Tolkien & Lewis

[Gilthalion]

Really some great speculation here, much of it seems to me to be near the mark! (I say that because much of it seems to match my own speculations! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] )

Perhaps the following quote will shed a little more light on C.S. Lewis's spiritual experience. It does not speak directly to Tolkien's involvement.

From Show Me God by Fred Heerin:

It was....in 1929 that C.S. Lewis, the renowned Oxford professor, had his atheism greatly shaken while listening to an atheist friend acknowledge evidence that pointed to the historicity of the gospel accounts. "It almost looks as if it really happened once," his friend told him. Through a combination of events that year, Lewis was "converted" --not to Christianity, but to belief in a Supreme Being. After narrowing his choices to Hinduisim and Christianity, he began using his knowledge of languages and literature to make a study of the Bible, beginning with a daily reading of John's gospel in the original Greek. Lewis was amazed, later writing: "I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this."

At the same time that Einstein was peering through Hubble's telescope and formally admitting the implications of an expanding universe, Lewis was admitting the implications of a gospel documents that had all the marks of authenticity. But Lewis went a step further than Einstein, passing from belief in a Superintellect to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, describing the experience, not as an emotional one, but saying, "It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake."

It is in the third chapter of John that Jesus proclaimed, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

I have never found any believer, whether Roman Catholic, or Protestant who "winced" at the term "born again." I would not dispute that there are many hypocritical church members who get rather upset at this single central-most truth of Christianity. But I have difficulty believing that devout Christians of Tolkien's or Lewis's character would "wince" at Billy Graham doing their Lord's precise and unambiguous bidding.

I could as easily imagine Faramir or Aragorn wincing at the rustic customs of true-hearted hobbits on the quest they shared. Perhaps they could not help but smile at Sam's sayings, or laugh at Pippin's foolishness. But did they hold the hobbits in the contempt implied by "wincing" at their purest faith? Sounds more like something Denethor might do and that Saruman would do.

Perhaps I do them too much credit, but I think our favorite Oxford dons (at least in this thread!) had nobler hearts than that. Especially if they were themselves, "born again." [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

For what it is worth, though I perhaps identify more closely with Lewis on a personal level, I think Tolkien's criticisms were right on the mark. Aside from the Screwtape Letters, I do not care for his stories. His Narnia tales were a struggle for me to read, and his science fiction was interesting, but gloomy and strange. Some unfinished short stories were even worse! I think he tried too hard in his tales to make of all of them a conscious Christian allegory. (But that was his purpose, so I can't complain, can I? Who has done a better job of that?) But Lewis's best works, in my opinion, were his nonfiction pieces.

A lot of Tolkien's loyalty to the Catholic church is deemed due to his mother's mistreatment by folk who despised Catholicism. Lewis's affiliation with the Anglicans may well have played some part in the cooling of their friendship, in that land of so much bitter history between folk professing divergent faiths.

I also agree that Lewis's time and interests becoming occupied by his success and his marriage would no doubt result in their bond of friendship growing, if not weaker, then at least thinner.

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: Gilthalion ]