Shades of Unbelief

The beauty of an object is more brilliant when set in contrast with what is drab. The experience of joy is deeper after going through "bitter waters". And the many facets of faith are more clearly understood against the many shades of unbelief.

John wrote his gospel "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." (Jn 20:31) This theme is key to understanding John's gospel. What we believe about Jesus Christ determines our eternity -- of whether we have "passed out of death into life." (Jn 5:24)

In order to set the meaning of true belief in clear relief, John uses stark contrasts and irony. Consider the time when Jesus healed a sick man at the pool of Bethesda. (Jn 5:1-18) The Jews responded with hostility toward Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, and for "calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." (Jn 5:16,18) Jesus in turn responded by exposing the Jews' unbelief and thus, by contrast, teaching us about true belief.

The Jews condemned Jesus for making himself equal with God, for healing on the Sabbath. Yet Jesus affirmed "the Son can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the Father doing." (Jn 5:19) They thought, "how can he (a sinner by their standards) possibly do God's will and speak God's words", yet Jesus states that he cannot do and speak anything but the will and words of his Father. How ironic that Jesus performed miracles that could be only accomplished by the hand of God, yet they accused Him of acting independently of God, later even by the hand of Satan. Jesus as God's Son was dependent on the Father for everything, yet the Jews as mere men affirmed their righteousness though separated from God.

The Jewish leaders did not believe the Father had "given all judgment to the Son" (Jn 5:22). In "seeking to kill Him" (Jn 5:18) they thought they had power over his body. In fact, Jesus had power ultimately over their bodies and souls in the future hour of judgment when "all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice." (Jn 5:28)

What bitter irony for these men to not believe the Scriptures though they spent their lives diligently searching the Scriptures. "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of me." (Jn 5:39) Who did they esteem more than Moses, yet they did not believe him? "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of Me." (Jn 5:46)

In condemning Jesus for "breaking the Sabbath" (Jn 5:18) the Jews demonstrated they believed in a righteousness according to the works of the law. Yet Jesus affirmed that "he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life" (Jn 5:24)

Although the Jews believed in the merit of a righteous life, their unrighteous deeds condemned them; yet Jesus imparts a righteousness by faith that leads to a life of true righteousness. Jesus was certain of this outcome. The eternal life that began by hearing and believing (Jn 5:24) would end at the final judgment for "those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life." (Jn 5:29).

The Jews out of unbelief sought to put Jesus to death, yet Jesus in mercy spoke these things that they may be saved. (Jn 5:32)

Jesus affirmed "an hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live." (Jn5:25) But the Jews thought they were alive and yet they did not hear.

Jesus did not seek man's glory but rather God's glory alone; the Jews pretended they were searching for God's glory but rather cared only for the give and take of glory for one another. (Jn 5:41)

How easy for men to be deceived about eternal life. How remote we think the implications of Jesus' discussion with the Jews, and yet we should take heart. If we do not recognize the stark contrasts and ironies from this Scripture in our own lives and those around us, we risk repeating the same kind of unbelief. To understand what it means to believe in Jesus, we should know very clearly what it means for us to not believe in him.

The Testimony of Grace and Truth

The light of Jesus' glory shines with the spectral colors of truth and grace. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) God did not send to His people a testimony of truth alone by a messenger angel who appears for a moment and then departs. Nor did He send his Son for an example alone as merely a portrait of perfect humanity: of humility, divine love and self-denial. Christ was the Word made flesh -- a man walking in the truth. As the sun shines white light constituting all color, so the earth receives and reflects the light making visible all colors of the spectrum. Likewise, when men respond to Christ, they receive and reflect the spectral components of truth and grace.

This truth and grace in Jesus requires a response from men. John, in his gospel, uses the verb 'to believe', in its various usages, to describe this response. Interestingly, in the context of the gospel, the few who respond sometimes are said to believe in His truth and other times to believe in His grace or His person. On the one hand, 'to believe' (in John's gospel) emphasizes believing the truth: "His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken." (John 2:22). "...and many more believed because of His word" (John 4:21) On the other hand, 'to believe' emphasizes the embracing or receiving the fullness of Jesus' grace: "...even to those who believe in His name." (John 1:12) "He who believes in the Son has eternal life..." (John 3:36)

Therefore, as Christians, who ought to walk in the same manner as He walked (1 John 2:6), who are called to practice the truth (1 John 1:6), this testimony of truth and grace seen in Jesus life should be imitated in our own lives. Our witness of God's glory, as individuals and as a church, must burn and shine with truth and godly example. Christians are a letter of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God (truth) on tablets of human hearts (grace) known and read by all men. (2 Cor 3:3)

We search Paul's epistles for their theology, yet may neglect the rich example of his godly life. For example, to the Thessalonians Paul wrote: "...for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction..." (1 Thes 1:5) And further "But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us." (1 Thes 2:7,8)

Likewise, Peter appeals to the scattered elect. Not only were they to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light, (1 Pet 2:9) but also he admonishes: "Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds...glorify God in the day of visitation." (1 Pet 2:12)

To Peter, the effect of godly suffering for doing what is right makes visible the best of the grace of Christ. The best we can do in putting God's grace on display in our lives is to patiently endure suffering. The seed of early church growth was by the blood of martyrs, so now, in our day, the brilliance of God's glory is made most visible in our suffering. "For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously..." (1 Pet 2:21-23)

As Christ was full of truth and grace, and the glory of God radiated with these spectral colors, so ought the church, the body of Christ in the present world. The saving message of the gospel will be presented with the most power when we "walk in the truth" and especially by the example of our patient endurance in suffering. It is from this platform we may be asked for the hope that is in us.

(Emphasis added to all scripture references.)

A Call for Reformation in the Sciences

There is much in the news recently about introducing "intelligent design" into biology curriculum. On one side, for example, Pat Robertson calls for God's wrath on the city of Dover (Pa.) for voting "God out of your city", whereas on the other, Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist, describes the fight over evolution to be "so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment".

Krauthammer affirms that "juxtaposing religion and evolution is nonsensical". He warns of science being redefined to include faith and the supernatural. He affirms that each discipline, science and religion, should be kept in its own place. For example, mocking the intelligent design position, he states "that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says. 'I think I'll make a lemur today.'"

The irony of the conflict is that those criticizing intelligent design as being unscientific embrace a philosophy that is equally unscientific. It is not a battle between science and religion, but of one religion (or philosophy) against another. For example, many evolutionists, while on the one hand denying the personal influence of religion or a subjective world view, on the other, with religious zeal, purge and censor scientists who hint at doubting Darwinism. The world view that affirms a sovereign, creator God is a threat to their materialistic world view.

With honest insight, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin states: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs ... because we have a prior commitment to materialism... Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.” (Lewontin)

The scientific peer-review process is another example of this irony. Acceptance and publication of peer reviewed science journal articles guide the science. Scientific pursuit is driven by which articles get published. The process is valuable. It is useful, for example, to advise government policy makers how they should rule in a development along a salmon river.

Yet the review process always includes the question, "Is this paper interesting or significant?" If not, it will not be published. "[The] reviewers are doing much more than checking the experimental methods, data collection, and the appropriateness of the conclusions, and thus their beliefs and values enter into the process at many points." (Dewberry)

So what are the competing world views or philosophies? The Materialist (or Naturalist) believes that this universe is "the whole show", that it exists "on its own" in space and time, that it is a closed system of cause and effect, and outside this system nothing else exists. "The Supernaturalist believes that one Thing exists on its own and has produced the framework of space and time and the procession of systematically connected events which fill them." (Lewis, pg 17) Francis Schaeffer simply describes materialism as the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system as compared to the uniformity of natural causes in an open system.

Today, most scientists operate from a materialistic world view. There once was a time when science operated from a supernaturalistic philosophy. "The early scientists shared the outlook of Christianity in believing there is a reasonable God, who had created a reasonable universe; and thus man, by use of his reason, could find out the universe's form. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Copernicus (1475-1543), Galileo (1564-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), Faraday (1791-1867), and Maxwell (1831-1879) looked upon the universe, and carried on their work as scientists, in this framework." (Schaeffer, pg 226) The resulting Copernican Revolution was the beginning of modern science.

So what are the implications for the evolution debate? The question is not that evolution is scientific and Intelligent Design is unscientific, but that both are bound to a philosophy or world view. The Intelligent Design debate is framed as religion encroaching on the sacred domain of science. In truth it is a battle of world views. Who has the authority to determine the world view under which science progresses?

"At the dawn of modern science, it was the Catholic Church that argued that the authority of science rested with the community of practitioners (theirs, of course). It was the Copernicans, especially Galileo, who argued that the authority of science and truth rested with the individual scientist. Moving the authority of science to the individual scientist was one of the key steps in the Copernican Revolution and the foundation of modern science. We have essentially come full circle. We just replaced one priesthood for another." (Dewberry)

Charles Krauthammer, Insulting Science and Religion, Washington Post, Dec 2005
Francis Schaeffer, Trilogy, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, copyright 1990
Richard Lewontin, New York Review of Books, Jan 9, 1997
Charles Dewberry, World, interview by Marvin Olasky, Jan 14, 2006
C. S. Lewis, Miracles, Touchstone Books, copyright 1947

Seek Her as Silver, An Introduction

Watching a music student progress slowly into a skillful musician illustrates wisdom. The process includes instruction and correction, trial and error, the gradual discernment of mind and muscle to make the correct sounds, the need for relentless practice, and after a long time she becomes a skilled musician -- or we could say, becomes 'music-wise'.

Like the musician, godly living is a skill to be learned, requiring knowledge, discernment, understanding and practice.

The opening verses of Proverbs introduce us to key terms which need to be defined.

"To know wisdom and instruction,
To perceive the words of understanding..." (Prv. 1:2)

The Hebrew adjective for 'wise' can also be rendered as 'skillful' or 'practical'. "[From the point of view of the Old Testament] religious experience was not a routine, a ritual or a faith experience. It was viewed as a mastery of the art of living in accordance with God's expectations." (1.) A secular example of the use of this word is found in Exodus where two artisans were chosen who had skill in teaching their trades. "...and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of artistic workmanship." (Ex. 35:31)

The Hebrew verb 'to understand' can be defined as: "to be prudent, act wisely, give attention to, ponder, prosper." The idea of 'giving attention to' and pondering is brought out in the following parallelism: "That they may see, and know, and consider and understand." (Isa. 41:20) 1.

If it is something that comes from God as a source, we ought to desire it, whatever it may be. Yet for the most part we seldom think about wisdom -- practical, godly, skillful living. For example, we bury ourselves eight feet deep in the doctrine of atonement, yet do not think much about our relationship with our supervisor. The natural response of the teaching of the supremacy of God is loving obedience, yet, we do not "seek her as silver, and search for her as hidden treasures" (Prv 2:4) as we ought.

This wisdom is largely earth-bound. We are not elevated to the heavens. It is commonplace -- as plain as a father warning his son of the immoral woman, as everyday as wisdom lifting up her voice in the square and at the head of the noisy streets, and as simple as the teaching of the ant, or the bird of the air, or the grass of the field.

If we love our Lord Jesus Christ because of his death, we should also love him for his life. By his death we have obtained deliverance from God's wrath and sin's power. But by his life of perfect obedience he has accomplished our righteousness. "But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption." (1 Cor 1:30) From the gospels we are drawn to the passages of Jesus teaching or his prayer, yet we should love every description of his life. If we "fill up what is lacking in Christ's affliction", in acknowledgment of his death, so we ought to be an eager student of his wisdom, in recognition of his life, walking in a manner worthy of Christ Jesus.

So we should approach the study of wisdom in light of its heavenly origin and its relationship to Christ. We should pursue it with the effort of the hard-rock miner who penetrates the solid granite to bring up its treasure. We should follow hard after it, as though imitating Christ, as the music student who labors for years to be like her teacher.

"Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom." (Jas 3:13)

1. Nelson's Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Why Write?

It is deeply etched into our nature to be creative. It is no accident that man, created in God's image, has this unique capacity. We watch our children, laugh and marvel at their play, as they create worlds in their minds. We extol artists accomplished in their discipline and think, perhaps, this domain belongs only to the gifted or the elite. Yet we experience folk art, even graffiti, growing out of the dry soil of poverty and ignorance -- sometimes wonderful and sometimes bizarre.

I have noticed in overseeing my children's music lessons that art cannot be created 'in a vacuum'. So on the one hand it is in our nature, yet on the other there is a need for outside inspiration. We find music beautifully performed and give it to our children hoping that they may be inspired. Yet, where did the master obtain his vision? And so on, recursively, we wonder where it started.

I believe all light 'starts' from, through and in God, from his word and from his creation. So then the Christian has the best inspiration, the well spring of all creativity, coming from the original creator.

Christians have a special relationship to writing. We are regarded as the 'people of the Book.' We 'covet' of good books. We are inspired and our lives are changed by these books. But have you ever considered writing yourself?

Why should we write?

1) Your life was changed for eternity possibly by a very simple written gospel message. So write that you may 'incarnate' truth into your world for the purpose of changing the lives of others. John Bunyan probably had no idea of the far reaching effects of his decision one day to write an allegory about a pilgrim.

2) You should write because you have some responsibility of teaching. This may be a mother to her children, or a pastor his church. We all have some sphere of teaching, whether to great or small, many or few. And the light that God gives is usually a slow steady stream over time, not an avalanche at the time of preparation.

3) Write in order to hold fast the wisdom God has given you. Proverbs reminds us, once wisdom has been given, to hold onto it. It is to be kept, not to let escape, be turned away from, or forgotten, held fast, bound to the neck, and written upon the heart. So commit your best thoughts to a journal.

4) Your writing will be a valuable legacy left behind to your own family. I had a great aunt who through her life time wrote poetry. Within a couple years of her death, she printed, bound and gave away what she wrote to all her family, a winsome witness for Christ.

5) Write to reflect the glory of God, as an act of worship. You may say, there are enough books that say all there needs to be said in a way better than I can ever say them. Yet did not John say "... if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written." (John 21:25) We are the continuation of the book of Acts. Fill the up world with writing about Christ.

6) Finally, write for the day when you lose your mind so that you may be encouraged to know that you once had one. Perhaps it will prevent you from losing it in the first place.

I was listening to a friend speak to me recently about how her Christian life was like an odyssey, where at every turn God was teaching her something new. These things God gives are precious. Do not lose them, keep them in a journal, publish them for the glory of Christ and the benefit of His church.

My Testimony of Conversion

Each time I reflect on the circumstances of my conversion, of the barren ground from which life sprang up, I am reminded of God's grace.

My father, to my knowledge, grew up in a Christian environment, reading the scriptures and attending church. His own father studied at a seminary to earn a Master's of Divinity. He pastored a Presbyterian country church in Ontario, Canada for a brief time, possibly encountered trouble with the congregation, then returned to his previous profession as a farmer. Although my father's generation had this godly influence, in the end, they ended their years with disinterest in Christ. My father rarely attended a church service after I was born.

My mother was raised in a family that regularly attended a Lutheran church. She often spoke lovingly of her own mother whose faith sounded earnest. She herself, in her own terms, had 'her own religion', whatever that meant, and was private about her beliefs. Yet in later years I was sorrowful for my mother who when asked about the essential doctrines of the Christian faith would deny that she believed them.

I thankfully had the exposure of scripture at home for which I was curious even at an early age. We regularly attended a Presbyterian church (my father absent); to this I thankfully owe to my mother. In my high school years, I attended a Christian camp. All of these influences were the sowing of the gospel seed.

At the age 10 to 13 my conscience was first assaulted and eventually hardened by instances of petty theft and vandalism. A few years afterwards, I regularly used marijuana and hashish without my parents knowledge. My deeds were discovered and by God's grace I did not rebel against my parents restrictions, though it was difficult to separate from all of my friends.

During this time my 'house' was found 'swept and put in order' to which 'seven spirits more evil than [the first]' came to live. I began taking 'religion' more seriously at this time and became worse for it than in my former condition. This period of life continued until my 21st year and was characterized by excessive exercise (running), disciplined study and an amalgam of religious thought (eastern and western). I was self-righteous, unable to love anyone but myself.

While at the university, this condition was finally interrupted by a series of providential circumstances (many of which I will omit) followed by the regenerating work of the God's Spirit.

First I had a composition course requiring that I write two pages a week on various themes. I was forced to think about what I believed which brought no comfort and left me troubled.

This was followed by an unusual incident when waiting for an elevator. The eye critical of others was ruthlessly turned on myself; the stream of judgmental thought was turned inward. I could not escape nor shake it off. Inwardly I became shattered. My marathon running dwindled and I could walk the short distance to campus only with difficulty. My grades fell during this time. The few friends I had left me. The best part of the day was escape into sleep and to forget about my sins.

Months went by and I enrolled in a course called New Testament Bible as Literature. This course was taught by a believer. I was forced, in my weakened state, to labor over the scriptures, but the message was hidden to me. Josh McDowell came to campus and spoke about the nuclear threat of the Cold War and shared the gospel. The truth remained hidden but I saw people who had joy and love that I desperately longed for. I cried out that night to the God I did not know to have mercy on me. I experienced joy that evening as I recall, but the darkness soon returned.

I began to attend church and came to read on a tract a simple phrase: "God Speaks to You Through the Bible." Every remembrance from my youth onward of the perfection of God's word was brought to my attention at that time. I believed this statement with a very deep belief and began regularly to read the scripture.

The darkness gradually left me. I came to know my sins were forgiven by the cross of Christ. God has since revealed His righteousness to me 'from faith to faith'.

A Closely Guarded Secret

There is much in the news recently about introducing "intelligent design" into biology curriculum. As expected, there is conflict and the rhetoric is heated. On one side, for example, Pat Robertson calls for God's wrath on the city of Dover (Pa.) for voting "God out of your city", whereas on the other, Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist, describes the fight over evolution to be "so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment". 1

Krauthammer affirms that "juxtaposing religion and evolution is nonsensical". Each discipline should be kept in its own place. He warns of science being redefined to include faith and the supernatural. This sounds right at first glance, but although the one should not be confused with the other -- the mixing religion with science -- we should wonder whether there exists any relationship, and what can be learned from history.

There exist common relationships between disciplines that pursue knowledge. For instance, historical inquiry into the history of man makes use of the science of genetics. Yet the relationship between philosophy and science in general is not so apparent. All science disciplines operate within a world-view framework, a philosophy. The philosophy is not the science, but it influences and guides the science.

There once was a time when the science operated from a philosophy different than today. "The early scientists shared the outlook of Christianity in believing there is a reasonable God, who had created a reasonable universe; and thus man, by use of his reason, could find out the universe's form. As well as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Copernicus (1475-1543), Galileo (1564-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), Faraday (1791-1867), and Maxwell (1831-1879) looked upon the universe, and carried on their work as scientists, in this framework." (Schaeffer, pg 226)

"Early science was natural science in that it dealt with natural things, but it was not naturalistic, for, though it held to the uniformity of natural causes, it did not conceive of God and man as caught in the machinery. The early modern scientists held the conviction, first, that God gave knowledge to men in the Bible -- knowledge concerning Himself and also concerning the universe and history -- and, second, that God and man were not a part of the machinery and could effect the working of the machine of cause and effect. There was cause and effect, but in an open system." (Schaeffer, pg 226)2

There was a major shift in the world of philosophy at the end of the 18th century, ending with Rousseau (1712-1778) and Kant (1724-1807) and beginning with Hegel (1770-1831) and Kierkegard (1813-1855). The change was a departure from the classical approach to philosophy, characterized by rationality and antithesis. It led to secular and religious existentialism, which effects our culture to this day but did not touch the sciences. Science has remained rationalistic. However, the philosophy of science at this time shifted subtly from a philosophy of uniformity of natural causes in an open system to a philosophy of uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, where man is part of the machinery. This is the philosophy of materialism or naturalism.

Ironically, many evolutionists, while on the one hand denying the influence of a subjective world-view, with religious zeal purge and censor scientists who hint at doubting Darwinism. With honest insight, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin states: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs ... because we have a prior commitment to materialism... Moreover, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.”3 As priests in the renaissance guarded their world-view from the 'threats' of Copernicus and Galileo, so now scientists using the peer-review process or ridicule guard their materialistic world-view. They will affirm that theirs is the only show in town. This seems to be scientist's closely guarded secret.

"At the dawn of modern science, it was the Catholic church that argued that the authority of science rested with the community of practitioners (theirs, of course). It was the Copernicans, especially Galileo, who argued that the authority of science and truth rested with the individual scientist. Moving the authority of science to the individual scientist was one of the key steps in the Copernican Revolution and the foundation of modern science. We have essentially come full circle. We just replaced one priesthood for another."4

We begin to understand why evolution is regarded as a theory. Certainly micro-evolution is a valid theory, supported by much evidence. We can thank Darwin for his work in this. But macro-evolution is at best an unconfirmed hypothesis; Darwin himself wrote mostly of the lack of evidence in his efforts to secure proof to the contrary. Hundreds of years of scientific inquiry has not produced the evidence. It is not found in the fossil record, in structural homology with its lack of support in the DNA, nor in molecular biology. Yet the theory is held tenaciously and disproportionate to other scientific theories where the world-view is not at stake.

Scientific inquiry begins with observations and questions followed by the formulation of a hypothesis. It is possible for these questions to bump up against or even step over boundaries that is impossible for science itself to answer. Questions of the origin of time, space, matter, or of energy. Questions such as the origins of life. Science cannot cross that boundary as interesting as it may be. They may come close to the boundary and in the process make great advances in science, but science itself will not produce the answer.

The question then is not that evolution is scientific and Intelligent Design is unscientific, but that both are bound to a philosophy or world-view: evolution being that of a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system (naturalism, or materialism) and Intelligent Design that of uniformity of natural causes in an open system. Macro-evolution survives as a 'theory' because of its bond to the dominant materialistic world-view.

The Intelligent Design debate is framed as religion encroaching on the sacred domain of science. In truth it is simply a battle of world-views. It is an equivalent juxtaposition.

Charles Krauthammer, Insulting Science and Religion, Washington Post, Dec 2005
Francis Schaeffer, Trilogy, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, copyright 1990
Richard Lewontin, New York Review of Books, Jan 9, 1997
Charles Dewberry, World, interview by Marvin Olasky, Jan 14, 2006

Narnia: More Than a Fantasy

The shape of Clives Staples Lewis' early life was full of ups and downs. His mother died before he was ten leaving him and his brother alone for hours in a large house in their imaginary worlds of Animal-Land and India. Their imaginations were fueled by the memory of loss and a home rich with books which they read widely. At ten he began attending boarding and preparatory schools where innocence died and he was led into atheism. In the following years, apart from the daily pursuit of study and discourse, of strengthening his atheistic world view, another pursuit awoke. Like a hidden stream, not satisfied with the former, characterized by the imagination of his youth, he began reading mythologies and a longing for an elusive joy.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is an allegory of his Lewis' personal odyssey of the far-off country for which he longed. This story pictures his road from atheism to faith.

Lucy is first to discover the wardrobe and venture into and return from this new world, but Peter, Susan and Edmund are reluctant to believe her tell of the land of Narnia.

"Madness, you mean?" said the Professor quite coolly. "Oh, you can make your minds easy about that. One has only to look at her and talk to her to see that she is not mad...Logic!" said the professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth..." 1

In a similar observation of prejudice against Christ Himself, C.S. Lewis writes, "You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." 2

Much more, this is a story of redemption -- of payment of a life for freedom from bondage of another. The story of Edmund, his treachery, his captivity to the white witch, of Aslan's being sacrificed in his place is an allegory to the greater reality that occurred in a place called Jerusalem many years ago.

As the White Witch affirms: "You have a traitor there Aslan...Have you forgotten the deep magic? The Deep magic engraved on the stone table, engraved upon the scepter of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to kill."

Aslan with sorrow goes to the table, the place of execution, his great royal head drooped so that his nose nearly touched the grass. "Presently, he stumbled and gave a low moan." After being bound by a cruel mob, he was thickly surrounded "by the whole mob of creatures kicking him, hitting him, spitting on him, jeering at him" The climax of the story is observed by Lucy and Susan as they hear the witches final words, "Despair and die", after which they hid their eyes from the cruel stroke of the stone knife.

But the following morning, "shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself." "There is a magic deeper still which she did not know. When a willing victim was killed in a traitor's stead, the table would crack and death itself would start working backward."

As a young man Lewis had stated, "A young atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully" and admitted that he had no more been searching for God than a mouse would search for a cat. Yet in the Trinity Term of 1929 he wrote, "That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me...I gave in, and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England". 3

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was dedicated to Lucy Barfield, his goddaughter, for whom he wished to give the best of gifts, and perhaps to ward off the influences that led him at a young age into atheism and the loss of innocence.

"Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"

1.Lewis, C.S., The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, New Yord, HarperCollins Publishers, 1978
2.Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, New York, Macmillan, 1952
3.Lewis, C.S., Surprised By Joy, C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd 1955