Will Vaus

Only 15 more days until Prince Caspian opens in theaters in the United States! My family can't wait. What about you?

I have a new book in the works! To learn more about it click here: http://narniaprof.blogspot.com .

The photo above is of me sitting on the grave of St. Patrick in the lovely city of Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. I don't know if C. S. Lewis ever visited Downpatrick but I imagine he did since it is in his beloved County Down. At any rate, Lewis did have this to say about asking for the prayers of the saints: "There is clearly a theological defence for it; if you can ask for the prayers of the living, why should you not ask for the prayers of the dead? There is clearly also a great danger. In some popular practice we see it leading off into an infinitely silly picture of Heaven as an earthly court where applicants will be wise to pull the right wires, discover the best 'channels,' and attach themselves to the most influential pressure groups. But I have nothing to do with all this. I am not thinking of adopting the practice myself; and who am I to judge the practices of others? I only hope there'll be no scheme for canonisations in the Church of England....

I know, I know. It has been a long time since I posted anything on this blog--six weeks or more! Mea culpa! Well, here is the next installment of discussion questions on Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . These discussion questions are for chapter 9 on forgiveness: Where are you in terms of "preparing for forgiveness"? What do you think of the definition of forgiveness given in this chapter? Has theoretical belief in God's forgiveness of your sins become a reality for you? Explain. How are you doing at forgiving others? Do you find any of Lewis's suggestions helpful toward that end? What are your thoughts about confessing sins to a spiritual director? I look forward to reading your responses. . . .

Here are the discussion questions for chapter 8 of Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis : Is the person and work of the Holy Spirit somewhat mysterious to you as it was to Lewis? Why or why not? What do you think of Lewis's view that the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is more important than the feeling of his presence? Do you agree with Lewis about speaking in tongues? Why or why not? Do you think God speaks to himself through us, as Lewis suggests in his interpretation of Romans 8:26? Which way of God speaking to us do you think is the most important - Scripture, the church, friends, other books? Why? I look forward to reading your responses. And here is one more question: Why do you think Lewis writes so little about the Holy Spirit?

Last night our C. S. Lewis Society in Harrisonburg, Virginia, was discussing "Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis" by George Sayer. However, we were only able to discuss about half of Jack's life in an hour and a half! Here are the rest of the discussion questions for anyone from the group, or anyone else for that matter, who would like to comment: How do you think Lewis's life as a fellow and a tutor shaped his life and writing? How did Lewis's re-conversion to Christianity influence his outlook on his job? What people, events and discoveries were influential in Lewis's return to Christian faith? How do you see Lewis's love of nature and walking coming out in his books? Why do you think Lewis wrote his cosmic trilogy? Do you think he succeeded in accomplishing what he set out to do? What impact do you think WWII had on the writing and success of C. S. Lewis as a popular author? How do you think Lewis's BBC talks and his lectures to the RAF influenced...

Now I know where the comparison of Hillary Clinton to the White Witch originated. It apparently began with a piece written by John Kass for the Chicago Tribune. Today in the Tribune online Kass wrote: "Last Sunday, I dipped my fingertips into fairyland analogies, into C. S. Lewis' land of Narnia, describing Obama as a gentle forest faun, the Mr. Tumnus of the Democratic primaries, the one national political character who gets media hugs from almost everybody. I like Obama, but I won't apologize for comparing him to a kind and beloved faun. He is indeed the Mr. Tumnus of American politics, gently offering free tea and cakes to all Americans, all the free stuff that won't cost us anything (unless you're a taxpayer). He doesn't play a flute, but he sure makes great speeches, and you can see that infectious, charismatic Tumnusotude on TV. But, blinded by Obama, I foolishly used the 'white witch' analogy for Sen. Clinton. So I apologize to her, and not...

The name of C. S. Lewis keeps popping up in the United States presidential election. This was the opening paragraph in an article in the Times online today. . . . "As she watches her support melt away, the horror on the face of Hillary Clinton sometimes resembles that of C.S. Lewis’s Snow Queen on seeing the return of summer to Narnia." The question is, if Hillary resembles the White Witch, who resembles Aslan?

A new year is upon us, and life has finally settled down long enough, after the holidays, for me to post something on this blog. Some who read this blog may have forgotten that we have a discussion ongoing about my book Mere Theology! We left off, some time ago, with some questions posed on the chapter about the Fall, to which there were no comments. This implies one of three things: (1) Perhaps no one out there in the blogosphere is interested in discussing Mere Theology any more. (I won't be terribly hurt if that is the case.) Or perhaps (2) no one is interested in discussing the Fall. (While I understand it is not the most pleasant topic, avoiding discussion of the Fall and Sin seems to be a modern disease which may have roots in the reality of the Fall itself!) Or (3) maybe no one responded to my blog about the Fall because everyone else, like me, fell into a seemingly endless line of parties, shopping, school concerts and more for the past month! Whatever the reason...

This report appeared at the end of an article in The New York Times online today: “Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments. Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss. In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level. “My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said. Perhaps Aleya should be running for president.

The Prince Caspian Trailer is now available to view online. Click here: http://www.narniaweb.com/news.asp?id=1355&dl=14478175 . To read about some atheists who were outraged by this trailer appearing before a showing of The Golden Compass, click here: http://comicsnexus.insidepulse.com/articles/72400/2007/12/08/atheists-outraged-by-film-trailer.html . With all the hullabaloo about Philip Pullman's Golden Compass , Christians practically boycotting the film, and now atheists complaining about the Narnia trailer showing prior to the film, it makes me wonder why more parents don't show the same sense displayed by C. S. Lewis's parents. Albert and Flora Lewis had many books in their home and their sons were allowed to read anything they wanted. In the case of those two boys, such freedom to read and be exposed to different ideas doesn't seem to have harmed them.

At the very end of the last book C. S. Lewis wrote, during the last year of his life on earth, he said to his fictitious correspondent Malcolm: ". . . but don't run away with the idea that when I speak of the resurrection of the body I mean merely that the blessed dead will have excellent memories of their sensuous experience on earth. I mean it the other way round: that memory as we now know it is a dim foretaste, a mirage even, of a power which the soul, or rather Christ in the soul (He went to 'prepare a place' for us), will exercise hereafter. It need no longer be intermittent. Above all, it need no longer be private to the soul in which it occurs. I can now communicate to you the fields of my boyhood--they are building-estates to-day--only imperfectly, by words. Perhaps the day is coming when I can take you for a walk through them." Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer , Letter XXII Let me go on record here as saying that I want to be one of the first t...

Here are the discussion questions on the chapter on "The Fall" from Mere Theology: How does Lewis's view of the Fall story in Genesis 3 as myth affect your view of the doctrine of the Fall? What do you think of Lewis's view that political equality is necessitated by the Fall? How does Lewis's view of death as punishment, mercy and/or safety device impact you? Do you agree or disagree with Lewis's arguments against total depravity? Why? How did you appreciate Lewis's treatment of the Fall in Perelandra and The Magician's Nephew ? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. . . .

My second book is now in print and may be ordered from most of the online booksellers or your favorite bookstore. To read more about it visit: http://www.willvaus2.blogspot.com/ or www.willvaus.com/my_father_was_a_gangster .

On October 26, 2007 I delivered a paper at a C. S. Lewis conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The title of that paper was: C. S. Lewis Meets N. T. Wright: The Trilemma Re-Visited. In that paper I considered Lewis's statement in Mere Christianity about the divinity of Christ: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon;...

Here are the discussion questions for the chapter on Creation in Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis. I look forward to your responses and discussion. . . . If the creation story in Genesis was derived from earlier Semitic stories how does this affect your view of the creation story? How does Lewis's illustration of creation ex nihilo in The Magician's Nephew affect you? What do you think of Lewis's perspective on the purpose of human creation by God? Do you agree or disagree with Lewis's view of Genesis 1 and Lewis's theistic evolutionary stance? Why? What do you make of Lewis's view of science and scientism? What do you think about the way Lewis rings the changes on the theory of evolution?

This chapter was the first piece I wrote which eventually became Mere Theology . It was originally given as a Lenten lecture to the Anglican Society of Columbia, South Carolina. After refining it a bit, I delivered this chapter as a paper at a C. S. Lewis conference at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and it was originally published in the bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society. Thus, this chapter has had a long and varied life so far! If I were writing it over again today I might put a few things differently, but that's another story. Here are the questions for discussion. I look forward to hearing your responses. . . . What do you think of Lewis's answer to the question: Why did God give free will to human beings? What do you think Lewis means when he says in Perelandra that predestination and freedom are identical? How does Lewis use the concept of God being outside of time to explain the apparent contradiction between predestination and free will? Is t...

We are up to chapter 3 in our discussion of Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis . Here are some discussion questions to get us started on this chapter on the Trinity: Do you think Norman Pittenger's criticism of Lewis's teaching on the Trinity was fair or not? Does Lewis's explanation of how the doctrine of the Trinity developed seem reasonable? Which one of Lewis's Trinitarian analogies best helps you to understand and embrace the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: the cube? the prayer closet? the books? the relationship between imagination, image and will? love? or the Great Dance? Why? What do you think of the Trinitarian images in Lewis's fiction? Do these images make the Trinity more attractive or understandable to you? Feel free to chip in your thoughts apart from these questions, or raise a question of your own.

Origin Entertainment now has a web site up for A Severe Mercy , the movie. You can visit the web site by clicking here: http://aseveremercythemovie.com . Or to learn more about the author and original book click here: http://www.willvaus.com/sheldon_vanauken .

I have just finished reading The Company They Keep by Diana Pavlac Glyer. This is the definitive treatment to date of the literary group known as the Inklings--that group of writers and friends who gathered around C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien beginning in the 1920's and 30's in Oxford, England and continuing on, in some fashion, until Lewis's death in 1963. Glyer is professor of English at Azusa Pacific University in California, having received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Therefore, as one might expect, this is an academic book reflecting the highest level of scholarship. The chapter endnotes are a feast in and of themselves for every reader fascinated not only with the Inklings but every reader intrigued by the study of literary influence and how writers can positively effect one another and the world when they work together in community. Glyer attacks head-on the common assumption about the Inklings, Lewis and Tolkien in particular. ...