C. S. Lewis on Scripture revisited

What can thoughtful Christians today learn from an old, frumpy Oxford don and literary critic--C.S. Lewis--about the Bible as inspired exposition on divine revelation?

Then and Now (what 40 years will do)

I wrote my first book—C. S. Lewis on Scripture—as a senior Honors Project at Point Loma Nazarene University in 1977).  The late 1970's was a time when Evangelicals in America were heatedly engaged in a “battle for the Bible.” Evangelical writers at the time, such as Harold Lindsell and Francis Schaeffer, attempted to make verbal inerrancy a watershed issue.  “He who denies the doctrine of infallibility,” Lindsell declared, “cannot truly be an evangelical Christian.”  In similar fashion, Francis Schaeffer, founder of the influential L’Abri Fellowship in the Swiss Alps, taught young evangelicals (like me) that the church must “draw the line with love and tears” at the point of belief in inerrancy, even if it results in cleavage the ranks.  “The Bible is without error in all that it affirms,” (including science, history, biographical facts, and figures), Schaffer insisted. “Those who cannot affirm the full truth of what the Bible teaches, even when it touches on history and science,” he said, are not being faithful to the Word of God. >I was surprised and pleased that my work contributed to both the popular and scholarly debate about the nature of inspiration, the role of revelation and the question of inerrancy.  Forty years and 30k+ copies later, the book is still in print.  But it needs a tune up.

Walter Hooper, the executor of the Lewis estate at the time, had greatly encouraged me to publish it back in 1978, and was pleased with the final product.  When I saw him again in Oxford three years ago, over tea and cookies at his home, he said that he thought my book was still relevant and useful to the Christian world and strongly urged me to revise and expand it—taking into account the Collected Letters of Lewis and any recent scholarship on Lewis’ view of biblical authority and inspiration.  Recently retired from full-time teaching and administration, I now have time to do this very thing.

As Senior Fellow in the Scholars in Residence program at Lewis’ historic home in Oxford known as the Kilns, I am re-writing my old book this summer—and I finding several gems in the archives to incorporate into the new edition.

For example, I found four new personal letters from Lewis to friends with whom he shared this thoughts about the problematic areas of scripture, and how to interpret difficult texts in light of their intended genres and limitations, and why he did not hold to a Fundamentalist view of literal inspiration and verbal inerrancy, nor a Liberal view of the Bible as ordinary literature.

Most thrilling for me, or for any literary researcher, is to troll through archival deposits of famous author and find a fragment or full manuscript of unpublished material that might be interesting to others.  This week at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, alerted by another scholar, I found and transcribed a handwritten chapter from Lewis’s last completed book manuscript intended for publication before he died.  For some reason, one chapter was omitted from the published book, released two months after this death. 

This unpublished material contains Lewis’s most mature, considered, and undoubtedly controversial thoughts on the nature of divine revelation, biblical inspiration and historical criticism.  In it he explains why he disbelieves in biblical inerrancy and yet believes in miracle stories in the Gospels.  And what he thinks about Liberal Christianity and Fundamentalism (and how to find a middle path).

Combined with the four personal letters from Lewis that touch on the subject of verbal inspiration, the unpublished chapter of new material may change the way C.S. Lewis fans read their Bible; and may in fact move him out of the conservative Christian camp to be shared with those closer to the middle of the theological spectrum, at least in regard to his view of inspiration.

I’m excited about incorporating these new findings into my old book, patching some sections and adding new ones, in what I hope will be published next year as C.S. Lewis on Scripture, revised and expanded for a new generation.

If you've read this far and would like a copy of my paper on this topic (which I presented earlier this month at the Academic Round Table at Oxbridge C.S. Lewis Summer Institute in Cambridge) just drop me a line and I'll send you a pdf.   mchriste@pointloma.edu