I have, although I never finished that first essay. I need to go back and read it. I agree that Lewis is both. As for cringemaxxing, the problem is when you assume an action is good because it is cringe. That’s a quick slide into edgelord territory. But I’m all for learning to embrace the cringe when necessary.
I would be interested to hear what you think about that upheaval post, Rebekkah. I think we come from similar experience within American faith-sludge and the leaving of the same from the little bit a gather at the edges here. Though parts of the post carry things I ring with, something in the surety of location of the tower in need of storming, especially the end roll, has that whiff of love of war and ease of enemy to it. I always approach this sort of Christianity with a WWHD (what would Hecate do) geiger counter and something radiates from it that is too easy with us/them for me. As a descendant of Ukrainian Jews I get the history of the reality that sometimes there is in fact a them, but I find the Ellulian critique of Technique more Yeshua-like than the rage against the machine because it allows less certainty of neighbor, complicity, and even unexpected holiness even within the center of the supposed Thing.
I love Lewis, even where I can't follow into a room he inhabits. I think he conflates magic and sorcery sometimes in a way that tilts the table toward the witch hunters whereas I suspect the Messianic to be more team witch. But I love his letters and his less orthodox parts that he lets fly on occasion. Definitely genius. Certainly not my man on gender. His Merlin though...so good....
It’s funny, I’ve tried to read that essay several times and can never get through it. I agree with you on the storming the tower bit- one of the reasons I feel trepidation about even posting something about Lewis is that it is so easy to get drawn into the “we must reclaim Christendom and the west!” territory that I get from people like Lyons and Jonathan Pageau, who I discovered ran a course on Lewis’s Space Trilogy this summer- possibly inspired by Lyons.
At the same time- I share Lewis’s love and nostalgia for the medieval world, even if I know (as he did) that we can’t go back there. It will be interesting to see how I receive the Space Trilogy now. When I read it a lifetime ago, I do remember being a bit irked on his notions of gender in that series. I suspect I will still find them somewhat ham-fisted, even if I have come around to questioning a lot of the narratives of feminism and longing for some good old fashioned gender normativity these days, at least a little bit. I suppose I want to have my cake and eat it too.
As for What would Hekate do? Always an excellent question. I like to keep her in the back of my mind any time I’m tempted to get too pious or supercilious.
Also- agreed about his suspicion of magic and tarring it all as evil. I don’t know that I would draw a big distinction between magic and sorcery myself. I know a number of sorcerers whom I respect, and I’ve seen people use the magic of the church to nefarious ends. I am generally an alchemist in that I think the trick is embracing the good and evil within ourselves and others covering it with love and compassion, and allowing that union to transmute into gold. Love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart and all that.
As for the less orthodox parts of Lewis, they were a lifeline to me as a struggling evangelical looking for a way out of the mad hive-mind of that culture. My favorite Inkling though is the occultiest of them all, Charles Williams, despite his slightly dodgy relationships with female colleagues. By all accounts Lewis was enthralled by him.
Fascinating that Lewis is so important to US evangelicals, and for the reason you give. Here in England my impression has been that belonging to an evangelical church normally means being much more modern, with the endless new songs on the theme of telling Jesus how amazing he is and very little liturgy. I'd need to have a chat with the local (evangelical) vicar to find out what he thinks of Lewis!
Evangelicalism definitely has a different character in Britain. It’s always been populist and aimed at “the common man”- and that, I think, is why there’s such an affinity for modern, slick worship styles and simplified feel-good theology (which I don’t think is all bad, even if it’s not my preference). But in the U.S. especially it became the religion of working and rural classes as opposed to the mainline elite, and there’s always been a sense evangelicals have of needing to differentiate themselves while also prove themselves as good as.
Growing up, we were taught not to listen to secular pop and rock music that would corrupt our minds. But there were Christian rock bands that aped popular styles, and when one of them gained even a small amount of success in the broader market, it was always seen as a vindication that what we had was just as good as “the world.” There’s always been the sense for evangelicals that Lewis too is “one of ours” who can nonetheless hold his own in the wider world.
One of the main differences between evangelicalism in the UK vs the US is that we had a big culture war split in the 1970’s-80’s where conservative politicians capitalized on the discomfort evangelicals felt over the increasingly secular direction of society and used it to polarize and politicize them, intensifying the evangelical sense of contrarianism and opposition.
I hear you on all this. I think I was maybe parroting an older belief regarding magic and sorcery that I hadn't really examined in a while. Prolly just cause I am reading the Matter with Things tonight I can't help but wonder if there is a left brain heavy approach to such business that, regardless of team or hometown, spins the act into a grab or an either/or bend of vision that gets in the business and turns it to a thing less than whole-making.
I was so immersed in inkling stuff in another lifetime that much of this is by memory. I haven't really returned to any of it since animism, the feminine half of G-d, and the multiplicity in general became normative for me. Except inkling adjacent MacDonald and Tolkien's stuff on fairy and Beowulf. I need to read the Discarded Image again. Oh....and of course Barfield is finally making some sense to me on this side of it all. Sorta. Does anyone really totally get him yet? I dunno.
I do have plans this season to pick a fight with the weight of glory sermon. So much depends on ending the conflation of world with earth.
I haven't read enough Williams to be honest. I read two or three of his novels, prolly before I was even fully a soul and never went back for no explainable reason. What's your top pick?
I feel like Lewis can be both. Have you seen this: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/a-prophecy-of-evil-tolkien-lewis, and this: https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/you-need-to-be-cringemaxxing
I have, although I never finished that first essay. I need to go back and read it. I agree that Lewis is both. As for cringemaxxing, the problem is when you assume an action is good because it is cringe. That’s a quick slide into edgelord territory. But I’m all for learning to embrace the cringe when necessary.
I would be interested to hear what you think about that upheaval post, Rebekkah. I think we come from similar experience within American faith-sludge and the leaving of the same from the little bit a gather at the edges here. Though parts of the post carry things I ring with, something in the surety of location of the tower in need of storming, especially the end roll, has that whiff of love of war and ease of enemy to it. I always approach this sort of Christianity with a WWHD (what would Hecate do) geiger counter and something radiates from it that is too easy with us/them for me. As a descendant of Ukrainian Jews I get the history of the reality that sometimes there is in fact a them, but I find the Ellulian critique of Technique more Yeshua-like than the rage against the machine because it allows less certainty of neighbor, complicity, and even unexpected holiness even within the center of the supposed Thing.
I love Lewis, even where I can't follow into a room he inhabits. I think he conflates magic and sorcery sometimes in a way that tilts the table toward the witch hunters whereas I suspect the Messianic to be more team witch. But I love his letters and his less orthodox parts that he lets fly on occasion. Definitely genius. Certainly not my man on gender. His Merlin though...so good....
It’s funny, I’ve tried to read that essay several times and can never get through it. I agree with you on the storming the tower bit- one of the reasons I feel trepidation about even posting something about Lewis is that it is so easy to get drawn into the “we must reclaim Christendom and the west!” territory that I get from people like Lyons and Jonathan Pageau, who I discovered ran a course on Lewis’s Space Trilogy this summer- possibly inspired by Lyons.
At the same time- I share Lewis’s love and nostalgia for the medieval world, even if I know (as he did) that we can’t go back there. It will be interesting to see how I receive the Space Trilogy now. When I read it a lifetime ago, I do remember being a bit irked on his notions of gender in that series. I suspect I will still find them somewhat ham-fisted, even if I have come around to questioning a lot of the narratives of feminism and longing for some good old fashioned gender normativity these days, at least a little bit. I suppose I want to have my cake and eat it too.
As for What would Hekate do? Always an excellent question. I like to keep her in the back of my mind any time I’m tempted to get too pious or supercilious.
Also- agreed about his suspicion of magic and tarring it all as evil. I don’t know that I would draw a big distinction between magic and sorcery myself. I know a number of sorcerers whom I respect, and I’ve seen people use the magic of the church to nefarious ends. I am generally an alchemist in that I think the trick is embracing the good and evil within ourselves and others covering it with love and compassion, and allowing that union to transmute into gold. Love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart and all that.
As for the less orthodox parts of Lewis, they were a lifeline to me as a struggling evangelical looking for a way out of the mad hive-mind of that culture. My favorite Inkling though is the occultiest of them all, Charles Williams, despite his slightly dodgy relationships with female colleagues. By all accounts Lewis was enthralled by him.
Fascinating that Lewis is so important to US evangelicals, and for the reason you give. Here in England my impression has been that belonging to an evangelical church normally means being much more modern, with the endless new songs on the theme of telling Jesus how amazing he is and very little liturgy. I'd need to have a chat with the local (evangelical) vicar to find out what he thinks of Lewis!
Evangelicalism definitely has a different character in Britain. It’s always been populist and aimed at “the common man”- and that, I think, is why there’s such an affinity for modern, slick worship styles and simplified feel-good theology (which I don’t think is all bad, even if it’s not my preference). But in the U.S. especially it became the religion of working and rural classes as opposed to the mainline elite, and there’s always been a sense evangelicals have of needing to differentiate themselves while also prove themselves as good as.
Growing up, we were taught not to listen to secular pop and rock music that would corrupt our minds. But there were Christian rock bands that aped popular styles, and when one of them gained even a small amount of success in the broader market, it was always seen as a vindication that what we had was just as good as “the world.” There’s always been the sense for evangelicals that Lewis too is “one of ours” who can nonetheless hold his own in the wider world.
One of the main differences between evangelicalism in the UK vs the US is that we had a big culture war split in the 1970’s-80’s where conservative politicians capitalized on the discomfort evangelicals felt over the increasingly secular direction of society and used it to polarize and politicize them, intensifying the evangelical sense of contrarianism and opposition.
I hear you on all this. I think I was maybe parroting an older belief regarding magic and sorcery that I hadn't really examined in a while. Prolly just cause I am reading the Matter with Things tonight I can't help but wonder if there is a left brain heavy approach to such business that, regardless of team or hometown, spins the act into a grab or an either/or bend of vision that gets in the business and turns it to a thing less than whole-making.
I was so immersed in inkling stuff in another lifetime that much of this is by memory. I haven't really returned to any of it since animism, the feminine half of G-d, and the multiplicity in general became normative for me. Except inkling adjacent MacDonald and Tolkien's stuff on fairy and Beowulf. I need to read the Discarded Image again. Oh....and of course Barfield is finally making some sense to me on this side of it all. Sorta. Does anyone really totally get him yet? I dunno.
I do have plans this season to pick a fight with the weight of glory sermon. So much depends on ending the conflation of world with earth.
I haven't read enough Williams to be honest. I read two or three of his novels, prolly before I was even fully a soul and never went back for no explainable reason. What's your top pick?