Thursday after Ash Wednesday: Introduction Notes

An Introduction

The recording is on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ZTyyMr7ee2E?si=1A9ZT5IbffdMuHJ_

The Propers (Prayer and Scripture Readings) for Today can be found by clicking HERE.

Looking for a good theology book to read this Lent that just might make you laugh???  OK I know that humor is not what we usually think about when it comes to THEOLOGY or LENT. 

Lent is an opportunity to take stock of our lives and those things that are getting in the way of our relationship with God.   The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is an excellent book to guide us in this kind of Lenten discipline.  What better way to learn about God and our relationship with God than through the letters of one demon in hell to another.  More about that in a minute.

The Screwtape Letters is a Christian apologetic satire.  Apologetics is a branch of theology that defends Christianity.  The Apostle Paul defended Christianity in all of his Epistles.  A few other Apologists whose names you may recognize were Thomas Aquinas, Justin Martyr, G. K. Chesterton, and one of my favorite contemporary authors – N. T. Wright.

Lewis came up with the idea for The Screwtape Letters during a weekday service at his home parish in Oxford.  Through a series of 31 letters between an uncle and his nephew who just happen to be demons literally from Hell, Lewis describes how we are tempted and separated from God and how God forgives and brings us back. 

This will be a Lenten devotional study from a very different approach.  Each day, Monday through Saturday, from now until Palm Sunday, a new episode will be posted online looking at the next letter from Uncle Screwtape to Nephew Wormwood.  Specifically, we will answer 2 questions:

1. What is Screwtape trying to tell Wormwood about how we humans think and act?

2. What do we learn about God?

You can follow this study each day and if you miss a day or two, you can always go back and catch up.  I do hope you will buy the book and read the letters.  You can find it on Amazon.  I will post my notes on my blog, Inner Driving, at www.innerdriving.blogspot.com when each recording is published.  I’d also recommend the John Cleese recordings of The Screwtape Letters on YouTube.  Leave any questions in the comments section.

Now I want to spend the next part of our time today introducing you to C.S. Lewis.

 

C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis
29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898. His maternal grandfather was a Church of Ireland priest and two of his great, great grandfathers were Bishops in the Church of Ireland. 

But a teenager, Lewis abandoned Christianity following the death of his mother.  He developed a keen interest in European and Norse mythology and the ancient literature of Scandinavia.

In 1916, he was awarded a scholarship at University College, Oxford and began his studies in the summer of 1917.  When World War I began, like many other classmates, Lewis joined the Officers’ Training Corps at the university.  He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the British Army and shipped to France where he fought in the trenches.  In April of 1918, Lewis was wounded and reassigned to Andover, England.  Shortly thereafter, he returned to his studies.

At Oxford, Lewis graduated with honors in Greek and Latin literature, Philosophy and Ancient History, and English.  In 1924, he became a Philosophy Tutor at University College, Oxford and in 1925 started teaching English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford.

While at Oxford, Lewis became great friends with J. R. R. Tolkien and this friendship combined with the writings of George McDonald and G. K. Chesterton led him back to Christianity and to the Church of England at the age of 32.  

When England entered World War II, Lewis tried to rejoin the army but was turned down because of his age.  He was able to join the local Home Guard in Oxford, a volunteer citizen militia.  And it was also during this time that Lewis was recruited by the BBC to give the talks that eventually became one of his most famous books, Mere Christianity.

In 1954, Lewis was named the chair in Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

Lewis began corresponding in later life with Joy Davidman Gresham, a Jewish American poet and author.  She moved to the UK with her 2 sons, and they were married in 1956.  She died in 1960 of bone cancer.  

Lewis’s grief over Joy’s death led to his book A Grief Observed which describes his experience of bereavement. 

Lewis continued teaching at Cambridge until his retirement in August 1963 brought on by kidney disease.  He died on November 22, 1963, the same day JFK was assassinated and, on a much happier note, on the same day my wife, Phyllis, celebrated her 4^th birthday.

There is much more to the life of C. S. Lewis and a few minutes online reading his biography would be time well spent.

Lewis was often asked if he believed in the existence of the Devil and his demons, particularly after The Screwtape Letters was published.  In the Preface to the 1961 edition of the book, Lewis reminds us that the devil is most definitely not “a power opposite to God.”  That belief is called Dualism and is Christian.

Demons are fallen angels, and the devil is their leader.  So, the opposite of the devil would be the Archangel Michael.

When we talk about hell, Lewis says that “We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.” 

Another way of putting it is – Angels draw us closer to God!  Demons work to make sure we think only of ourselves.

Tomorrow, we will begin with the Preface and Letter 1.  Remember, C.S. Lewis is teaching us about God – it’s just coming in a very backwards kind of way!!