C.S. Lewis was being interviewed in 1963 by a member of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Towards the end of the interview, there was this exchange:
Interviewer: “Do you believe that the use of filth and obscenity is necessary in order to establish a realistic atmosphere in contemporary literature?”
Lewis: “I do not. I treat this development as a symptom, a sign of a culture that has lost its faith. Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse. I look upon the immediate future with great apprehension.”
Interviewer: “Do you feel, then, that modern culture is being de-Christianized?”
Lewis: “I cannot speak to the political aspects of the question, but I have some definite views about the de-Christianizing of the church. I believe that there are many accommodating preachers, and too many practitioners in the church who are not believers. Jesus Christ did not say ‘Go into all the world and tell the world that is it quite right.’ The Gospel is something completely different. In fact, it is directly opposed to the world.
The case against Christianity that is made out in the world is quite strong. Every war, every shipwreck, every cancer case, every calamity, contributes to make a prima facie case against Christianity. It is not easy to be a believer in the face of this surface evidence. It calls for a strong faith in Jesus Christ.”
Had Lewis thought it about a bit more, he could have returned to one of his key thoughts from earlier writings. The case for or against Christianity is not about whether one likes or dislikes some aspect of the faith. In fact, as Lewis writes elsewhere, “The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true.”
The faith that I and Lewis and JRR Tolkien and Billy Graham and millions of others walk in is about an actual event and moment in History. Now, I can decide upon looking at the historical evidence that there isn’t enough there. Or I can attempt to discredit the historical evidence (something that has been attempted for centuries only to see the opposite occur as we enter 2017…the historical evidence is stronger today than ever before). But what one can’t say is that this issue is merely something connected to one’s own feelings, whether one likes something or not.
I agree with Lewis regarding the move away from our moral virtue roots as Western Civilization. To know that Lewis was already calling this out in 1963 only heightens, for me, the steep slide we have been on. I offer that it’s become worse in the last 20-25 years, but regardless, at the center of that is this question of truth. But maybe, just maybe, there is a small ray of hope shining today.
By the 1980s, if not 1970s, the West accepted wholesale an illogical stance we call post-modernism. As I’ve told you before, the short version is that postmodernism asserts you cannot know anything, that there is no objective truth (certainly no One who can claim to be Truth like Jesus did). For all of my adult life in education and teaching, since the late ’80s, most Americans accepted this. If you attempted to speak about “right and wrong” or certainly if you raised the conversation about Christianity or even faith generally, the postmodern illogic was trotted out. “There is no right or wrong…those are just words; there is no objective truth.”
But if you’ve been paying attention to the words and arguments of many since the start of this year with a new President, all of a sudden there is a new tune. From all sides, but particularly from the more Liberal person (those who previously were the most adamant about the truth of postmodernism…and there’s the illogical nature of it, if you can see it), there has now become a clamor that there is indeed a right and a wrong. For many, President Trump is on the “wrong” all the time.
The evidence of this change is showing up elsewhere though. Even among some of my professorial peers who, again typically, never saw a rule they liked, particularly if it came from the Administration or the state government, I have now begun to hear strong voices about right and wrong in actions of students, whether in protests, in classroom commentary or even in where students park.
I don’t know if this change will last. I am eager though to take advantage of the moment. If there is a right and wrong that President Trump has failed on, then let’s discuss what that standard actually is, where it comes from. Perhaps, out of the darkness of our current days, this shining little beam of light will allow us to consider fairly the issue of truth.