MY FAVORITE C.S. LEWIS BOOK

It is really hard for me to pick my favorite for two reasons: (1) practically everything he wrote was memorable and (2) he wrote in such a variety of genres that it is a little like comparing apples and oranges. Not counting his works on literary criticism, one could name the following:

Children's fantasy (Narnia Chronicles)

Science fiction (Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength) The last in this series presages the spate of Christian apocalyptic fiction.

Epistolary novel (The Screwtape Letters)

Religious essays (found in collections such as God in the Dock and The World's Last Day)

Apologetic writings (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, Miracles)

Semi-autobiographical novel (A Grief Observed)

Autobiography (A Pilgrim's Regress, Surprised by Joy)

Bible commentary (Reflections on the Psalms)

Sociology (The Abolition of Man)

Correspondence (Letters to an American Lady)

Allegorical novel (Till We Have Faces)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the above works and others, but I must admit that the last book on this list left me entirely cold. I will blame that on my own deficiencies as a reader rather than on the author. I have pointedly left out my favorite book by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce. I guess you could categorize it as an extended parable. In any case, it is a great book and one that has been ignored by even some C.S. Lewis aficionados I know. The reason may be due to its rather misleading title, which has to do with the great gulf between heaven and hell. It is certainly not a marriage manual.

Without giving away too much of the plot, I can say that it resembles Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man told in Luke 16:19-31 in that both provide pictures of the intermediate state after death and before the Last Judgment. The Great Divorce has been criticized by some Christians because on the surface it appears as if Lewis is picturing the Roman Catholic concept of purgatory. In fact, that is not at all the case (which is explained in the book), but it may be another reason for many neglecting this book.

I should point out that the teachings in the Bible are not crystal clear on details regarding what happens to us immediately after we die. There are certainly rather persuasive after-death experiences that have been related in recent years in which believers experience being ushered through the gates of heaven. However, I remain a skeptic on that subject and would prefer to stick to biblical teachings, vague as they may be on this point.

One view shared by some evangelical scholars is that when a person dies he or she goes to one of two “holding places.” Those who are destined to go to heaven at the Last Judgment will go to a place of bliss called “Abraham's bosom” (using the terminology in Jesus' parable cited above) or “Paradise” as in Jesus' words to the repentant thief on the cross (Luke 23:43) and the place Paul visited in a vision (II Corinthians 12:4). By the way, treating Jesus' promise to the thief as an intermediate place is the perhaps the best way to reconcile it with Jesus' later comment to Mary that he had not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17).

On the other hand, those destined for eventual damnation will go to Sheol / Hades. It may be pictured as the shadowy land pictured in the OT (for example, Job 10:20-22) or as a place of major discomfort as in Jesus' parable. But we can't really treat either concept as definitive since (a) The OT teachings on this subject suffered from not having the further revelations given by God in the NT and (b) one rule of biblical interpretation is that the details in Jesus' parables are not meant to be pressed too far as literal reality since they are mainly there to help add color to his stories and serve to make the theological point he is getting across. In the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the main teachings include the surprising reversals of fortune one will find in the Afterlife, the irreversibility of decisions made while living, and the fact that some people will not believe in the truth of God's word even if someone, such as Jesus himself, comes back from the dead.

The picture of the intermediate state that C.S. Lewis paints in The Great Divorce is actually not that far from the above understanding of the few biblical hints that we have. However, he merges the two images into one by describing a “gray town” to which one is transported upon death. And there is a bus terminal there at which one can catch a ride at any time to or from the outskirts of heaven itself. The problem is that not everyone wants to go to heaven.

At this point, Lewis' fable begins to resemble another story of Jesus even closer. In the Parable of the Banquet (Luke 14:15-24), one person after another turns down the invitation by inventing various excuses. In The Great Divorce the reasons for turning down the invitation to visit heaven are just as flimsy, but some may resonate with the reader. I must admit that I identified with the Bible scholar who doesn't see any advantage in going to heaven because then all of his many theological questions would be answered and that would take all the fun out of his studies. Instead, he much prefers to stay in the gray town where he can lead his little Bible study into discussing one speculative subject after another. For those like him, they eventually find it even a little uncomfortable living close to the bus terminal, and so they move further out of the city and into the ever darker and gloomier suburbs, which become their individual hells.

Those who are familiar with Lewis' non-fiction works will readily identify the above picture as a variation on his famous saying that “The gates of hell are locked on the inside.” Or as I have heard from the pulpit on occasion, “Those who do not want to be around God when they are alive, will not want to be around him after they are dead.” I like this vision of hell because it stresses the fact that eternal damnation is not God's rather arbitrary punishment but His willingness to grant people the dignity of their free-will choices.

By contrast, those who take the bus tour encounter, even on the edges of heaven, the Solid People who are more real than any found on earth. They help people to become slowly adjusted to this new real reality. But it may take a while since everything is so much grander than anything previously experienced. For example, the blades of grass are so solid that it hurts to walk on them at first. And from that heavenly perspective, it becomes obvious that even the large “gray town” is so small that it can fit in a small crack in heaven.

One thing that has always disturbed me is the way heaven is portrayed in the popular media. It is a mainly colorless place (other than blue skies) in which one floats around on clouds all day occasionally plucking on a harp. Mark Twain years ago remarked that it struck him as a place in which any sane person would go out of his mind in about five minutes (loosely paraphrasing him). But Lewis pictures it as so much more, not less, than our present existence that it is impossible to conceive it.

There are many other spiritual insights and interesting human stories packed into this slim book, but I will leave you wanting more. So go out and read it.