Lewis Episcopalians? (Erin)

The Anglicans/Episcopalians are a hard bunch to figure out. What can you say about a denomination that includes fruit loops like Katharine Jefferts Schori and John Spong but also men like N.T. Wright, whose Christian Origins and the Question of God series can only be described as magisterial. Even Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has his moments, although he has a tendency to stick his foot in mouth.

My formative years were based on the Narnia Chronicles, The Great Divorce, the Space trilogy, Mere Christianity, etc.

C.S. Lewis would be utterly repulsed by Katherine Ragsdale, the lesbian priestess who states that Tiller is a "martyr and a saint".

Another lesbian priestess, Elizabeth Kaeton, head of the Episcopal Church women's organization is stating that "we are assured of Dr. Tiller’s place in the eternal and loving embrace of Jesus." Better to have a millstone...

Unfortunately, my once orthodox parish is dead, for all intents and purposes. We have kids, but the parish doesn't. Over 50% of Episcopal churches have less then 10 kids in the congregation. We're hitting 50 and we were the "youngsters".

I read Lewis in the '90s (and continue to do so), and I know I wasn't the only evangelical to do so. Lewis was incredibly helpful to me in terms of putting the pieces together during my undergraduate years, something which my 'Biblical literalist' background never did very effectively. I find myself referring to him in the majority of my conversations about the Christian life.

It was a long, slow, careful journey for me from the evangelical world to the Anglican Communion, into which I was formally received a week ago. The idea of being a typical convert never appealed to me. Of course, the Anglican communion being what it is today, it's pretty hard to preach to all my friends about how they should join my branch of the Church (not that I would necessarily want to do that in any case - that's partly why I'm Anglican and not something else, not to mention a place-loving crunchy conservative). Thankfully, I'm not simply joining the Anglican communion of today, I'm joining the Anglican branch of the one holy catholic church throughout time and space. The words and actions of Kate Schiori do not in any way invalidate the truth of what Lewis wrote (as Ch. 2 of Screwtape Letters attests). If you are Roman Catholic, would you have left that branch of the Church during the tenure of the corrupt Renaissance Popes?

Thankfully, orthodox Anglicans have children and liberal Anglicans don't. As Mark Steyn put it, "demography doesn't explain everything but it does account for a good ninety percent."

The Episcopal Church is a crazy-quilt of heresies *and* orthodoxy; it is a crazy-quilt of those who believe what John Shelby Spong believes *and* those who believe what N. T. Wright believes. If it didn't contain *both* those components, the quilt would not be as crazy as it is, nor would the church itself be as conflicted and self-divided as it is.

Essentially the Episcopal Church is in the midst of an ongoing process of slow-motion schism or dissolution, with a great many orthodox Christians within the church on tenterhooks as they wait for the emergence of effective means of disassociating themselves from the likes of Jeffords Schori, Robinson, Ragsdale, et al.

The short terms prospects for orthodox Christians within The Episcopal Church are rather bleak, since the revisionists have the upper hand institutionally and are freed to act in rather ruthless ways by a total lack of scruple.

But the long term prospects for Episcopalian revisionists or heretics are even more bleak, since they have few children and those they do have tend to drift from Episcopalian revisionism or heresy to unchurched atheism or agnosticism, just as their parents have already drifted from Christian orthodoxy to Episcopalian revisionism or heresy.

In the meantime, there are many congregations -- though not enough -- where orthodoxy prevails as it always has, and where little note is taken of a revisionism or heresy that seem like goings-on in another "church" altogether, albeit one to which the orthodox congregations -- and dioceses -- are unfortunately tethered at present, largely by revisionist or heretic control over church property.

“I had some ado to prevent Joy (and myself) from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Dapne (sic) it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didn’t feel it [would] have been very wrong -- we have only been addressing Christ sub specieApollinis." (Letters of C. S. Lewis, p. 488)

This makes sense in light of Lewis' world view. He was always up front about his belief that all the ancient myths contained inklings and foreshadowings of the truth. He contended, however, that it was only in Christ that the myth finally became reality... that God finally entered history. (The Word was made flesh.) It is because of C.S. Lewis that I returned to the church after decades away. I find his arguments elegant, persuasive, and deeply resonant.

As a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), I had very little regard for sacramentalism until I was in the Navy, where I took communion from an Episcopalian chaplain on Christmas Eve (open communion, anyone?) Something really hit me that night, something more than just romantic yearnings for a faith slowly dying away. The idea that the eucharist was the body and blood of Christ was very powerful to me. I believe this event led me down the path towards traditional Christianity, in my case the Orthodox Church, although it would be nearly ten years later.

Your Name at 12:02,

Thanks for your beautiful post, I very much agree with you.

I was something of a Lewis Episcopalian for several years; anyway, I was a Lewis fan and an active Episcopalian.

I later became convinced of the shared claims of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and ultimately of the Petrine claims of the Bishop of Rome, though I remain enamored of the Christian East and continue to appreciate the Anglican tradition.

"I used to be Anglican, but I'm now some sort of mix of agnostic and Heathen. I do share the revulsion against celebrating the life of a baby-murderer."

Good on you.

"I like Lewis' writings, but I never quite understand why Christians are so keen. A lot of the fiction seems pretty unorthodox, and Pagan-leaning. For example, there is the passage where the children are told that anything good done for Tash is actually done for Aslan."

What is "pagan" about that? What pagan ever said "Whatever good you do in the name of your god[s] is really done for my god[s]"?

"Also, taking Aslan as Christ raises a lot of theological difficulties."

Such as?

P.S. Glossing my own question "What pagan ever said 'Whatever good you do in the name of your god[s] is really done for my god[s]'?": The question might be expanded as "What pagan ever said 'Whatever good you do in the name of your false god[s] is really done for my true god[s]'?"

Some cosmopolitan classical philosophers may have been willing to equate their own gods to those of parallel pantheons; e.g., Zeus is Jupiter and Jupiter Zeus, Posidon is Neptune, etc. But in that case Zeus and Jupiter are just two different names for the same person (or the same fictional character, since such philosophers may well have regarded the gods as poetic metaphors).

Lewis certainly does not say that Aslan and Tash are two different names for the same person. Tash is a false god and a devil; Aslan alone is the true God. That is precisely why good ostensibly done in the service of Tash really belongs to Aslan. God alone is Good; all goodness belongs to Him, it cannot belong to Tash.

To the "mere Christianity" Episcopalians who have orthodox pastors, etc. -- do you see to it that your offerings stay local and don't go to the Schioris, etc.? And what do you do if a typical "progressive" Episcopalian presents himself/herself for Communion? Just ask no questions and never find out where the visitor stands? or admonish visitors that the Sacrament is only helpful for penitent sinners who confess the catholic Faith? These would be issues for me if I were in an orthodox Episcopalian parish.

It was because of Lewis, then Webber and Howard, that I left my SBC faith that I had grown up in, while in my mid-30s. I spent 10 years in the Anglican Catholic Church - never an Episcopalian - but I couldn't quite reconcile their claim to be part of the Apostolic Church. I am now Orthodox and quite thankful for the time spent in the ACC to learn a more "catholic" understanding of the faith and life.

My guess is that, if Lewis were alive today, he would still remain in the C of E, but would grumble a lot about it and would avoid the priestesses and the rainbow-flag waving gays (but probably would remain cordial with the camp conservative Anglo-Catholic gays), but I don't think such things would have driven him out of the C of E. Lewis, I suspect, was much too establishment, much too a "Church and King" conservative, to ever leave it. Lewis would be vaguely sympathic to the Foward in Faith and Church Society types, but would decline to be a card-carrying member of any pressure group.

The C of E is not nearly as dominated by the ultra-liberal left as the Episcopal Church is. Still, people sometimes forget that the C of E itself was already pretty theologically compromised at the time of Lewis. Essays and Reviews had been published nearly a century before his death and Foundations was published during WWI (I think). If that didn't drive Lewis off, then probably girls on the altar/boys in bed wouldn't either.

Major Wooton,

The question of what one ought to do if a person of "progressive" inclination presents himself or herself for Communion is equally pressing for orthodox Roman Catholics as it is for orthodox Anglicans and Episcopalians. Recent studies have shown that there is a higher degree of departure from orthodoxy among lay Catholics than among the laity of any other American religious group.

In any case, it's been my experience that Episcopalian congregations tend to be polarized to an extent that a given community has *either* a revisionist congregation *or* an orthodox congregation, or else -- if large enough to support them -- it has one or more of both.

There is also a good bit of polarization of a sort that tracks the broader patterns of polarization in the culture at large -- with congregations in "red" states being more apt to be orthodox than congregations in "blue" states, and with congregations in rural and suburban areas and in smaller cities being more likely to be orthodox than congregations in the larger urban hubs.

There are of course lots of exceptions to these general rules.

The upshot though is that it is quite possible (still) to be an entirely orthodox Christian *and* an Episcopalian ... but that possibility depends in large part on where one lives.

I was born Anglican so I'm not the intended audience for this entry's question, but...

Of course there's been a stream of this sort of conversion to Rome... I've been saying that 50 years ago the Orthodox convert boomlet would have been happy as Anglicans, the C.S. Lewis kind and higher. One can argue that in the ’80s and ’90s (it may be on the wane now) these high-churchifying modern Canterbury pilgrims changed into the boomlet.

Blog.

Jon,

Take a deep breath and count to ten.

There's no need for you to ask me not to tell you that supporting universal healthcare or an end to torture or a steeply progressive income tax is sinful, since nothing in my post had anything whatsoever to do with any of those topics one way or another.

But I do hope that you'll agree with me that disbelieving in the words of the liturgy and creeds contained in the Book of Common Prayer might ... just might ... make it inappropriate for one to take part in the Anglican Eucharist and that something comparable could be said where Roman Catholics are concerned in relation to the Roman Catholic Catechism and Eucharist.

In any event, would you not agree that if (hypothetically) I were to voice my opposition to universal healthcare, my support for endless torture, and my opposition to a steeply progressive income tax, then I could not -- in good faith -- profess to share *your* politics ... assuming (again hypothetically) that those the opposites of those three positions were the very *essence* of your politics?

If you would agree -- and I don't see how you could not -- then I don't see that grounds you could possible have to deny the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches the same right that you yourself enjoy to define your own beliefs and other people's relative degrees of agreement or disagreement in relation to them.

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Apologies about getting it wrong about Lewis and Apollo. I was half-remembering something I read a long time ago.

Frankly, I'm highly sceptical that the idea that good done in the name of Baal, or Satan, is actually done in the name of Christ constitutes anything close to orthodox Christianity. Could some real theologians fill me in here?

The Aslan-related theological difficulties that come to mind are that there doesn't seem to be any trinity, or God the father (patripassianism??), and Aslan dies not because of sin, but because of disloyalty. There are numerous others, and, for anyone interested, there is a good essay on this in Ronald Hutton's "Druids, witches and King Arthur".

In the SF trilogy, the humans visit a world that is unfallen yet in our space-time continuum. How does that fit in with the fall being cosmic?

When I was Anglican, I told an evangelical vicar how much I liked Lewis, and he was horrified, and said that Lewis was a Satanist. This sort of idea is developed here: http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/homemake/cslewis.htm

Disgusted in DC: I think your comments are spot-on. I don't hear about the extreme liberalism in the CofE that seems to happen in ECUSA. Most Anglicans I know complain more about the Calvinist faction. Lewis was very much on the Anglo-Catholic wing, and that side has always had a bit of a gay feel to it - all the dressing up in beautiful clothes, and so on - maybe more camp and effeminate than physically homosexual - the "nancy vicar" was a stock joke even in the 1940s. By the standards of his age, Lewis was sympathetic to gays.

Politically, Lewis was very much a High Tory, ie. someone who believes in an ordered society, welfare provision for the poor, an aristocracy, a monarchy with some actual power, and a state church. It would have been very difficult for him to be Catholic, and thus be led to opposing the monarchy (I suppose he could have joined some quixotic Jacobite group). A lot of this is kind of linked to his doubtful nationality. He disliked Ulster Protestantism, and leant towards stressing his Irishness (like Yeats, another Irish Episcopalian), but shied away from Irish Republicanism, more because it was republican than because it was Irish - had there been a claimant to the Irish throne, he would no doubt have supported.

Lewis is not why I came, but he is one of the many reasons why I stay. What he saw in Anglicanism is what I still see, the possibility of bridging the divide between Evangelical and Catholic Christianity. Of course, it may not turn out to be so. Yet I've found that every time I've been tempted to swim in one direction or another, towards Rome or the East or towards something more evangelical, I've had to stop short because there simply wasn't enough of the other. And as Archbishop Ramsey said over and over again in his work, one cannot be truly catholic without being truly evangelical and vice versa. Even in the midst of the current mess in The Episcopal Church, one sees the seeds of the Anglican vision coming to fruition in Anglo-Catholics and Evangelical Anglicans who are coming together in orthodox unity. Will it continue? Who knows? But I believe in the possibility, quite simply because to not believe in it would be to not believe in the breadth of the gospel itself.

I haven't joined the Episcopal Church, but I was definitely leaning that way by the end of my time in the Army. Chapel services are a little looser than church services, in that services are always in the same building, what service time you attend is up to you, and you can change it at your convenience. The "traditional liturgical" service is typically run by an Episcopalian military chaplain. The "traditional" service is usually Presbyterian or Lutheran, while the "contemporary" service is Baptist or non-denominational. Lots of military folk who attend military chapel see themselves as non-denominational.

I must say that through two tours in Iraq I found the Episcopal chaplains deeper and more able to provide support for trying times. They didn't have very many of the easy pat answers, they were more able to share darker Psalms and passages with us, the ones dealing with fear. They were more open to doubt and mystery. Which is good, because God's love can seem very much a mystery, and his Providence in doubt, when you see some of things that happen in a war zone, and when you experience deep grief and daily pressure.

I wouldn't say I was so much attracted to Episcopal teachings as I was to the attitude of Episcopal priests serving in the military, and somewhat dissatisfied with Evangelical support at the time. I find fixed prayer to be of help as it is something you can do whether you FEEL your faith or not. Because there will come times when you do not feel much of anything positive (or anything at all), and if you are relying on feeling to provide evidence of faith, you will eventually be disappointed.