Lewis' Parable for Our Time
I give You thanks, O Lord,
with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing Your praise;
I bow down toward Your holy temple
and give thanks to Your name for Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness,
for You have exalted above all things
Your name and Your word.
On the day I called, You answered me;
my strength of soul You increased.
- Psalm 138:1-3
If you are not familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, I can only encourage you to purchase and read the set as soon as is possible. Ostensibly written for children, The Chronicles of Narnia is a seven-volume series written by C. S. Lewis about four siblings – and one uncle – who enter into the mythical land of Narnia. Narnia is where the Lion Aslan is the King of Beasts – Aslan, the wild, untamed, but good Son of the Emperor-over-the-Sea. Narnia is such a place that children immediately feel at home but adults often struggle to enjoy. In Narnia, the animals talk and laugh, and dryad trees walk and dance, and water naiads rise and fall in aid of Aslan’s cause. It is a land of fauns and centaurs and satyrs and other wondrous creatures that holds all the enchanting possibilities we have forgotten to think about. At least, I think it is easy for us to forget.
Maybe you are different, but I have struggled with the darkness that stretches across our land, really, across Western civilization. The prostitution of truth for ever-larger coffers alongside the complete loss of integrity in our defining institutions are not only discouraging but profoundly disturbing. I’ve reached the point that if legacy news networks are reporting something or some governmental agency is recommending something, then I think we probably ought to believe and to do the opposite. That’s really quite a rebellious position to take at my age, but then, at my age I’m old enough to remember what freedom was, as well as freedom’s unyielding demand for personal responsibility and glorious potential for personal achievement.
The crumbling of our national sense of identity under the weight of greed and lust is, perhaps, inevitable, but it is only inevitable because we allowed Christ to be silenced and greed and lust to be idolized. I watched a brief video of a young teacher speculating on what her classroom of students should call her. Was she a him? Or a her? She doesn’t feel like either a him or a her, and as she meandered aloud unreflectively about how her students were to connect with her, she mentioned she would be teaching four-year-old kindergarteners. I feel for her. I do. Anyone that confused needs our compassion. But what no one needs is for her to teach four-year-old children. If she wants to teach, then she needs to put on her big girl panties and grow up.
That’s the point I’ve come to these days. If there was ever a vacuous and meaningless thought system in the history of humanity, it has to be secular humanism. It is not areligious, as it claims. It is deeply religiously committed to secularism, which is a nice word for atheism. Nor is humanism particularly pro-human. In fact, one might argue that humanism borders on hatred of the human being in spite of its espousal of great concern for the human race. At least communism is honest. The State and the Communist Party are all that matters. Human beings are a renewable resource. In contrast, secular humanism says all the right words and does all the wrong things, which just makes it utterly hypocritical in its arrogance.
But what bothers me the most is us – the Christians. Maybe I don’t get out enough (a real possibility), but the Christian voice in contemporary culture seems so timid, so tepid. There is nothing in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that invites fainthearted hesitancy, and our Lord made explicit His disdain for lukewarm faithfulness and obedience. I often pray for some sort of leadership, some sort of fearless proclamation of the goodness, the power, and the love of Jesus Christ for all human beings. I’m not referring to the patronizing, superficial pretense of care as spouted by glib and ridiculous politicians and pretended to by agencies and officials, but the life-sacrificing, life-giving love of God Almighty.
As the public voices of our institutions, from media to Capitol Hill to universities, work arduously to silence Christianity, I would love to see anyone stand up and proclaim the love of Jesus Christ for every person. We shied before accusations of imposing and proselytizing from two or three generations of people who have been evangelizing shameless atheism and decadent selfishness. Why did we ever kowtow to such declarations? Is “Jesus loves you” somehow more offensive than “children should choose their own gender”? One is a message that calls us to humility and life. The other is a message of exploitation of the most vulnerable. It’s hard to argue for moral equivalency between the two.
Whatever the case, as Christianity declines into comfortable sentimentality, I wonder why there is no sense of confidence in the God Who shattered the chains of death? Meekness does not mean doormat, and we do not have to accept anyone’s opinion that Christ is irrelevant. I can argue until I am blue in the face that ‘this idea is wrong’ or ‘that idea is wrong, and Christianity is better’, but that is only partially useful. It’s a support position because the Good News is a relationship – a transforming, empowering, life-giving relationship. No one in the twenty-first century is greater than our God. No one knows more than our God, from Whom all knowledge and wisdom is derived. So, who is telling everyone that Christ still saves, that new life is still being offered, that what we see is not all there is, and that the future is full of promise because when we get there, Christ will still be King above all kings, Lord of all?
Surprisingly, Tucker Carlson is. I did not see that coming. Did you? Carlson started a national tour in Phoenix last week with an interview with Russell Brand. Frankly, I had to look up Russell Brand because I’m too old and stodgy to have heard of the British comedian. Search results produced a veritable throng of “Russell Brand loathers.” That alone piqued my interest, and I found myself watching the opening show of Carlson’s tour. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Tucker Carlson and his good friend Russell Brand sat down and talked about turning to Jesus Christ, reading the Bible, and praying together. Russell Brand is hilarious even when he’s talking about politics and religion, or maybe that’s his job as an entertainer – to be funny while talking about politics and religion.
After they talked about the changes wrought in them through faith in Jesus Christ, they both shared their astonishment at discovering what all they’d learned when reading the Bible for the first time. Brand’s message was especially powerful when he spoke of his infant son’s heart surgery, so much so that I went back and watched it a second time. But equally remarkable was Tucker Carlson’s open sharing of his own faith.
It’s not that I doubt people believe in God – or rather to be honest, I do doubt people believe in God. If one never mentions faith or God or prayer or anything related to God, then it seems self-evidently obvious that God does not matter to a person. Average, regular people – nameless, faceless people on the street – may well be people of faith, but talking about trusting in Jesus is not quite ‘the thing’ in recent years, recent decades. As their conversation drew to a close, Carlson asked Brand to close with a prayer, and there, on the stage, Brand got down on his knees and prayed humbly for Jesus Christ to bring unity among the people of America and for there to be forgiveness and grace in our nation. Really, I was kind of speechless – and grateful, really, really grateful. A nationally known figure spoke to a live audience of his genuine and growing faith in Jesus.
The comments from the search I did prior to watching was full of mockery and condemnation. One widespread opinion was that they were faking their prayer and faith. Why? Conservatives will listen to Tucker Carlson if he never mentions Jesus Christ or Christian faith. He doesn’t need Jesus to draw an audience. But Jesus needs people to know He lives, He saves, and He redeems. It appears He’s asked Carlson to pass along the good news of what our Lord is doing in him and in his life.
Along the same lines but in a totally different arena, Ayaan Hirsi Ali abandoned her atheist convictions and turned to Jesus Christ. That was huge on social media a few months back. In a debate with the oh-so-certain Richard Dawkins, Ali defended her newfound Christian faith, sharing the account of being found by God after years of dark hopelessness and despair. Atheism will do that to you if you take it seriously. Probably in deference to years of friendship, Dawkins was kinder with Ali than he is in most debates, but his dogmatic atheism does not allow him to hear, much less consider, the reality of Ali’s experience of God and her rebirth in Christ. Be that as it may, she still sat in a very public venue and told everyone what God had done for her.
And then, there are the revivals. What began at Asbury University last year seems to have continued as the Holy Spirit keeps visiting college campuses here and yon. Reports of the outbreak of revival came from twenty-one universities last year. The Spirit continues to move across the land with the latest report of revival coming from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, in August. Who knows where the Holy Spirit will show up next? Somewhere… The Spirit is moving.
If you’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia, or if you’ve seen the movie, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the deep freeze of winter (with no Christmas) begins to thaw as the children learn their way around Narnia. With the aid of the talking beasts, they seek to find the brother taken by the evil witch who claims to be queen. One drop at a time, the frozen tundra begins to thaw, and the word gets out, “Aslan is on the move.”
Long before He was seen, Aslan’s impact could be felt. In the warming of the air, the appearance of green shoots of grass, the songs of birds, and the melting of frozen rivers, the movement of Aslan toward Narnia was felt across the land. At the same time, the witch became increasingly hostile, louder, and violent in an effort to stop the coming of Aslan and the ending of her reign. The effort to find and destroy the children intensified as she set her wolves to their pursuit. If they could get to the children before the children reached Aslan…
It is a parable for our time. The forces of darkness seem to grow stronger and louder and increasingly destructive, but they do so because Christ is on the move. He’s sent His Spirit to awaken people to Him. Evil has run amok and unchecked, and Christ is calling people to Him after the long, empty darkness of degradation and destruction.
I’m not suggesting that Tucker Carlson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Russell Brand are leading some sort of Christian movement. Rather, their lives are signs that point to the thawing of hearts and minds as Christ approaches, indications that Christ is on the move. He’s the One to Whom we should look, though I do appreciate seeing Him at work in others’ lives.
We need to stop being so afraid and start living thankfully, singing the praises of our God before the gods of our popular culture. The Spirit of God is already going before us, and the idols of our time are silenced by the Lion’s roar of our God. David wrote the Psalm in which he thanked God with his whole heart as he sang God’s praises, bowed before Him, and thanked Him for His steadfast love and faithfulness.
Do I think Christ is coming to America to save it? Goodness, no! I would never make such a claim. Our God is so much greater than a single nation! But He does appear to be working among Americans who have been lost for much too long. Authentic, humble Christian devotion and sacrifice change people first, and in the changing of people, the environment around us changes. I have no idea what Christ has planned, but I know I want to be a part of it. If He is on the move, I want to be standing anywhere He might pass by. What I refuse to do is listen to the mockers and accusers any longer.
Christ is on the move. That is the best news going! He is working in people’s lives, and He is pouring out His Spirit to find a lost generation. As the tide of evil seems to swell, realize it is doing so because it wants to consume as many as possible before Christ arrives. So, join your voice in praise and thanksgiving to God before the idolatrous gods of our time. See the people they are destroying, and call upon the steadfast love and faithfulness of God to save them before they are devoured.
Shed your fears, and raise your voice in praise and thanksgiving. Christ is on the move.
In Christ –
Rev. Elizabeth Moreau
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