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C.S. Lewis: A Friend of Mennonites?

Douglas B. Miller

One day in the 1950s, Mennonite historian Guy F. Hershberger and his wife Clara were visiting England and decided to drop in on renowned Christian writer C. S. Lewis unannounced. They found him in his office and, though they were total strangers, were warmly welcomed. Other Mennonites have also found Lewis worth a visit, though more often, as I have done, through his writings. His insights on temptation and the nature of love; his challenge to think clearly about issues of faith; and the literary pictures he has painted of the “new earth”, the union of God’s holiness and love, and the joy of God’s presence have been especially helpful for me.

For some time, though, I gave little thought to the possibility of Anabaptist-like elements in Lewis’s understanding of faith. His rejection of pacifism, for example, is clear from his lecture, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist”, although he did acknowledge the dangers of nationalism and civil religion. However, more recently I have begun to notice some areas of compatibility between Lewis and early Anabaptists (the 16th-century theological ancestors of Mennonites).

Atonement

Anabaptists and Mennonites have rightly been troubled by certain theological interpretations of the atonement – models developed to describe the significance of Christ’s death for human beings. Some theological models celebrate the work of Christ while eliminating any rationale for Christ’s disciples to follow Him in life. The “satisfaction” model attributed to Anselm (died 1117) is commonly known today in the “legal substitution” version associated with John Calvin (1509-64). Here God is presented as a judge who condemns the guilty while Christ offers Himself as a substitute to bear the punishment of the condemned. This is troublesome because once the pardon has been declared, any further actions of the released criminal seem irrelevant.

The “moral influence” model of Abelard (12th century) presents the atonement as freeing humans from their fear of a wrathful God. This freedom results from a recognition that Christ loved them enough to suffer and die on their behalf. This model likewise fails to include any rationale for faithful obedience.

The Anabaptists of the 16th century affirmed the role of Christ’s death in salvation, but refused to relinquish the importance of following Christ in life. For them, Christ’s role in bringing believers to a reconciled relationship with God included not only His death, but also His teaching and others aspects of His earthly ministry, as well as His resurrection. Anabaptists thus put more emphasis than other Protestants on the believer’s cooperation with the Holy Spirit to live as God intended.

C.S. Lewis, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, presents a version of the classic “Christ the Victor” model of the atonement rather than the “satisfaction” or “moral influence” models. The classic model depicts Christ battling and defeating the devil and then freeing those whom the devil has enslaved. This approach to the atonement, based on texts such as Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45 and 1 Corinthians 6:20, was adopted by early church leaders such as Irenaeus, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. In the Narnia story, the lion Aslan, the Christ figure, attacks and nearly destroys the embodiment of evil, the White Witch. However, she demands her right to the life of one of the human children, Edmund, who has been a traitor. Aslan acknowledges her right to Edmund, but offers himself in Edmund’s place. The substitution is accepted, Edmund is freed, and Aslan is killed; yet the great lion rises from the dead to finally defeat and destroy the witch.

The role of Christ as ransom in most versions of the classic model may raise the same objections as the “legal substitution” model: The ransom has been paid and the enslaved set free, so discipleship appears unnecessary. But Lewis’s version of the classic model presents an important distinctive: The children participate in the battle against evil, both before and after Aslan’s resurrection. Defeat of evil is sure because of Christ, but Christ’s faithful followers continue in the battle (obedient discipleship) until the end of the age. For Lewis, the atonement of Christ and the responsibility of His followers go together in God’s struggle against evil. One could wish that Lewis would also have envisioned how the way of Christ in attacking evil is also a model for believers

Christ and discipleship

Lewis’s understanding of Christ as both divine and human can be traced back to the councils of Nicaea (AD 325) and Chalcedon (AD 451). Yet for Lewis, there is an intimate connection between Christology and discipleship. Lewis explains that Christ is able to provide the help we need – like a guide putting us back on the right road – because in His humanity He has faced our problems and in His divinity He has accomplished the solutions. As a result, the believer is now on the right road – and continues to walk on that road, which symbolizes the outworking of salvation (Philippians 2:12-13). Thus, according to Lewis, “the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” Thus “Every Christian is to become a little Christ.” Concerning his novel Till We Have Faces, Lewis explained that the character Psyche was “in some ways like Christ because every good man or woman is like Christ. What else could they be like?” Ways in which Psyche is like Christ include childlike joyousness, service for others and a willingness to become a sacrifice on their behalf.

Anabaptists of the 16th century wrote in similar terms to explain God’s goals for disciples. Balthasar Hubmaier stressed that Christ’s work enables the restoration of believers so that they cooperate with God in choosing good. Menno Simons focused on how Christ’s life and teaching provide an example for believers, including His death and resurrection. Pilgram Marpeck advocated a personal sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

According to Lewis as well as the Anabaptists, Christ’s command to “be perfect” (Matthew 5:48) is nonoptional and involves a process of transformation (Romans 12:2) and growth (Ephesians 4:15; 1 Peter 2:2). We are to become “little Christs”, a process neither the Anabaptists nor Lewis thought would be completed during our earthly lives. On the command to be perfect, Lewis cautions that some people think Jesus meant “Unless you are perfect, I will not help you,” when He really meant “The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less; but I will give you nothing less” (Mere Christianity).

Church

Lewis, after abandoning his parents’ faith at a young age and declaring himself an atheist, returned to the Christian fold in his early thirties. Specifically he became a committed and active member of the Anglican Church, the church of his heritage. Lewis declared the multiple divisions of Christendom to be “a sin and a scandal” in the light of Jesus’ prayer that His followers be “one” (John 17:20-23). Yet Lewis was critical of his own denomination, particularly those within it who embraced liberalism (which he called “Christianity-and-water”). He criticized biblical and theological scholars, not for causing divisions, but for abandoning the historic faith.

Sixteenth-century Anabaptists were also willing to separate from other Christians who violated what they considered essential. They criticized the learned theologians of their day much as Lewis did the liberal Christian intellectuals of his time. Both were alarmed that the essential goal of discipleship after Christ was being lost.

Visible and Essential. Lewis also shared with Anabaptists an understanding of the essential role of the church in salvation. In Lewis’s autobiographical allegory The Pilgrim’s Regress, the role of the church (“Mother Kirk”) was so strong that many readers assumed Lewis was a Roman Catholic. Lewis, however, rejected Roman Catholicism, using Scripture to criticize traditions such as transubstantiation, the veneration of Mary and the authority of the pope. Yet his insistence on a visible church, essential for salvation, both links him to the Anabaptists and separates him from Spiritualists (who taught that the church was nonessential) and from Protestants such as Martin Luther. Luther taught that the true church was invisible (the visible institution would be composed of both believers and unbelievers) and that salvation did not depend upon any human institution.

We can notice a development in Lewis’s conviction that the church is essential. When asked about this in 1944, he simply cited the benefit he had received from church participation (despite his reclusiveness and loathing of hymns), in particular losing his conceit toward other believers. A year later, he spoke more confidently, citing Hebrews 10:25 – which forbids the neglect of assembling together – and describing the church using the biblical images of family, body and temple. Church is a unity of unlikes, he said, an interdependence of people who cannot remain alive without each other. Then, in a letter written Dec. 7, 1950, he insisted that “the New Testament does not envisage solitary religion; some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted in the Epistles. So we must be regular practising members of the Church.”

It is not so clear how much Lewis believed in a covenanted or committed local fellowship, although he regularly attended the same parish church till the end of his life. Like Lewis, Anabaptists understood the church to be a visible body of believers, membership in which was integral to salvation. Yet the level of that commitment, involving the sharing of goods, for example, was even more highly pronounced for them than for Lewis.

Voluntary. For Lewis, the church was also a voluntary society, the invitation to which should come without any coercion beyond the spiritual or intellectual. When he said, “I detest every kind of religious compulsion”, he allied himself with the “free” or “believers’” church tradition advocated by the Anabaptists in the 16th century. This was in opposition both to Roman Catholics and to Protestant leaders such as Zwingli, Calvin and Luther who defined the believing community by political and geographical boundary lines.

Lewis’s reflects this rejection of a state church when he uses the phrase “become a Christian”. In a society where church and state are united, no one “becomes” a Christian because everyone is baptized into Christendom a few days after birth. In contrast, in The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape says to Wormwood, “I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian.” That is, this person has made a deliberate decision to join the fellowship of God’s people which they were not part of previously.

Power through Weakness. Lewis depicts the fellowship of faith as having a power which comes through its weakness and innocence. In his novel That Hideous Strength, a humble, mostly naive group gathered at St. Anne’s contributes, largely unknowingly, to the downfall of a horrific evil power. This group serves as an alternate community, living by standards and motivated by goals strictly opposite of those around them – which is essentially an Anabaptist understanding of the church.

Mennonites who appreciate C. S. Lewis do so, no doubt, for a number of reasons. While important differences remain between Lewis and Anabaptism, there also remains a significant theological comradeship, especially regarding the atonement, Christ and discipleship, and the believing community.

Douglas B. Miller is Associate Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan. This article is adapted from a much longer article.

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Last modified April 17, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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