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Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age
I've always had this problem with Lewis. It's not just a matter of one thing preparing us for something else. And it goes beyond Bethberry's question of texts (though that is definitely part of it). I've always felt that Lewis is asking us to strip off a chunk of who we are, in effect to purge some of our "modern" tastes in order to comply with his perceptions of what the ideal reader should be. I get less of that sense from Tolkien. He seems to paint with a wider and less dogmatic brush. But even with Tolkien I sometimes catch just a whiff of that.
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Originally Posted by davem
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Lewis was not aiming to teach children Christianity with the Narnia books. He wanted to introduce similar ideas that would make it easier for children to accept Christianity: what he called "a sort of pre-baptism of the child's imagination." (George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C S Lewis)
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So Lewis seems to have meant something along the lines of 'preparation for baptism'. I'm reminded of something Tolkien said about his stories being aimed at those readers with a 'still undarkened heart' (or something along those lines). 'Purged of the gross' also seems to come into it. Tolkien is writing for those whose hearts are still undarkened, & I suppose those 'surviving' in that state will respond to any glimpse of light they see.
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Okay, so what I am seeing here is a certain condition or predisposition. You know, this begins to sound suspiciously like predestination of a literary kind.
Augustine, Calvin, Lewis, Tolkien . . . brrrrrr!