Also, since my new podcast on Narnia is dropping today ( @propheticimagin) here's a tidbit I learned about Lewis that I wanted to share.

During WWII, the BBC asked Lewis to give a series of lectures on Christianity to boost morale of the country.

These radio talks were extremely popular and were published as "Mere Christianity"--which became a publishing hit in the US as well. In fact, it's my opinion that one of the reason the Chronicles of Narnia is so beloved is bc we believe Lewis to be such a successful apologist.

(I grew up reading Mere Christianity as THE book on explaining the faith to unbelievers and bought it for two of my friends!)

The Chronicles of Narnia were written several years later, after Lewis was apparently exhausted by his apologetics work. He wanted to dabble in something more creative, and the books were born more out of a series of images and fairy stories than arguments.

ANYWAYS it's worth thinking about the fact that Mere Christianity was meant to boost the morale of a country during wartime--to encourage troops to fight for their "officially" Christian nation by strengthening their faith.

And we (Americans like myself) tend to view Lewis' work as incredibly successful, especially in apologetics--and yet, what happened to Christianity in England in the generation or two after Lewis? It dwindled, until now it is a tiny percentage of the population.

(according to this site--pre Brexit--in 2016 less than 5% of people in England attended church regularly). When I was in Cambridge last summer several vicars told me the same thing. People simply don't engage with Christianity as a whole. https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html

So. While we hold up Mere Christianity as a huge success and lionize (heh) the role Lewis has played in making Christianity intellectually possible for the future, the reality is: it didn't work.

It didn't work in England, and it isn't going to work in the US.

The US could well be on the way to the same numbers of people who want to regularly engage with the rhythms of Christian community. And we need to ask ourselves why that is. Is it because of our entanglement with the state? Baptizing everything our country does as God-ordained?

What is it we are trying to win, exactly, in these tired and horrible culture wars? Can we maybe look to Lewis not as the great apologist but as the man who when he was tired and sad turned to stories, to bone-deep joy and mystical images?

What would it mean to "fail" as the official religion of an oppressive nation-state and instead become a vibrant community of faithful Christians living out the good news in our neighborhoods and communities?