Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God

Theologians on the Christian Life

by Joe Rigney, Stephen J. Nichols (Series Editor), Justin Taylor (Series Editor)

The writings of C. S. Lewis have influenced countless Christians over the course of many decades, offering readers intellectually satisfying answers to life's biggest questions and challenging them to walk in faith and obedience. Mining popular titles such as Mere Christianity and the Chronicles of Narnia, as well as lesser-known works such as Till We Have Faces, The Great Divorce, and the space trilogy, professor Joe Rigney reveals the undercurrents of Lewis's insights that have shaped how his readers view spirituality, sin, and sanctification. Exploring key themes that run throughout Lewis's diverse literary corpus, Rigney offers readers a deeper understanding of how Lewis's fascinating insights on the Christian life can lead them to a deeper awareness of God's presence and work in their own lives.

Genres: Theology, Biography, Christian, Christian Living, Nonfiction, Faith, Religion

320 pages, Paperback

Published April 30, 2018

Reviews

[Winnie Thornton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best books about C. S. Lewis make us want to turn, or return, to Lewis himself. Joe Rigney’s new book, a sort of systematic theology for Lewis, does just that. Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God is an irresistible hook for those less acquainted with Lewis (who will now scramble to read him) and a familiar feast for old Lewis friends who wish to study his thoughts on the Christian life in a single commentary.

Pastor at Cities Church and assistant professor of theology and literature at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Rigney is a veteran fan and disciple of Lewis. He’s also the author of Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicles, which proved I can love reading about Narnia almost as much as I enjoy reading Narnia itself.

Still, I was skeptical as I cracked Lewis on the Christian Life. Why would I read several hundred pages about Lewis? Why not just read Lewis? I feared this book would be but the tinny echo of a grand cathedral bell.

I was quickly surprised. Rigney goes far beyond merely summarizing Lewis. He expounds. Explains. Extrapolates. He offers plenty of his own invaluable insight. He faithfully mirrors and magnifies Lewis like the final movement in a sonata. Lewis is the exposition, Rigney the recapitulation. Much of my delight came in hearing the same truths spoken in new words, after all.

Sorting Lewis
The book’s first, most obvious triumph is its skillful organization. The topical structure is amazingly helpful. For one, it’s just plain fun to spelunk around in everything Lewis wrote concerning redemption, atonement, the incarnation, the church, liturgy, faith, imagination, reason, love(s), the resurrection, damnation, and the diamond-hard realness of heaven. Along the way, Rigney interacts heavily with Lewis’s key theological works: Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves, The Problem of Pain, Letters to Malcolm, and others. (Notably, he omits The Chronicles of Narnia, because he has already explored these elsewhere. Go read Live Like a Narnian!) Rigney weaves their truths together in such a way that you feel (as he hopes in the introduction) “the organic unity of Lewis’s thought.”

The deep-dive approach also allows Rigney to unite Lewis’s thoughts on trickier subjects into single, coherent explanations. For example, Lewis’s view of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom, taken one analogy at a time sprinkled throughout his writings, might easily be misunderstood. But by clustering Lewis’s treatments, Rigney allows them to play in concert and so clarify each other, creating a lucid picture.

Within each topic, Rigney pushes the issue of “the Choice,” the fundamental fork in the road to which Lewis relentlessly drives us. The Choice is this: God or self. In every circumstance, the options are only two: Will we put God at the center, or ourselves? The Choice confronts us at every turn: pride or humility, forgiveness or resentment, obedience or betrayal, self-forgetting love or vampiric affection, heaven or hell.

Rigney’s goal for the reader, as the subtitle suggests, is that you become “truly human,” that you become more yourself—the God-cast, Christ-bought, Spirit-tempered creature you are meant to be—by seeing the Christian life through Lewis’s eyes.

As I mentioned, Rigney offers plenty of his own insight. I want to mention two observations that particularly struck me.

Joy of Invulnerability
Discussing The Great Divorce, Rigney notes the mirth and invincible joy of the saints in glory. In heaven, we’re untouchable. No longer can we be harmed by manipulations, accusations, and jealousies from others.

But perhaps the best part is that we don’t need to die to receive this protection. The resurrection’s shining immunity is designed to work back into our earthly lives. “The invulnerability of heaven . . . flows from the joy of being forgiven,” Rigney explains. “Rooted and grounded in the love of God, we are freed to love manipulators without being manipulated.”

In other words, the love and forgiveness bestowed on us are meant to transform not just us. God also intends, through this love and forgiveness, to transform others while still on this side of heaven.

Because we have been freely loved, we’re free to love without fearing whether that possessive mother will exploit our love, or stressing over whether that annoying friend will be appropriately grateful, or any such thing.

We’re free. Freely forgiven, free to forgive.

Self-Ingesting Gollums
Lewis depicts hell as an everlasting plunge into self-consuming nothingness and evil. Rigney draws a dramatic connection between this picture and the prophet Joel’s depiction of the day of the Lord as devouring famine followed by Yahweh’s devouring army:

"What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; and what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten." (Joel 1:4)

More frightening is Lewis’s next observation, which Rigney paraphrases:

"We are the hungry child and the innocent villager, yes. But we are also the drought, the locust, the barbarian. The army that Yahweh leads against us consists of the inhuman and decayed versions of ourselves." (emphasis mine)

But it was Rigney’s next inference that grabbed me by the throat: “Perhaps hell is simply the devouring, with no sense of the damned ever being finally devoured.” I don’t think hell has ever been darker, deader, more horrific.

Then, having painted this grisly scene, Team Rigney-Lewis refuses to let us dodge the truth. “This [isn’t] about your wife or son,” Lewis asserts, “nor about Nero or Judas Iscariot; it is about you and me.” Will it be hell or heaven? The Choice is ours.

Indeed, the Choice is ours not simply at the last split second before death (assuming we were granted that split second to repent) but every second of every day. Choices pile up. Every fork in the road splits off into more forks, and more, so that your micro-decisions lead you higher into God or lower into self.

There is no moment, no seemingly irrelevant byway, in which you are not becoming your true self in the presence of God, or a self-ingesting Gollum.

Become yourself, or eat yourself forever.

Respectful Disagreement
A final important note: Rigney is no blind follower of Lewis. He’s not a yes-man. He respectfully conducts himself as a likeminded critic—just the sort of jolly, sharply analytical, keenly Bible-centric friend Lewis so enjoyed. Rigney offers iron to Lewis’s iron. Where he disagrees with Lewis, he says so.

Take, for example, Lewis’s puzzling fumble with the issue of penal substitution. Rigney’s courteous takedown is superbly helpful for wide-eyed Lewis-lovers who might scratch their heads in dismay as they wonder, “Can I really disagree with C. S. Lewis?” Yes, you can, and you should. But do it like Rigney, with a twinkle in your eye and a cheerful pint raised to Jack sitting opposite you by the fire.

Just Go
This lush National Geographic to the world of Lewis is filled with close-ups and angles we might have never seen, or perhaps they’re ones we’ve witnessed a hundred times. Either way, having flipped through the photos, let’s double-knot our shoes and go walking with Lewis himself as he does his best to lead us to our Real Country.

Rigney points to Lewis, Lewis points to Christ—a three-tiered waterfall. It’s tempting to stop at each one, thinking This is it! But look higher. There’s more. As Rigney writes, “True personality lies ahead.” Because up ahead waits a Person.

This review was originally published on The Gospel Coalition.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough. Very well done.

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has increased both my love for and my comprehension of Lewis and his works. There is a certain unity and cohesion in Lewis's thought. This book helped me see more clearly what exactly that cohesion consisted of. I have much rereading (of Lewis) to do.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves Lewis—especially if you have also been skeptical of him at different times. This book may provide insight into that genius/enigma.

[Shannon Evanko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this in June as a staff team with CO.

This book is dense, but Rigney does an excellent job compiling and interacting with Lewis’ works and beliefs.

The book made for great discussion, and it has me very interested in diving into Lewis’ works. Well done.

[Lukas Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, phenemonal, and brilliant.

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead. Those are hard words to take. Will it really make no difference whether it was women or patriotism, cocaine or art, whisky or a seat in the Cabinet, money or science? Well, surely no difference that matters. We shall have missed the end for which we are formed and rejected the only thing that satisfies.” C. S. Lewis, A Slip of the Tongue.

This is an excellent book, and its main achievement is in increasing my enthusiasm to read Lewis himself. As with other books in this series, the author’s intention is not merely to summarise his subjects' works and thought, but to reflect on what these things mean for our lived experience as Christians.

The Choice
Rigney begins by emphasising the centrality to Lewis’s writing of the choice to follow God or self that we are faced with in every moment of every day. To unpack this idea, he begins “with these three facts: (1 ) You are here and now; (2) God is here and now; (3) God demands all of you. These three facts yield a fourth: (4) Every moment of every day, you are confronted with a choice-either place God at the centre of your life, or place something else there. Either acknowledge the way the world really is, or attempt to live in a fantasy of your own devising. Either surrender to your Creator and Lord, or rise up and assert your own independence. Reality, Lewis says, "presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or." We live in a world of forked roads, where every path regularly and repeatedly branches in two mutually exclusive directions. Our task is to reject the illusion that, in the end, all paths lead to the same place. We must choose, and our choice will make all the difference.”

There is so much from Lewis to unpack on these subjects, but I found the following passages particularly helpful. On the God who is here and now, Rigney points out that he “is ‘Unimaginably and Insupportably Other.’ He is beyond our capacity to understand. Not only our language but also our thoughts are inadequate to fully grasp or comprehend him. But this is not because he is too abstract for human speech and thought. He is not abstract at all. As the source of this world of concrete and individual things, he himself is concrete and individual in the highest degree. He is not an ultimate principle or ideal or value. He is not ‘universal being’ (as though he were a big vague generality), but ‘absolute Being’ (he alone exists in his own right). He is the ultimate Fact, "the opaque centre of all existences, the thing that simply and entirely is, the fountain of facthood." He is incomprehensible and unspeakable not because he is too abstract, but because he is too definite for words.
Not only is God here and now; not only is he the ultimate, concrete Fact; he is also personal. Indeed, he's more than personal. He is suprapersonal, beyond personality. This too makes him unfathomable to us. He is triune, three-in-one, three persons while remaining one God. We cannot grasp this, any more than two-dimensional beings could grasp what is meant by a cube. But though we may not comprehend him, we can comprehend our incomprehension, and from that beginning, begin to know him.”

On God’s demand for all of us, he says that, “God is not just here and now. He is here and now pursuing us. This ever-present God makes demands of us. And not just any demands. He is not a tax collector, asking for a percentage of your time and resources and leaving the rest to you. As your Creator and Author, he demands all of you. He is the Maker; you are the made. He is the Potter; you are the pot. He is the Author; you are his character. Therefore, he has all rights and claims to you and yours. The almighty Maker of heaven and earth lays claim to your ultimate devotion and affection…This total claim again sets Christianity off from pantheism. The god of pantheism makes no demands of us. Believing in such a god is attractive precisely for this reason. We get all the emotional comfort of belief in God with none of the unpleasant consequences…‘When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children’...This pantheistic life-force is a tame god, giving us all the thrills of religion with none of the cost.”

In considering the centrality of the choice, Rigney begins with Lewis’s purpose in writing ‘The Great Divorce’. Far from trying to give us detailed knowledge of the afterlife or a treatise on the relationship between eternity and time, “Lewis has shared his dream to clarify the nature of the Choice. In the dream, we can see the Choice (in all of its various guises) a bit more clearly than we can see it on earth. The imaginative supposal gives us a clearer lens. Thus, we need not accept purgatory or second chances or even Lewis's odd views of eternity and time in order to benefit from the story. The main point lies elsewhere, in the choices made by the ghosts. The damned souls who go on holiday are only slight exaggerations of us. They are, in one sense, caricatures. But a caricature is drawn in order to accentuate real features of a person's face. And the ghosts in Lewis's story - with their sins and excuses and grievances and complaints and justifications - are all too real and reminiscent of the person we see in the mirror every day.” Rigney contends that this is Lewis’s purpose in all his writings on the Christian life: “In everything he writes, his aim is to remind us that we are here and now, that God is here and now, that this God makes total demands of us, and that therefore we must choose to bow the knee or to bow up, to surrender and join our wills to God's or to resist his will and insist on our own way. In short, Lewis is ever and always attempting to clarify for us the nature of the Choice.”

The Gospel
In unpacking how Lewis articulated the Gospel, Rigney introduces two other Lewisian ideas: The Great Dance (referring to creation) and The Grand Miracle (referring to the incarnation). On the former, Rigney comments, “because creation bears some likeness to God, Lewis regarded creation as a Great Dance. This is because ‘in Christianity God is not a static thing - not even a person - but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.’...The Great Dance is Lewis's way of celebrating the patterning and ordering within creation, the union and harmony of things that are so very unlike one another. It refers to the interlocking patterns in creation, the woven web of unity and diversity, the subtle and intricate wedding of order and freedom, of necessity and spontaneity, of value and inequality. It is creation in its totality as a work of God's art, where (to some) everything looks planless, though all is planned. Lewis's most extensive celebration of the Great Dance is near the end of Perelandra, when the angelic rulers of Mars and Venus, along with Ransom and the Perelandrian Adam and Eve, speak or sing or chant a hymn of praise to God.” On the latter, ‘The centuries of pagan myths and God's revelation to the Jews culminate in what Lewis calls ‘the Grand Miracle’ of the incarnation. God becomes man. The eternal Son of God becomes human. Myth becomes fact. What had been foreshadowed in the pagan myths about the dying and rising god and the corn-king who multiples grain actually appears in time and space and history. Something greater than Ceres, Bacchus, and Venus is here…If God created a world in which ‘the higher does not stand without the lower,’ and if the fall involved the rebellion of the lower against the higher, the incarnation is the descent of the higher into the lower. The incarnation is like the central, missing chapter of a great book, the missing main theme of a symphony. It is the hinge on which the story turns.”

And so, turning to consider the Gospel itself, Rigney provides the following summary of Lewis’s thought: “Lewis, of course, says much more about each of these great works of God. And I will say more about some of them as this book progresses. But this will do as a summary of the basic facts of the gospel. The living and tripersonal God has created the world. He is the Author: we are his characters. The world is a Great Dance, a woven web, filled with interlocking patterns that are pregnant with divine meaning. All parts are necessary for the work to be what it is, and yet no two parts are identical. All is righteousness, and there is no equality. The higher does not stand without the lower…And yet the lower has now rebelled against the higher and disrupted (at least in part) the Great Dance. There is now discord in the symphony. Death, the ultimate unravelling and scattering of mind from body and thought from thought, reigns in this brutal and broken world. The world is now the scene of a great insurrection; our own planet is enemy-occupied territory, claimed and counterclaimed by both God and the Devil. God claims the world and all that fills it on the grounds that he made it; Satan claims that the world belongs to him on the ground of his initial success at conquest. But God has not left the war in a stalemate. He has set out to reconquer his realm. He sends word of the coming invasion to the ancient pagans, but the message is garbled and confused. He sends a clearer signal to the Jews, showing them his plans and making them the staging point for his assault on Normandy…And then, the invasion. He arrives. The manner of his coming is both an absolute shock and the most fitting climax to his story. Before it happens, no one could have guessed it. After it occurs, no one can gainsay it. The higher descends into the lower, all the way down into a womb, passing through poverty and pain and blood into a tomb, down farther into the realm of the forgetful dead (Ps. 6:5; Eccles. 9:5). And then up and out again, into the blazing light of new life, carrying on his shoulders the whole of humanity and nature. Because of his willing obedience even unto death, God highly exalts him and gives him "the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:9-11).”


Theology
Lewis viewed theology as a map that allows us to explore ultimate reality, and two of the most helpful concepts from his writing that Rigney examines in this regard are the analogical nature of language and the use of the term 'literal'. On the former, Rigney states that “Lewis here embraces the classical Christian position that all of our language about God, whether poetical or technical, is analogical. Indeed, it would seem that all our language about anything is analogical: ‘The very essence of our life as conscious beings, all day and every day, consists of something which cannot be communicated except by hints, similes, metaphors, and the use of those emotions (themselves not very important) which are pointers to it.’ We never get behind biblical analogies (such as God gathering us under his wings, or God being grieved over our sins) to some pure, ethereal, abstract truth. The abstraction (‘God has no body’ or ‘God is impassible’) is a guardrail, lest we absurdly imagine God to have physical feathers or wet tears. But our abstractions themselves are also analogical.” Regarding the second, “Lewis's use of the term ‘literal’ is plagued by the same confusion that afflicts most uses of the term. At various times, he means something like ‘historical.’ Thus, for something to be literally true means that it actually happened that way in history. It also seems to carry connotations of precision and exhaustiveness. Thus, if something is literally true, it is true in a precise, technical, and comprehensive sense. When he insists that neither poetical nor scientific statements about God are ‘literally’ true, he is primarily guarding against this notion of comprehensiveness, as though any of our statements about God could completely and exhaustively comprehend him.”

Prayer
One striking thought from Lewis on prayer is practical and earthy, and the other concerns the nature of how we experience reality. On the former, “Christians must not reject the body, worship the body, or blame the body. Instead, we must accept and embrace the body, in all its glory and buffoonery, remembering that whatever our bodies do affects our souls. And therefore, as Lewis says, ‘the body ought to pray as well as the soul. Body and soul are both better for it.’ Practically speaking, this means that we ought to sometimes kneel to pray, stand to pray, bow our heads to pray, raise our hands or hold hands to pray, or take some other appropriate physical posture.” On the latter, Rigney reminds us that “Lewis lives in the mystery of God's exhaustive sovereignty and man's true freedom. He feels the tension, and he refuses to let one side of the tension override the other. As a result, he challenges Christians of all theological convictions. To those who would exalt human freedom at the expense of total sovereignty, Lewis essentially says: ‘God is the ground of our being. He is always both within us and over against us. There is no conflict between God doing an action and you doing it, any more than Shakespeare's authorship threatens the integrity of Hamlet. God is the Author who invented all, the Producer who controls all, and the Audience who observes and will judge all. Every providence is a special providence.’ And to those of us who love the exhaustive sovereignty of God, Lewis insists that we not forget the eternal significance of our choices. Everything may be determined in God's single act of creation. Every note may be established in God's single act of composition. But history is the actual performance of the symphony. Time is the lens through which we see the awesome gift of our freedom, and therefore the fundamental question that confronts every human being - the question on which everything hangs - is how we respond to the arrival of the King.”

The Choice - Again
Rigney ends where he began, by considering the centrality of the choice to Lewis’s writing and thought. He begins in Perelandra: “At one moment, Ransom feels that he is like Peter in the Bible, considering whether he will deny the Lord or not. If he does, if he refuses his calling in that moment, Perelandra will fall, as Earth did. But then the Voice reminds him that Ransom is not the only one with that name. "My name also is Ransom." And in a moment, Ransom realizes the full significance of the Voice's words. If Perelandra falls, it too, like Earth, will be redeemed. If Ransom refuses to live up to his name, Another will step into his place…And so Ransom realizes that, in that terrible moment, he is not standing before the Lord like Peter in the courtyard after Christ's arrest. Rather, he is sitting before the Lord, like Pilate. ‘It lay with him to save or to spill.’ Now, of course this Choice is fictional; it only works in science fiction, since only in this novel is there the possibility of another planet's fall and redemption. But Ransom's Choice can be framed another way. What is Ransom's Choice? To stand for Maleldil. This is what Ransom learns from his encounter with the Presence. ‘In that sense, he stood for Maleldil: but no more than Eve would have stood for Him by simply not eating the apple, or that any man stands for Him in doing any good action,’ or that any of us stand for him in our daily acts of obedience…This is the reality, the Choice that confronts us all. In the end, no single choice is more important than any other. ‘The fierce light which [Ransom had seen resting on this moment of decision rested in reality on all.’ That includes the simple choices you've already made today - to get out of bed, to keep trusting in Jesus, to fall on your knees, to read this book, to love your neighbor. All of these choices matter because all of them are at the center of the Great Dance.”

And finally, “Given our tendency to shrink back from God's total demand and our nearly perpetual attempt to preserve our own autonomy, we might be tempted to despair. What hope can we have of making any progress? I close this book with two truths from Lewis that I hope will encourage you to daily lay down your arms and take up your cross…The first truth is this: ‘What God does for us, he does in us’...God is not deterred by our weakness, failures, and sin. He is relentless. And we will know that he is working within us because our wills will increasingly align with his…these small acts of the will have great effects…Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible…The second truth is that ultimately all of God's demands are rooted in his love. ‘He claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all’...So we end where we began. ‘Begin where you are.’ You are here and now. God is here and now. God demands all (because he wishes to give you all). So turn to him. Turn to Christ and give yourself up to him. Only then will you begin to have a real self. Only in his presence can you ever hope to become fully human. The Choice is yours.”

There is much to chew over and digest in the sections I have quoted above, and this reflects the extent to which engaging with Lewis’s writing will feed and stimulate the faith and intellect of any Christian. As I said at the start of this review, Rigneys' signal triumph in his book is the fuel it provides to my enthusiasm to engage with Lewis, to learn from him, and to allow him to challenge my complacency and laziness in facing the choice I face day by day, moment by moment, to follow Christ and to live for him.

[Jacob Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun and insightful read, especially having had Professor Rigney for the Lewis class he references in the book. On the tail end of the read, its immediate effect was to stoke again the desire to devour everything that Lewis has written, in fulfillment of Rigney's own desire in the introduction: "Success for me will be when, in the midst of reading this book, you throw it down, rush to your shelves, and pull down your copy of The Great Divorce or Perelandra and, like a good Berean, examine to see whether what I've said is so."

That being said, (and I think this is one of the main weaknesses of the book) while I think Rigney does a great job summarizing and introducing the uninitiated into the lesser known of Lewis's stories, I do think your experience with Rigney's book is enhanced to the degree that you've already read the Lewis novels in question—summary can only do so much, and so the full appreciation of the topic of hand is easier, though certainly not impossible, having personally sampled the story in question. Certain chapters weighed heavily on summary that could deter the impatient reader. Of course, this matters less with his philosophical essays and personal letters. The frequency of the large block quotations, while chock-full of Lewisian gold, also felt at times cumbersome.

But in Rigney's defense, Lewis is one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, so the references and familiarity to over two dozens sources serve to display the care and attention to detail Rigney took upon himself in this daunting project. Lewis has often been the Calvinist whipping boy, the guilty pleasure reading of the Reformed Christian, and so I feel the thoroughness to be justified.

Indeed, Rigney excels at introducing you to the riches of the C. S. Lewis canon, frequently reminding you that his purpose is just that—an introduction. You feel the tension he experiences as he seeks to explore the intricacies of Lewis's thought and, as a professor, Rigney would be comfortable lingering for hours upon each and every one of them. I hope one of the important outcomes of this book will be to send swarms of Reformed Christians to the wisdom and wit of Lewis's writings, which are ripe for thoughtful appropriation.

Rigney decides to structure the book with chapters exploring different facets of Lewis's thought—each aimed towards helping the Christian understand what he considers the fundamental antithesis in Lewis's practical theology, what Rigney calls "the fundamental either-or". That is, The Choice that every human being faces at every moment in their lives, to "receive God, or cling to yourself and try to be God." To "surrender and become a son of God, or set up on your own and try to replace him."

Rigney's book essentially tries to highlight the plethora of ways Lewis both frames this choice and encourages us to make the proper decision. The result of this surrender of self and acceptance of God is that we become truly human. In dying to ourselves we come alive to God. In losing our selves we find our selves. By giving up the self-centered, prideful selves our sinful rebellion causes us to pursue, we gain the version of ourselves united to and redeemed by Christ that is "more ours by being His."

We ought to appreciate Rigney for taking up the arduous task of synthesizing and linking up the ideas running through the vast swath of different genres of Lewis's work, his fiction, prose, essays, treatises, and letters. And Rigney's admiration of appreciation of Lewis does not prevent him from critiquing the Englishman for stepping outside the biblical witness or perhaps overstating his own position. He extends charity and seeks to understand the totality of Lewis's works, showing where Lewis may even be inconsistent with his own sentiments. So don't be surprised if Rigney doesn't spend a lot of his time critiquing the Anglican, he is too busy looking along with him at God Himself.

If you're skeptical of what value Lewis may have in everyday Christian living, take up and read. And whether you're a Lewis novice or an aficionado, this book provides an essential supplement to your study of his work. Rigney's book will help cut through the thick magic and help you organize the world of the Oxford professor. Whoever you may be, if you let Rigney take you into that wardrobe, beware, for you may find yourself saying like Dr. Ransom on his return from Mars: "A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged. One can’t put the difference into words.”

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe loves Jack. He reads him with charity, graciously assuming the best where possible, but not with uncritical fanboyishness--he is a friend who is willing to wound faithfully where that's warranted. And Joe makes me love Jack even more by teaching me more about him. He drew out truths that at a number of places made me weep. Not that it's a great challenge to get me teared up, but it doesn't usually happen that often in one book. Granted, a lot of that was timing--hitting some issues that are big for me right now--which the author has no control over. But the Author does, and I'm not shy about letting my reviews be influenced by subjective factors. I also know what Lewis I want to read next--The Four Loves (for the third or fourth time, I think) and Letters to Malcolm (for the first time). Unless my book group picks The Great Divorce, in which case, that.

I did not like the reader. His voice reminded me too much of the dastardly Mr. Emelius in the 1970s BBC production of The Pallisers, and I couldn't get past that. Which I'm sure is my fault, not his. Almost made me take off a star, but sometimes even I can muster up a bit of charity.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a firm believer that readers love writers who read. Lewis wrote well because he read well - and as Rigney shows here, he believed well. I’ve slowly been working through the works of Lewis and each one has been a gem in its own way. Even when I disagree, he helps me to understand why I disagree. Effortlessly readable, but layered such that every time you re-read him, you come away with new insight. This book is less about the life of Lewis so much as it is about the theology and outlook that Lewis had on life. Rigney, like Lewis, gives feet to the weighty and heady things and lets them walk around a bit so they are better observed.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

First sentence from the introduction: The best way to learn about Lewis “on the Christian life” would be a book club. If I had my druthers, every person reading this book would join me in a small group (about ten or so individuals) to read and appreciate what Lewis can teach us about the life of faith.

First sentence from chapter one: “Begin where you are.” This little phrase, tucked away in one of the letters to Malcolm, is the right place to begin our exploration of Lewis on the Christian life. Lewis calls this a great principle, and it is implicit in almost everything he writes. Again and again, he wants to bring us back to brass tacks, to awaken us to the present reality, to help us feel the weight of glory that presses on us even now. This is the real labor of life: “to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.”

Crossway publishes a series titled Theologians on the Christian Life. Lewis on the Christian Life by Joe Rigney is one of the books in that series. It examines the life and works of C.S. Lewis. Rigney purposefully chooses not to focus on the main works of Lewis: Mere Christianity, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Screwtape Letters. He chooses instead to draw inspiration from his other books, the books that readers are less likely to have read and reread.

Rigney writes: In everything he writes, his aim is to remind us that we are here and now, that God is here and now, that this God makes total demands of us, and that therefore we must choose to bow the knee or to bow up, to surrender and join our wills to God’s or to resist his will and insist on our own way. In short, Lewis is ever and always attempting to clarify for us the nature of the Choice.

I have a love-hate relationship with C.S. Lewis. I love all but one of the Chronicles of Narnia. I DESPISE The Last Battle. I love the Screwtape Letters. Mostly. I like some chapters of Mere Christianity. Some of the ideas in Mere Christianity are true--biblical. Other ideas found within Mere Christianity are not biblical...at all. Lewis can quite honestly be quite mistaken and just plain WRONG on doctrines of the Christian faith. Every Lewis quote is--in my opinion--to be weighed carefully and thoughtfully in light of the Word of God. Anything that disagrees with the revealed word of God--no matter how lyrical, no matter how appealing--is to be rejected.

Lewis believed in purgatory. This book discusses Lewis' ideas on purgatory. It doesn't seek to correct Lewis' flawed theology. It just presents it as Lewis' own idea not drawn from scripture. Lewis' views on hell also appear to be STRANGE.

The table of contents:

Introduction
The Choice: The Unavoidable Either-Or
The Gospel: God Came Down
Theology: A Map to Ultimate Reality
The Gospel Applied: Good Infection and Good Pretending
The Devil: The Proud and Bent Spirit
The Church: Worshiping with Christ's Body
Prayer: Practicing the Presence of God
A Grand Mystery: Divind Providence and Human Freedom
Pride and Humility: Enjoying and Contemplating Ourselves
Christian Hedonics: Beams of Glory and the Quest for Joy
Reason and Imagination: Truth, Meaning, and the Life of Faith
Healthy Introspection: The Precarious Path to Self-Knowledge
The Natural Loves: Affection, Friendship, and Eros
Divine Love: Putting the Natural Loves In their Place
Hell: The Outer Darkness
Heaven: Further Up and Further In
Orual's Choice: Discovering Her True Face
Conclusion

Did I like the book? No. Yes. No. Maybe. I enjoyed some chapters more than others. Some chapters were more accessible and straightforward than others. All the chapters were packed full of quotes by C.S. Lewis. But not all Lewis quotes are supported or drawn from Scripture. The book seemed--in my opinion--to be more about Lewis' theories and imaginative ideas than biblical doctrines.

At times the book provided much food for thought.

Our little decisions, when gathered together, turn out to be not so little after all. We are always sowing the seeds of our future selves. Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.

Death is both a punishment for sins and a mercy that delivers us from the hell of our own gnawing self-centeredness.

Real forgiveness means not only forgiving someone seventy times for seventy offenses but also forgiving someone seventy times for a single offense.

“As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing, but learning to dance.” The best worship service is one in which our attention is fixed on God, not on our steps.

I just finished reading Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life. The two books couldn't be more different from one another, perhaps because these two men couldn't be more different from one another.

Lloyd-Jones worldview seems--upon some study--to be drawn solely from the Word of God. Lewis' on the other hand seems to be drawn from a broad variety of sources in addition to the Bible: mythology, philosophy, sociology, literature, his own imagination. One source doesn't seem to carry more weight or authority.

To read Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life is to have central doctrines of the gospel clarified, amplified, expounded for the glory of God. To read Lewis on the Christian Life, on the other hand, is to have the gospel--the central doctrines of the Christian faith--muddied and confused.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved all of the books I’ve read in this series and this one was no different. I am always touched by how well C.S. Lewis is able to aptly put his finger on the very thing that is at the heart of the matter. This book also made me want to go back and re-read everything I’ve read by him.

[Jonathan Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really helpful systematisation of Lewis' thought. Rich, extended quotes made it very rewarding to read this slowly.
It's always good when a writer is willing to quote his subject at length and is keen to push the reader to, rather than read the rest of his volume, just go and dive into C.S. Lewis himself!

[Justin Dillehay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book pulls together one of my favorite dead authors with one of my favorite living ones. C. S. Lewis was undoubtedly one of God’s greatest literary gifts to the church in the 20th century, while Joe Rigney has already established himself as one of the most creative young theologians out there with his books Live Like a Narnian and especially The Things of Earth.

The book forms the 15th release in Crossway’s “Theologians on the Christian Life” series. Having not yet read any of the other volumes in the series, I don’t know how representative this one is. I can say, however, that if you’re looking for extensive interaction with secondary Lewis sources by critics like Michael Ward, Alan Jacobs, or Donald Williams, you will be disappointed. While Rigney has clearly read those guys, this book engages almost entirely with Lewis himself. Though not all of Lewis. Having already distilled lessons from Narnia in his previous book, he deliberately focuses his attention on Lewis’s extra-Narnian corpus (21).

Highlighting the Choice

There’s too much to cover in a short review. The book traces Lewis’s thought on everything from God to Satan, from Heaven to Hell, with the gospel, prayer, and love in between. The unifying theme that Rigney comes back to again and again, however, is the theme of “The Choice: The Unavoidable Either-Or” (the title of chapter 1). God will not be ignored, and in the end, we must either take him and live or die rejecting him. As Lewis put it,

To be God—to be like God and to share his goodness in creaturely response—to be miserable—these are the only three alternatives. If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows—the only food that any possible universe can ever grow—then we must starve eternally. (32)

Rigney believes that in everything Lewis wrote,

…his aim is to remind us that we are here and now, that God is here and now, that this God makes total demands of us, and that therefore we must choose to bow the knee or to bow up, to surrender and join our wills to God’s or to resist his will and insist on our own way. In short, Lewis is ever and always attempting to clarify for us the nature of the Choice. (31)

It is both fascinating and convicting to see Rigney demonstrate this point again and again.

Applying Biblical Rigor

Knowing that his greatest living influences are John Piper and Douglas Wilson (both avid Lewis fans and creative theologians in their own right), I wasn’t surprised at Rigney’s biblical rigor or his Reformed theological orientation. (I share the influences and the orientation, and seek to imitate the rigor.)

Indeed, Rigney is at his best when he is providing solid exegetical grounding for Lewis’s popularized renderings of the faith. His chapter on “Good Infection and Good Pretending” is superb in this regard, as he shows how what seems like a call for hypocrisy (pretending to be like Christ) is actually Lewis’s way of describing the Protestant (and Pauline) distinction between justification and sanctification (71). (This section also contains a helpful discussion of duty in the Christian life that channels Piper into a more biblical, balanced, Lewisian direction. 76-77)

With regard to biblical rigor, Rigney is also not afraid hold Lewis’s feet to the fire, especially on the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. In fact, the book would be worth owning simply to read Rigney’s discussion of penal substitution in chapter 3. As many are aware, Lewis presents a massive stumbling block for his evangelical fans in Mere Christianity when he describes his impression of penal substitutionary atonement like this:

According to that theory, God wanted to punish men for having deserted and joined the great Rebel, but Christ volunteered to be punished instead, so God let us off. Now I admit that even this theory doesn’t seem to me quite so immoral and so silly as it used to, but that is not the point I want to make…

Not exactly a flattering way to describe a reality which evangelicals consider to be the heart of the gospel.

Rigney rebukes Lewis’s description as “crude and misleading.” But he doesn’t settle for mere rebuke. Instead, he holds an imaginary conversation with Lewis in which he asks him a series of probing questions designed to show that Lewis is not nearly as cavalier about “theories” of the atonement as he thinks he is.

He then goes on to show that despite Lewis’s seeming dismissal of it, “the substance of penal substitution is present in Lewis’s own work” (64). Unlike most of his contemporary colleagues, Lewis defended retributive punishment and embraced the biblical teaching of God’s wrath toward sin—which together make it hard to avoid some form of penal substitution if people are to be saved. But most movingly, this reality can be seen in the story of Aslan and Edmund, where, in Lewis’s words, “a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead.” In the words of Donald T. Williams in his similar book Deeper Magic, “Lewis was often better at portraying the atonement than explaining it” (66n43).

Sell your shirt to buy the book so you can read this section (but only if you’re really strapped for cash—otherwise just buy it).

Pulling Punches (?)

On at least one point, I thought Rigney was a little too easy on Lewis. I almost hesitate to mention it, because I don’t want to be unfair. So let me try to be as careful as I can.

With regard to divine sovereignty and human freedom, Rigney is clearly a Reformed compatibilist. His teaching post at Bethlehem College and Seminary as well as his chapter “The Author and his Story” in The Things of Earth would make that clear even if this book didn’t. But it does.

Moreover Rigney clearly recognizes that he and Lewis are not fully together on this. For example, responding to Lewis’s standard libertarian claim that God gave man free will because “a world of mere automata could never love and therefore never know infinite happiness,” Rigney judges this to be “a failure of Lewis’s imagination. Lewis can’t imagine a world of perfectly free creatures that had no possibility of going wrong, and therefore, such creatures must be impossible” (127n13). He then goes on to give the standard Reformed counter-examples to this claim, namely God and the glorified saints. In another instance, he argues that Lewis’s interpretation of Romans 9 is “truncated at best” (126n10). So Rigney is clearly not trying to claim Lewis for the Reformed camp, however much we might wish to have him.

But at times I got the sense that Rigney was trying a little too hard to find an underlying consistency in Lewis’s statements that probably isn’t there (136). He rightly notes that the versions of Calvinism Lewis rejected were often straw men rejected even by Calvinists (130). He further notes that Lewis often described his own conversion in language that sounds for all the world like “sovereign grace” (131-132). For these reasons, he often refers to a “tension in Lewis’s view,” which I suspect is actually a contradiction.

Perhaps Rigney is simply trying to be charitable and find as much common ground as possible. That I can appreciate. But I also think that Reformed Lewis fans run the risk of committing the same well-meaning error toward Lewis that Lewis charged the medieval scholastics with in his book The Discarded Image. Citing their bookishness and love of systemizing (two things we Reformed folk share with them), Lewis notes that the Medievals were so reverent toward their ancient books that they found it hard to believe they contained anything contradictory. So in essence, they applied the analogy of faith to uninspired writings.

All the apparent contradictions must be harmonized. A Model must be built which will get everything in without a clash; and it can do this only by becoming intricate, by mediating its unity through a great, finely ordered, multiplicity. (p. 11 of The Discarded Image)

An excessive charity toward Lewis can lead us to do the same thing.

I agree with Douglas Wilson that “there will be times when we are tempted to write off something in Lewis as a simple contradiction, when we are the ones who have not thought very deeply about what we are saying.” Still, the “all things” that “love believes” clearly doesn’t include the inerrancy of Lewis. Plus I also felt that Wilson was guilty in that same essay of making Lewis sound more Reformed than he was. Perhaps I’ve simply carried this same feeling over into Rigney because I know how much he has been influenced by Wilson.

At any rate, this is a hard balance to strike, and it’s easy to criticize when you’re not the one having to strike it. So let me be done with this potentially misguided gripe and encourage all mere Christians to take up and read. Joe Rigney has given us a treasure trove of good theology that will bend our brains, inspire our imaginations, and shape our habits. May it sell by its thousands, and be read by its tens of thousands.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book us very different from what I expected. I think the title might have been imposed on the author since it's part of a series (theologians on the Christian life).
That being said a calvinist who loves Lewis and has also authored "Live like a Narnian" will have to dissapoint massiveley in order to get anything less than a five star review. And Rigney does not let us down. His book provides a good overview of the theological and practical insights of Lewis. He is appreciative of how Lewis can help us live the Christian life, but also points out the views Lewis expressed that aren't in accordance with sound doctrine (his lack of understanding rather than rejection of the doctrine of predestination, his view of the atonement etc).
I listened to the audiobook and unfortunately it isn't always clear when the reader starts quoting Lewis or where the quotes end.

[David Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an enjoyable, refreshing, and challenging exploration of what C. S. Lewis teaches us about how to live in the presence of God, becoming more and more like Christ, through the progressive transformation of our loves and desires. The author discusses sin, salvation, sanctification, worship, the key Christian disciplines (worship as a church, prayer, etc.), learning to love God and rejoice in Him through the pleasing and good things He has created, and so on. He also discusses, rapidly, Lewis's views on divine sovereignty and freewill, purgatory, hell, and so on.

This book is written for everyone, and it is to everyone that I recommend it.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much. Rigney does a masterful job at synthesizing Lewis's works to show the main ideas that seem to fuel all of them: I am here and now, God is here and now, God demands our all, every moment of life we're confronted with a Choice towards self/death/hell/emptiness or God/life/heaven/becoming truly human. This book makes me more appreciative of Lewis's brilliance in communicating great truth.

[Mwansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on the Christian life and a wholistic Biblical Worldview. Rigney does an exceptional job connecting themes in the work of C S Lewis. The book can be a bit heavy but it is well worth your time

[Trevor Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of 2018.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This demands an excellent review. However no time to put it together. Just want to thank Barry for sending this to us. The best of 2019.

[Ryan Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language can be a bit flowery at time but overall this is a practical and convicting read.

[Michele Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lessons from C.S. Lewis on Becoming Fully Human

In my senior year of college, I took an English elective on the writings of C.S.Lewis. The professor, Dr. Kaye, was ebullient, effervescent, and contagious in her love for the Oxford don who spun words into gold. Her instructions for the final exam were simple but ominous: simply bring a pen and plenty of paper. We all eyed one another with apprehension, and it turns out with good reason, because the exam consisted of one question: Describe the theology of C.S. Lewis and support your statements from his writing.

Joe Rigney has taken this assignment one step further, for in Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God (Theologians on the Christian Life), he presses beyond Lewis’s theology and considers its outworking in life on this planet. While it is true that C.S. Lewis was careful to remind his readers at every opportunity that he was not a biblical scholar nor a theologian, nonetheless, his writing has had an almost unparalleled impact on the way we think and talk about the Christian life. It is at this intersection of theology and practice that Rigney engages with Lewis’s words.





One of my favorite characteristics of Lewis’s thinking and writing is his ability to turn ideas on their heads until they suddenly–and unexpectedly–become very clear. Rigney’s goal in writing is not to explain Lewis so we don’t need to read him, but instead to create an appetite for his work, which he has definitely done in my case by quoting from The Weight of Glory, reminding me of the brand new copy that’s waiting for me on my bookcase.

On the Choice
Lewis is clear throughout his writing that Christianity boils down to a Choice:

“Both God and self are good and should be embraced. But the Choice in question is which of these will be at the center?

Furthermore, this Choice is expressed in any number of specific decisions throughout life, but the goal of the Christian life, according to Lewis, is to “so encounter the living God that we become our true selves. Becoming fully human in the presence of God–that is what Lewis thought the Christian life is all about.”

On the Person of God
In Letters to Malcolm, Lewis writes sage advice in four words: “Begin where you are.” Of course, he’s thinking “chiefly on prayer” in that book, but the conflict lies in the truth that humanity is limited to here and now, while God, both omnipresent and transcendent, has chosen to join us in the here and now. “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him.”

In Lewis’s spiritual autobiography, Surprised By Joy, God is portrayed as a Pursuer. In Mere Christianity, he explains his favorite analogy of God as Author. “The world is His story or play, and we are His characters.” In Perelandra, we are reminded that Lewis viewed God’s creative work as a harmonious union, a Great Dance, and humanity’s sin came about because God’s Choice was to grant freedom in the dance, allowing for the possibility of sin.

On the Gospel
While Lewis decried the term “total depravity” on the grounds that a totally depraved individual would be unable to recognize sin in himself, his understanding of humanity’s sinful condition is certainly clear and orthodox. He also dismissed the doctrine of penal substitution on the basis that the reason why Christ’s death “has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start” is less important than the reality that He did it. However, it is ironic that Aslan’s sacrificial death on behalf of Edmund (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) is a lovely picture of the very doctrine Lewis protests about.

In applying the Gospel, Lewis describes the benefits of Christ’s work in the life of the believer through two images from Mere Christianity:

(1) Good Infection: “We catch the Christ-life by being close to him, by drawing near to him, in truth, by being ‘in him.'”

(2) Good Pretending: This is the furthest thing from hypocrisy or moralism, but is rather a living out of our righteous standing in Christ, whether we feel like it or not. “The pretense leads to the real thing.”

On “Nothing-Buttery”
The Christian life, according to C.S. Lewis, is lived against a vigorous background of spiritual warfare. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis highlighted the elder devil’s urgency in communicating to “the patient” a reductionist view of the world in which “everything we can see and know is nothing but a mixture of matter in motion.” If humans are nothing but sacks of protoplasm, emotions are nothing but a confluence of digestion and hormones, and stars are nothing but burning gas, life is reduced to its lowest common denominator.

For Lewis, the incarnation was an extremely practical matter in that it gave dignity to our physical existence and tore down the artificial barrier between “the scientific and the supernatural.” In fact, this is my favorite aspect of Lewis’s brilliance: he always left room for God. As a spinner of tales himself, he knew the importance of giving the Author free reign, and maintained that “reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed.”

On Relationships
The way we treat other people is the test of our commitment to the Christian life, and Rigney chose Lewis’s final work of fiction, Till We Have Faces, to dissect the impact of divine love on selfish love. Juxtaposing Orual’s corrupt love with Lewis’s thoughts in The Four Loves, Rigney offered parallels that were revelatory for understanding Orual’s and our own twisted neediness. Even her relationship with the gods is marked by her demand that they reveal themselves on her terms.

Throwing away joy with both hands, Orual brings us full circle, back around to Lewis’s point that the Christian life teeters at the tipping point of choice from beginning to end. Whether it’s a matter of initial surrender of your life or a wide place in the road where you are holding out on a seemingly smaller decision, here’s the Truth from Lewis’s pen:

“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.”

Many thanks to Crossway for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book. I would recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you are a Lewis buff or only slightly familiar with him. Joe Rigney is the perfect guide for Lewis's writings (though he mostly excludes the Narnia series, since he has written a separate book on Narnia, and mainly focuses on The Great Divorce, Letters to Malcolm, The Space Trilogy, Til We Have Faces, and The Four Loves.). He does not set out to cover each book or essay, and he does not limit his approach to one theme or another. Instead he arranges his chapter as "doorways . . . into the world that is Lewis." And each "doorway" he chose was excellent. I tend to dog-ear pages that have paragraphs/passages that I want to revisit, but this system doesn't work real well with books like this because the book is too full of dog-eared pages.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. This book draws out and clarifies CSL’s ideas, and expounds on his profundities, while adding plenty of new insights as well. One caveat: I don’t think this should be used as an introduction to CS Lewis. It will be much more valuable to those who have already read and appreciate his books.

G.M. wrote a great review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And thanks for the birthday gift Keaton!

[Samuel James · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding exposition and application of C.S. Lewis’s theology. Rigney writes not like an observer of Lewis but like Lewis himself. One of the richest and most rewarding books I’ve read this year

[Eric Keel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just great. Be forewarned... You need to read many Lewis's works before you read this book to really take effect. But if you have, this book will only deepen your love for Lewis and his writings.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible book! If you are a fan of Lewis, and a follower of Jesus, this is a must read.


He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life he has by what I call good infection. Every Christian is to become a little Christ.
When faced with the command to love my neighbor, I must not manufacture warm feelings for them. Act as if you did. As soon as we do, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you love someone, you will presently come to love them. It is “good pretending”. We will pretend our way into reality. (And find ourselves liking more and more people)
“Nothing buttery” A twisting of reality. In birth, the blood and pain are real, the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view. In death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death really means. The hatred is how men really are, but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a haze concealing sexual appetite or economic association. War and poverty are really horrible, peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men have certain sentiments. The strategy is to take a bit of reality and treat it as the whole of reality. To diminish or magnify. This was the serpents strategy in tempting Adam & Eve.
One of the ways to fight the devil is to get a good night’s sleep or a healthy meal.
The “all I want” state of mind is not limited to gluttony, it’s the hallmark of all demanding claims that humans make for themselves and the fountain of immense frustration, conflict. Most of our daily disappointments and low grade happiness flows from the all I want state of mind. “All I want’ is a house that’s little better, more room, a little respect, peace and quiet, little vacation, a little appreciation. Whatever isn’t actually making us happy right now. In truth, vacation might do us good. But they will help us only if we reject the tyranny of the “all I want” state of mind. The peevishness comes from the false sense of ownership we have about our lives. Most of us are prepared to deal with hardship, but angered, annoyed by hardship conceived as injury depending not he claims we have on life, time, relationships, plans.
Mutual charity and humility: When we sacrifice our preferences in music and worship, out of love for neighbor, there we can be sure the spirit of God is at work. This principle applies to more than church music.
Praise: Not only is a pleasure not full grown until it is remembered, our delight is incomplete until it is expressed. All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. Lovers, readers, players, praise what they value, and urge us to join them. We delight to praise what we enjoy, because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment.
We give different names to God’s glory as it touches our faculties: When God’s glory touches our will, we call it goodness. When it strikes our minds, we call it truth. When it strikes our senses, we call it pleasure.
Tiny theophanies: What keeps us from experiencing them? 1, Inattention. We ignore God’s presence everywhere; we fail to see that every bush is a burning bush. 2, Wrong kind of attention. We subjectify the experience and see only the internal workings of our own minds and bodies. We kill it by directing it inwardly. 3, Greed. We demand the exact experience again. We shout, Encore! 4, Conceit. We take pride in our ability to find God in the little things, forgetting that those who look their noses down at others are never able to see the one who is above them.
Eros: Lovers will have naked bodies. Friendship will have naked personalities.
The master is delighted when his pupil can surpass him. Affection in its gift love form must learn to desire the good of the object, even when that good comes from somewhere else.
In every choice, we are turning the central part of us, the part that chooses, into something a little different than what is was before. Our choices add up. Good and evil both increase at compound interest. Small battles have great effects. That is why the little decisions we make everyday are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which a few months later, you may be able to go on to victory you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridge head from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.
To enter heaven is to become more human that you’ve ever succeeded in being on earth. Heaven is our proper home. It is where we belong.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is no secret to anyone who knows me or chats with me for any length of time, that the writings of C.S. Lewis have had a tremendous impact on my life.

Up until about 10-11 years ago, I hadn't really paid attention to anything Lewis had written.  Sure, I had read the Chronicles of Narnia...at least, a couple of the volumes in the series...but, honestly, I was unimpressed.

It wasn't until, out of desperation and in following-up on a suggestion from a friend, that I dove head first...literally...into his non-fiction writings, starting with "Surprised by Joy".  And, after diving head-first, my soul followed after.  Here was an author that "thought" like I did - who questioned some of the very same things I questioned.  Who approached God and suffering and heaven and theology in such a way that it 1) resonated deeply with my own way of thinking and looking at the world and these subjects, and 2) drove me to scripture...where I, like Lewis, was confronted with the truth of who God is....and I am, when standing in that truth.

Since that first introduction, I have pretty much devoured all of Lewis's writings, along with anything written about him - so when given the opportunity to review Joe Rigney's new book "Lewis on the Christian Life" for Crossway Publishers, I was "all in."

I'm not sure what I expected from Rigney's examination - so much has been written about Lewis's theology by so many people, that sometimes I wonder if there is anything new to be penned - but I do know this - Rigney definitely brought new insight to the vast world of Lewis's thoughts, views and theology....or, at least, new insight to me.

What I appreciated most about Rigney's treatment of the subject was his very careful and thorough analysis of C. S. Lewis's works of fiction.  As I alluded to above, I have found his fiction writings to be not nearly as captivating as his non-fiction, though I have read both his series work, and his stand alone novels.  But because I am not a fan in general of allegory or fantasy, I've walked away from each of them a bit underwhelmed.  However, after reading Rigney's book, I have a renewed interest in going back and re-reading some of Lewis's books - such as "Till We Have Faces", and "The Great Divorce", and even his Cosmic/Space trilogy.

Rigney doesn't shy away from the thicker theology subjects, just as Lewis never shied away from them - Satan, Prayer, Christian Hedonics, Introspection, Love, Hell, Heaven - they are all in here, and well-covered.  At times, maybe a bit "too" well-covered, as I found myself having to re-read sections to make sure I was following Mr. Rigney's points, and not lost in the examples pulled from Lewis Literature.  That's not a criticism, per se - it caused me to have to slow down and really contemplate what I was reading; and, as a fast reader and comprehend-er, I don't always do the whole "slow down" thing well.  It was a good challenge.

Rigney also did not shy away from pointing out areas where Lewis's theology might not always fall in lock-step line with scripture.  This was always done so respectfully, with fully thought out arguments/reasonings, and solid scriptural study.  I think Lewis would have enjoyed and even applauded these moments, in Rigney's book.  In fact, I believe Joe and Clive would thoroughly enjoy cigars and tea together, or long walk-abouts over the English countryside in deep conversation - if the years had permitted them to be peers.

Fantastic Book.  I'm grateful to have had the opportunity from Crossway to read and review the review copy they provided me, and I am grateful to Mr. Rigney for his words.  And, I will always be indebted to Mr. Lewis, for his.

[Mike Dixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few authors stand as tall as C. S. Lewis. Lewis was unmatched in wit, wordplay, and woodland creatures. I was thankful when I saw that Joe Rigney was publishing a book in the fantastic ‘Theologians on the Christian Life’ series focused on my favorite fiction author. The goal of this series is to help present-day Christians “listen to the past” by exploring each figure’s work and its implications on for Christian living.

Rigney himself is a Lewis expert, having written "Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis's Chronicles" and taught literature and Great Books at Bethlehem College and Seminary. Rigney’s Lewis expertise shines through in "Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God", offering readers insight into the practical Christian themes in books such as “The Space Trilogy,” The Great Divorce, and more.

The book is arranged into several chapters, each exploring a different facet of Lewis’s application to the Christian life. In each chapter, Rigney expertly weaves different works and essays from Lewis to formulate a coherent thesis regarding the Christian life. Really, for Lewis and Rigney, it all boils down to The Choice: God or self. The first chapter dives deep into The Choice, whilst each subsequent chapter parses out The Choice in regard to a different doctrine. Will we choose God or self, heaven or hell, pride or humility?

This book, in ways that only Lewis can do, paints Heaven as a beautiful reality for those that choose God, as well as painting Hell as a terrifying reality for those that choose self. Rigney wants us to understand Lewis’s view of becoming truly ourselves: The person God designed us to be. Becoming truly ourselves, to Lewis, is not self-help, but is choosing God every day so that our lives and Christian walk points others Christward. Rigney helpfully does that in this book.

Rigney also displays to the reader how to disagree with our heroes. Rigney and Lewis would not have seen eye to eye on every point of doctrine and Rigney displays loving critique of Lewis’s incomplete view on penal substitutionary atonement.

I would recommend this book to those looking to delve deeper into C. S. Lewis’s world AND to those looking to grow in appreciation for the beauty found in good literature. Truly, God uses men and women to create and dream up worlds that reflect his nature in some way through literature, and Lewis was a master of that. As you read this book, look at Lewis, because, as Rigney explains, Lewis will point you to choose Christ every day.


I received a complimentary copy of this book from Crossway through their Blogger Review Program.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. I love the writings of C.S. Lewis and this was a great book, full of his works. It is great how Joe Rigney features these writings and connects them all together. I highly recommend it!

“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.” - C.S. Lewis

About:

C. S. Lewis excelled at plumbing the depths of the human heart, both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the corrupt. From science fiction and fantasy to essays, letters, and works of apologetics, Lewis has offered a wealth of insight into how to live the Christian life.

In this book, Rigney explores the center of Lewis’s vision for the Christian life―the personal encounter between the human self and the living God. In prayer, in the church, in the imagination, in our natural loves, in our pleasures and our sorrows, God brings us into his presence so that we can become fully human: alive, free, and whole, transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

About the Author:

Joe Rigney (MA, Bethlehem College and Seminary) is assistant professor of theology and Christian worldview at Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles and The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two sons.

Stephen J. Nichols (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as the president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer of Ligonier Ministries. He is an editor of the Theologians on the Christian Life series and also hosts the weekly podcast 5 Minutes in Church History.

Justin Taylor (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher at Crossway. He has edited and contributed to several books, including A God-Entranced Vision of All Things and Reclaiming the Center, and he blogs at Between Two Worlds―hosted by the Gospel Coalition.

[Kiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look into Lewis’s library of work, mining it for its resources on Christian living and sanctification, this pastorally focused book shines an explicit spotlight on what usually remains implicit as one reads Lewis directly. Rigney’s other book on Lewis, Live Like a Narnian, focuses exclusively on these same themes but only in the Narnia series. This book largely excludes Narnia, focusing on the Space Trilogy, Mere Christianity, Till We Have Faces, and Lewis’s letters. Most of what Lewis wrote is drawn from at some point. What stood out to me from this book is how Lewis perceived the world through an enchanted lens, something that is largely lost in a secular age, and that enchanted lens is not only present in his fiction but also his nonfiction. The sanctification that occurs in the Christian life is a sort of magic that Lewis is able to describe with reason and with imagination. His appeal, then, now, and yet to come (especially as Netflix rolls out the full might of having the Narnia film rights) is largely due to this ability, or so I believe. 14 hours or 320 pages of drawing from deep mystical wells of wisdom and wonder that Christ gives us, and Lewis reminds us, and that we often ignore.