Subject: RE: (urth) Chasing the CSL rabbit

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 23:42:56 +0000

I'm trying and failing to remember the essay or work in which CSL argues
that the uplifting of the Virgin Mary was God's answer to a Roman Empire
crazy for Aphrodite and other orgiastic worship.

Also, his mentorship under George MacDonald, it seems, left him kindly
disposed to the idea that the "heathen" who did not have a chance to reject
or accept the Gospel, are offered the chance after death (some of this in
"The Great Divorce")

I don't think any of this is really **Roman Catholic** but it's not
Puritanical COE either.

On the other hand, I recall Tolkien complaining that Lewis' was biased
against persecuted Catholic priests ("The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien").

My point is that while I doubt his theological peg could have been
comfortably hammered into any RC hole, he wasn't one to get in line behind
anybody's "teaching" without putting his own spin on it.

Incidentally, I'm always surprised at how often people claim to have been
convinced of the Gospel by CSL's non-fiction. I've found his fiction (for
example, "Til We Have Faces") to be so much more compelling.

-- Crush

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 10:52 AM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: RE: (urth) DOORS: The Hero, The Otherworld, The Ending

> Lewis was an Anglican, and not just because of the accident
> of his having been born in England.

Northern Ireland, actually...

> There's no indication in any of his devotional or
> didactic writings that he disagreed with any of the teachings
> of the C. of E.

Well, there's a quibble, and one that shows him to be very
High Church indeed: in "Letters to Malcolm" he indicates,
if not a belief, at least a _desire_ to believe, in Purgatory.

(who is beginning to think he knows far more about CSL than he should)

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