C.S. Lewis on Sexual Morality and Christian Marriage

Post Reply New Topic

Time for some fire and brimstone you degenerates. I kid, but I have just stumbled upon these lovely "doodle" videos of C.S. Lewis' radio presentation (later a book) Mere Christianity, a must read for anyone seriously interested in Christianity.

The doodle drawings are hilarious! Why have I never seen these kind of presentations before--and of Lewis, too. What a writer...

I think C.S. Lewis had a rare gift for making sense out of the parallel vocabulary in which Christianity seems to operate. Thanks for posting these fun videos.

(But if you want fire & brimstone, turn on the shortwave radio and wait. Or just don't.)

My favorite bit of fire and brimstone is from the Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God."

Here's a portion of it:

Yesterday I was thinking of CS Lewis and I decided he was likely an uptight prude.

Get your Screwtape on!

^ That passage reminds me of Lockwood's dream about Jabez Branderham in Wuthering Heights:

"... we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text - 'Seventy Times Seven;' and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the 'First of the Seventy-First,' and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated ... In my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached - good God! what a sermon; divided into FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously. Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would EVER have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the 'FIRST OF THE SEVENTY-FIRST.' At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.

'Sir,' I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart - Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!'

'THOU ART THE MAN!' cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage - seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul - Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!'

With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me."

Clive Staples was a great writer and important theologian of his time.There is a rumor in the rumor mill that Lewis was secretly into S&M in particular being whiped on the butt,but that is just a rumor.