watchful dragons” of prejudice. Stories allow us to encounter ideas afresh and with renewed potency. He had been affected by this himself, many years before when he read George MacDonald’s Phantastes, which he described as baptising his imagination.
However, there are even more layers to the Chronicles of Narnia! About ten years ago, Dr. Michael Ward (a convert to Catholicism and the 100th priest of the newly-formed Anglican Ordinariate), published his book Planet Narnia, which argued convincingly that Lewis had based The Chronicles of Narnia upon the medieval cosmos. Each of the books correspond to one of the seven heavens and planets. For example, Prince Caspian is associated with the planet Mars which is, in turn associated with war and trees, motifs which we find interlaced throughout that book.
14. A pen friend to many
Not only was Lewis a “man of letters”, he was also a prolific letter-writer. For example, he regularly corresponded with his Irish childhood friend, Arthur Greeves, for over half a decade!
With Lewis’ celebrity, came many more letters, sent to him by adults as well as children. Jack took this responsibility very seriously and spent several hours a day writing responses to the avalanche of fan mail. There’s even an adorable letter from a mother whose child was worried that he loved Aslan more than Jesus.
15. He was snubbed at Oxford, but recognised at Cambridge
Despite his acclaim and popularity as a lecturer, Lewis was many times overlooked for promotion at Oxford University. The commonly accepted reason for this was that he wrote and spoke openly about his Christianity. Many felt it unbecoming of a man in his position, particularly one who didn’t even belong to the Theology Faculty. Fortunately, Cambridge University created a position specifically for him which, after some persistent pestering, he eventually accepted.
This wasn’t the only prize he was invited to accept. Lewis was offered a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by the Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1951, but Lewis declined it, saying that he feared it might politicise his apostolate.
16. He wasn’t Catholic, but often sounded a lot like one
Many Catholics are surprised to discover that Lewis wasn’t actually a Catholic himself. This is understandable when one looks at some of Lewis’ beliefs. For example, he wrote about the Sacraments, spoke highly of the Blessed Sacrament, he believed in Purgatory and praying for the dead and regularly went to auricular confession to an Anglican priest.
Although he tried to avoid talking about his opposition to Catholicism, when pressed he cited the authority of the Pope and the veneration of Our Lady as his chief complaints. However, his Catholic friend Tolkien blamed what he called Lewis’ “Ulsterior Motive”, suggesting that the deep-seated distrust of Catholics which he had been taught as a boy in Ireland never entirely left him. Lewis himself admits to this kind of childhood indoctrination when he recounts his first meeting Tolkien:
At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both
C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy
Despite Jack’s resistance to embracing Catholicism, he is very much loved by Catholics. Both Pope St. John-Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI were very familiar with his work and spoke of it. Not only that, but many, many people credit Lewis, at least in part, with their conversion to Catholicism. This list of people includes those such as Dr. Peter Kreeft, Fr. Dwight Longernecker, Thomas Howard, as well as Lewis’ own secretary, Walter Hooper.
17. He lived most of his life as a bachelor, but married late in life
Lewis had lived most of his life as a bachelor. However, among the many letters he received from fans, one was from an American poet and writer named Joy Gresham. The two quickly developed a firm friendship. Joy visited England and eventually moved there with her two sons. When it seemed that the British Government was going to force them to leave the country, Lewis offered her a civil marriage so that she and her children could legally stay in England.
Joy and Jack Lewis
Unfortunately, shortly after they had obtained a civil marriage certificate, Joy was diagnosed with cancer. She was not expected to live long. Suddenly faced with the possibility of losing her, Jack realized his deeper feelings for his friend. They were married at her hospital bed by one of Jack’s friends who was an Anglican priest. Afterwards, the clergyman prayed and laid hands on Joy. To everyone’s surprise, she was granted a remission of four years before the cancer returned. Heartbroken by her death, he chronicled his mourning in his moving book, A Grief Observed.
18. He is probably one of the most misquoted men on the Internet
As we all know, Abraham Lincoln warned us not to believe all quotations we see on the Internet! This is particularly true of Lewis, who seems to have his name attached to many quotations which he never actually said.
In fact, when I was in Oxford a few weeks ago, while looking at the various Inklings-themed walking tours, I found one which cost a whopping $335, but which, even aside from the numerous spelling mistakes on the website, included this quotation attributed to C.S. Lewis:
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream”
Not C.S. Lewis!
Unfortunately, he never said it and I find that people on the Internet don’t appreciate it when I point such things! I would recommend that if anyone would like to verify a C.S. Lewis quotation, that they look it up in William O’Flaherty’s book, The Misquotable C.S. Lewis.
19. His death was overshadowed
Lewis died in his bed on November 22nd, 1963 at the age of 64. This was the same day on which Aldous Huxley died, and the same day on which President John F. Kennedy was killed. As such, Lewis’ death was largely overlooked as JFK’s assination dominated the news that day and in the subsequent weeks.
Aldous Huxley
President Kennedy
Jack’s funeral was small and his brother, Warnie, who had always struggled with alcoholism, was finding comfort at the bottom of a bottle of whisky.
20. He won most arguments, except one
Lewis’ secretary, Walter Hooper likes to say that he lost every argument he ever had with Jack…except one. Lewis was convinced that nobody would continue reading his books following his death, whereas Hooper said he was certain that their popularity would continue. Not only would Hooper be vindicated by history, he would have a hand in ensuring that his friend’s legacy would endure.
In the years following Lewis’ death, Hooper released a number of new works, previously unpublished, including several volumes of Jack’s letters. However, Hooper demanded that with each new book he gave to the publishers, that they re-release two of Jack’s older works, thus keeping his books continuously in print.
Today Lewis’ popularity is greater than ever. His books continue to sell in large numbers and Netflix recently purchased the rights to The Chronicles of Narnia! Six years ago on the 50th anniversary of Jack’s death, he was officially recognised at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey (London) as one of the great British writers. The Episcopal Church have even honoured him with a Collect in their Liturgical Calendar:
“O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis, whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike; Surprise us also with thy joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen” – Collect of the Episcopal Church
