Maybe this has come up before somewhere, but could someone fill me in on the theology of C.S. Lewis. Anyone know something of where he was really coming from??
I recall reading somewhere that Lewis had the last rites administered at his death, and also that he subscribed to some serious heresies. A quick Google search just now unearthed this article: http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/bewareof-cslewis.html
I also got the distinct impression from his "Screwtape" scribblings that he was a rabid Arminian.
While Lewis did hold to Arminianism and inclusivism and did not believe in Biblical inerrancy, I wouldn't use the Way of Life site as a resource. It is David Cloud's site, and he is an anti-Calvinist King James Onlyist.
True godliness is a sincere feeling which loves God as Father as much as it fears and reverences Him as Lord, embraces His righteousness, and dreads offending Him worse than death~ Calvin
janean said: Maybe this has come up before somewhere, but could someone fill me in on the theology of C.S. Lewis. Anyone know something of where he was really coming from??
Well what can be said is that he was a member of the Church of England, that he believed the bible to contain the Word of God, not was the Word of God (he didn't believe in verbal plenary inerrancy), he believed one could lose their salvation and was friends with RCC (JRR Tolkein) and so was sympathetic to their belief system.
Peter
If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. Augustine of Hippo
Just to add to what Pilgrim said about Cloud. Cloud defended James Hunt in Hunt's obvious misrepresenting of both Calvinism and CH Spurgeon. That should tell you a lot about Cloud, when even many Arminians stood against Hunt's book.
Pretty much everything folks are telling you about Cloud is true. Now, just because I guy is against Calvinism, doesn't necessarily ruin his reputation as a commentator on the lives of great men in the past or Church History in general. The problem with Cloud, however, is that he does not have such a reputation. He does notoriously bad research and misrepresents the facts about folks regularly. I wrote this to a poster on another board who was asking the same questions about Cloud:
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Though I would not question David Cloud's faith as a believer, I certainly question the reliability of his research as a defender of fundamentalism and Christianity in general. David Cloud is one of the most notorious promoters of misinformation in the name of Christianity on the internet. One of the reasons (out of many) for his misinformation is that Mr. Cloud depends upon grossly out-of-date citations and facts for his postings. He will selectively cite some example of heresy against a person from a source 5 to 10 years old. It does not matter if the person has since recanted those alleged "heresies" or was misquoted and selectively cited in the first place a decade before. For example, last year on October 18th, 2004, he posted a hit piece against Christian music singer/preacher, Steve Camp, accusing him of being ecumenical in his philosophy of ministry. I know Steve Camp and I can tell you right now that he is not ecumenical, and if anyone were to read his website with any regularity he writes against it. However, that was just one grevious error among many Mr. Cloud raised against Steve Camp. The most comical was the biographical information Mr. Cloud posted giving his readers a sketch as to who Steve Camp is. Mr. Cloud stated that Steve Camp is currently (2004) a member of John MacArthur's Grace Church. Camp hasn't been at Grace in 6 years! He left sometime after 98-99. It should be further noted that this article is a re-published article on the same subject, ie, Steve Camp's ecumenicalism as a CCM musician, that was originally posted in 2002. That means Mr. Cloud never bothered to re-check his information and correct it from the first time he posted it. I actually took the time one afternoon on a Friday when I had a slow day at work to write Mr. Cloud a note informing him of this inaccuracy. He wrote me back a curt response basically dismissing my email as unimportant, because it is the broader information in his article against Camp that is important to note, even though the allegations Mr. Cloud uses as demonstrating ecumencialism against Camp is 10-15 years out of date. His response reminded me of CBS and Dan Rather's comments against the allegations of document fraud in the whole Bush/Air National Guard fiasco from last fall. If Mr. Cloud regular gets his facts wrong about general, run-of-the-mill information on people, how can I be expected to trust the reliability of his other main points in his articles? (ShaperIron forum, 4/18)
"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns
Perhaps this thread should be retitled "David Cloud: His Theology and Where he is Really Coming From"
At any rate, most of what you'll read about Lewis' doctrinal errors are true, despite his "iconic" status among even the most conservative evangelicals. I'm ok with the errors because Lewis was not and never claimed to be a theologian, though many people refer to and cite him as such. I think his greatest works are the Narnia Chronicles and the Screwtape Letters (Mere Christianity is greatly overrated, at least as a work of popular apologetics), both of which are purely literary products informed by a great deal of spiritual insight and theological truth. When Lewis is right about something (and he is most of the time) he expresses it better than just about anyone else, and he is well worth reading for that reason. Nevertheless, it does bother me that he gets off so easily among evangelicals (Reformed and Arminian) compared to men like Karl Barth or Soren Kierkegaard who were arguably more, but certainly not less orthodox than he.