From "Mere" To "More"

Which brings us back to Lewis and Catholicism. It is a curious phenomenon, demanding explanation, that so many people influenced by Lewis, including some significant Christian thinkers and writers in their own right, have embraced more than "mere Christianity"; they have become Catholics, often crediting Lewis with helping them to cross the threshold. Why has Lewis been such an effective apologist for Catholic Christianity, given that he never became a Catholic? What of Lewis’s own position vis-à-vis the Catholic Church?

The latter question was well explored by Christopher Derrick, a long-time friend and former student of Lewis, in his book C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome (Ignatius Press, 1981). Derrick, a Catholic, held that Lewis’s Ulster Protestant background, combined with certain quirks of Lewis’s mind, made it difficult for him to see the Catholic Church as "the Church" or the fullest embodiment of Christian truth. Joseph Pearce, in his C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church (Ignatius, 2003), echoes the point, although less polemically and in a more wide-ranging, nuanced study.

But what Lewis himself could not see in the Catholic Church, others standing upon his broad Christian shoulders, have seen. Hence the steady stream of converts Lewis has helped come into the Catholic fold.

But what Lewis himself could not see in the Catholic Church, others standing upon his broad Christian shoulders, have seen. Hence the steady stream of converts Lewis has helped come into the Catholic fold. Or, to put it in terms more in keeping with Vatican II’s language, into full communion with the Catholic Church. In that respect, Lewis has been called a "Church Uncle," rather than a Church Father.

Surveying Lewis’ writings, a strong case can be made that he imbibed a significant amount of distinctively Catholic doctrine. Certainly, he was not evangelical Protestant in the typical sense of the term. He was, for instance, a sacramental and liturgical Christian. He believed in purgatory and prayers for the dead. He believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though he refused to take sides in disputes over the precise nature of the Presence. He affirmed a form of doctrinal development and even sometimes behaved as if he thought there was something of a Magisterium, or teaching Church, within Christendom, although he never associated it in any particular way with the Papacy. He regularly went to Confession, a practice allowed for in the "high church" wing of Anglicanism, but not widely encouraged in the Church of England. Furthermore, many distinctively Protestant tenets — such as the twin pillars of Reformation Christianity, sola scriptura and justification by faith alone — receive little or no emphasis in Lewis.

To be sure, strands of Lewis’s Ulster Protestantism occasionally found their way into his writing, and it is clear that he didn’t regard Catholicism as adding anything necessary to "mere Christianity." Lewis was no papist (though rumors circulated in Oxford that he was secretly a Jesuit!). Distinctively Catholic doctrines were he contended, at best, items that suited certain temperaments. Nevertheless, the evangelical Protestant who accepts Lewis as a reliable guide to "mere Christianity" will have to accept distinctively Protestant doctrines as likewise optional or "extras." That approach is but one step shy of denying Protestantism, for it implies that what was at stake in the Reformation was not the Gospel itself, as the Reformers thought. The next step is to ask, "What is the Church?", a question Lewis seemingly never fully confronted, but which many of his non-Catholic readers do. And when they do, they often come up with the Catholic answer.

In recent years Lewis has come under attack, even from within the Christian household. Some of the criticism may be justified; much of it certainly isn’t. The charge is leveled that Lewis’s work often falls outside the exacting lines of professional theology. To that Lewis himself would, no doubt, plead guilty. He didn’t claim to be a professional theologian, only, as we have seen, a translator of their work to the people at large.

Other critics point to Lewis’s personal life and allege hypocrisy, even that he had an immoral sexual liaison with an older woman. Lacking substantial evidence, those who thus charge him are reduced to rumor-mongering and gossip. Still others criticize his disciples as too eager to quote Lewis blindly and let their master do their thinking for them — an accusation with some validity perhaps, but as applied to the "disciples," not to Lewis, who never sought disciples for himself. The disciples he made were for Christ.

The fact remains, to his critics’ displeasure, that Lewis, born at the end of the nineteenth century, continues to be immensely relevant at the beginning of the twenty-first century. That is, if intelligent, imaginative, traditional, and ecumenically sound Christianity remains relevant — which we can be certain it does, based on an Authority vastly superior to that of C.S. Lewis.