As I recall””my memory is anything but faultless, but I’m relatively confident about this””the primary conclusion that I drew from this statement was that, as a member of the Church of England, Lewis was neither Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, nor Anglican. Which even now seems to me a reasonable conclusion, given the information I had and did not have at the time. How was I to know that “Anglican” was somehow related to “Church of England”? And if you had told me that Episcopalians””of whose existence I believe I had some nebulous awareness””were also Anglicans, I would have had no idea what that could possibly mean.
In any case, as a new inquirer into Christianity, I thought that the book seemed worth reading, and bought it, along with another one chosen with even less knowledge: a paperback commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans by one F. F. Bruce. And on the choice of those two books hangs quite a tale, as far as the course of my own life is concerned.
I do not want to be careless in generalizing from my own experience in gauging Lewis’s religious position, but if, as I suspect, it is indeed relatively common, I want to suggest that one significant reason for Lewis’s widespread positive reception in the U.S. involves simple ignorance on the part of American audiences of what it means to be a layman of the Church of England. That is, Lewis did not fit into the known landscape of American religious life: the ordinary American Christian had to evaluate his work on the basis of what information was available””primarily that he was a scholar at a prestigious university and a bestselling author””and on the ideas themselves. And it may be that such readers were better positioned to hear what Lewis had to say than people, like Hugh Trevor-Roper and the readers of Sheed & Ward advertising and J. R. R. Tolkien, who for very different reasons believed that they had knowledge external to the writings that helped them to place and fix Lewis in a field of possibilities already known to them. This is what I mean by my title: “the uses of ignorance.”
Delightful. I especially love the ending, with Tolkien’s apt comment about Lewis: “[i]You’ll never get to the bottom of him.[/i]” So true.
For T19 readers who aren’t aware of it, Alan Jacobs has written an outstanding biography of C. S. Lewis, called [b]The Narnian[/b]. Moreover, for hose who don’t know it, Jacobs is a prolific writer who teaches English at Wheaton College and wrotes often for the marvelous journal [b]First Things[/b].
David Handy+
Jacobs is at Baylor now.
OK, thanks, Dr. Seitz.
As a Wheaton grad, I’m sorry that my alma mater couldn’t hold onto Jacobs.
David Handy+
Lots of Wheaton/Calvin to Baylor.
Wheaton picked up one of the premier Irenaeus scholars from DTS, so there is cross-fertilization. Jeff Bingham.
Yes, but there is a sort of trade imbalance that’s visible. Baylor has spent a fortune hiring some of the best Christian minds in the nation. I’m thinking in particular of Ralph Wood (another English prof like Jacobs), who wrote [b]The Gospel According to Tolkien[/b], and above all, the incomparable Philip Jenkins. Or what about another fine scholar who attended this event? What about Mark Noll, the eminent American church historian? Notre Dame lured him away from Wheaton. But the last I knew, Wheaton hasn’t gotten anybody in return from Notre Dame. Seems a little unfair to me.
I’m happy for Baylor. Or maybe envious. I wish all the leading Christian schools had the deep pockets to draw on that Baylor does now.
David Handy+