Good stuff, Matt and Dick. Thanks!
And Jason! 
Thanks Cindy and Jason and Matt 
have you got any thoughts about The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe?
I remember reading LWW years ago and thinking that Lewis’ view on the atonement sounded heretical to me. That wasn’t the view I was being taught in church (I guess I didn’t pick up on the PS language – I only got the visual.) On the other hand, it WAS a view I heard in music. So I found it a bit confusing. Imagine my reaction on reading the Great Divorce. 
It’s only since I came here that I began to realize that PS didn’t seem to play with UR very well. I don’t remember whether someone here tipped me off that there WERE other views of the atonement, or whether I found that tidbit elsewhere . . . . At any rate, I definitely see ransom/narrative/Christus Victor as a much more viable view of the atonement. I usually explain atonement to people who are grousing (not for no reason) about PS along the lines of Paul’s substitution picture though. To me, it’s just easier to pin it down that way.
Fascinating Cindy - tell us more 
Well, here’s one anyway, though kind of comical . . .
Oops! Wrong one. 
This is the one I wanted, but the other one’s too cute to take down.
Well, okay – that’s more narrative, but I really do like narrative.
Wonderful thoughts here, everyone. I’m jumping in kind of late, but here are a few of my own, too.
1.) I can’t quite pinpoint why so many people find Lewis fascinating (and I am one of them, too!) Personally, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book Iloved as a kid–and I loved books, so that’s really saying something. I remember feeling such anticipation in waiting for my second grade teacher to read the next chapter each afternoon. My class’ copy barely even had pictures. The fact that a book, written fifty years earlier, about a hidden world in a random wardrobe, held that sort of entertainment for an eight-year-old alive in the age of video games, is pretty remarkable if you stop and think about it.
To engross even a hyperactive eight-year-old, Lewis must be a pretty good writer. I think many “mainstream” Christians simply recognize the power his stories hold over children’s imaginations, so they continue to share Narnia and such with generation after generation. By the time Lewis’ early readers become adults, they are literally life-long fans-- If Old Jack is, indeed, a “dangerous heretic,” then they can affectionately dismiss his missteps without qualms and focus on the part of him that is ‘Saint Jack.’
2.) Just wanted to add that I really enjoyed the article Matt posted about Jack’s “darker” side. I’ve heard all those stories before, and if it wasn’t for them, I doubt I would have remained such a fan of Lewis later in life. (It’s a relief to hear that even the great C.S. Lewis was a mess, too.) I often wonder in what ways GMac was a mess-- for surely he was, as well. I have a heavy tendency to canonize MacDonald, and I wonder if Lewis would have too.
3.) I just picked up Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis from the library. It’s a compilation of Lewis’ letters from boyhood until old age. Haven’t read much yet, but in just the first few pages, there have been so many references to GMac. Even if Lewis did correct MacDonald’s views on universalism in *The Great Divorce, * there are so many references to MacDonald in Lewis’ earliest writers (specifically those penned during his time of conversion), that I might guess that–for a brief moment, anyway–Lewis was a universalist. In fact, I wonder if he would have converted at all had it not been for the strain of universal hope found in all of GMac’s stories. (Random note, according to Lewis, his favorite was The Golden Key.)
P.S. I found this meme of GMac on Google. Too good not to share.
^^ 
Yeah, I’d do that, too, though I’ve never played that particular game.
It’s even funnier because MacD was quite a fan of Dante’s work (though disagreeing about the hell portions of course), and he’d probably be miffed about the liberties taken to the plot – except for that liberty. 
Also, epic MacD photo, btw. Looks like a scary Scottish gold rush miner in California. 
Just became my new sig photo on a wargaming forum I frequent… 
That does make me want to play Dante’s Inferno, though i lack the right console. I believe it’s quite a lot like God of War, which is no bad thing.
I LOVE the GMac picture! Don’t know what the game “Dante’s Inferno” is, but it makes me want to play it just so I CAN absolve everyone (eventually). This is one of those many times I wish we had a “LIKE” button on the forum.
Here are two articles both followed by excellent conversations which reflect profoundly on the popularity of C.S. Lewis among American evangelicals (even though the second article is ostensibly about John Stott. I not that the first article ‘Why do we love C.S. Lewis and hate Orb Bell’ has a conversation post from someone who seems familiar a certain Jason Pratt (now where have I heard his name? )
Interesting articles, Uncle Prof-- a few thoughts before I head off to sleep.
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I don’t know if it’s only mainstream evangelicals who dislike Rob Bell. I mean, he isn’t very popular on these forums, a haven of universalism. I agree with Jason’s post (from the link) about Bell being much too involved in “mystery mongering” to gain much respect as a theologian. He spends much more time, it seems, cultivating doubt within readers-- rarely offering attempts at answers. Rob Bell was the first universalist author I read, but I didn’t find *Love Wins * to be much comfort at all.
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I only skimmed the second article (I never heard of John Stott, actually.
) I think American evangelicals are drawn to British Christian authors in an attempt to escape the inseparable relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. As the article mentions, “In America, evangelicals are suffering from culture wars fatigue—especially younger Christians who grew up in the shadow of Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and are eager to decouple their faith from a political platform.” Indeed, one of the reasons I rarely discuss religion or politics in “real life” is because, quite frankly, I can’t discuss one without the other-- quite draining.
I also agree that “many evangelicals seem to idealize a long lost arcadia where professor-clergymen praise theology as queen of the sciences and manly Livingstonian missionaries conquer Africa in the name of Christendom—rather than Britannia as she truly is, secularist, multi-cultural warts and all.” Every culture wants to have an admirable history. For the evangelical community, it is much more appealing to claim the “professor-clergyman” of the British for a founding father, rather than the quintessential “Bible Belt” preacher, red-faced and sweaty as he spews judgement from the pulpit and yet remains willing to don a KKK hood later than evening. (That’s a rather far-stretched stereotype, but it’s one we Americans hold in deep shame.)
But what do I know about why American evangelicals like British theologians? After all, I’m a Catholic Universalist, and the sole reason I originally liked Tolkien is because Hobbits, dragons, and elves are cool!
If memory serves me correctly, it’s an action adventure with the protagonist descending into hell (modelled after Danté’s Inferno, i am sure i can safely assume) to save his lady love who died. On the way down you can absolve or condemn souls (possibly the monsters you defeat). I admit, doing an Absolve run would be fun! Single-handedly empty hell
Well, i know Somone who did that already!
Cindy, Carman takes me back that Champion music really would fit for Rocky, wouldn’t it lol
Hi Kate
Maybe Rob Bell isn’t. So popular. On this site.
Because he has this incredibly annoying tendency to.
Write in very short.
And ungrammatical.
Sentences. And paragr
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J
I actually like Rob Bell. Not having read any of his books, i can’t comment on him being a Universalist (i don’t think he is from an interview i saw and summaries of Love Wins that i’ve read…i was basically steered away from that and towards TEU, and i’m happier for it), but his videos are generally cool, IMO. And i liked the question that he asks in the promo vid for Love Wins…about how ridiculous it is for some human to assume they know someone like Ghandi’s eternal fate. As to mystery mongering…why not? People have weird questions. It’s validating to hear someone ask them in this form. I don’t agree with his apparent conclusion that somehow Love Wins by letting people go off into the dark after rejecting it (Rejection is not winning!), but i’ve a soft spot in my heart for him. He’s a much more palatable example of a (former) mega-church leader than the OTHER Mars Hill Church pastor
As to Tolkein…YES, Kate, i totally agree! We have dragons here in the UK, and elves too. I haven’t managed to see any yet, but they’re around, i’m sure of it
That sounds like C.S. Lewis - so yes the problem can’t be his universalism, but the way in which he writes and asks too many questions without a firm apologetic framework for providing any answers. Yes I see that. As far as him begin a celebrity goes and begin criticised for being too hip - I saw a post by one (young?) Neo Calvinist claiming that Mark Driscoll has three times as many follower son Twitter than Rob Bell - so hey, ECT is hipper.
Loved the E.J. Thribesque parody of Bell btw Johnny
Yeah that’s the worrying thing. I think of it as an unhealthy masochism, where people get off on the feeling of “holy” guilt that these “hard-hitting” preachers deliver.
They basically want to be told how bad they are.
I know some people they could pay for that, and it wouldn’t fill them with cosmic terror.
I think the reverence of CS Lewis by certain Reformed traditionalists who’d, if it was anybody else, eschew his theology, has to do with the ahistorical view that “what is older must be traditional, must be orthodoxy”, though it isn’t at all fairly applied. So, along that reasoning, CS Lewis is the “old” Christian apologist, he must tow the party line. I am close to psychologizing here so I should be wary but I think it is very odd how traditionalists tend to appropriate Lewis (who admitted that he was only an amateur theologian and exegete) but totally disavow the ancient universalists as being heretical, who knew the Bible backwards and forwards (which is really weird by the “older is more traditional, less likely to be heresy” maxim - it seems to drop off around the Reformation)!
The only traditional Christian I know who has faced this is William Lane Craig, who even on an interview about CS Lewis (I think it was in the UK), told the interviewer that he thought CS Lewis was a somewhat shallow thinker Now, imagine the pressure on WLC to say that Lewis was the best in that situation! So, despite his being a non-universalist, I have tremendous respect for William Lane Craig, though I am mystified why he seems to dismiss universalism, esp. historically and exegetically (he cites Origen’s anathematization (sp?) as near-proof of univ. falsity, though admits Origen’s erudition).
You know, I was just kinda talking about this in a pm with someone, and you just put the issue much more eloquently then I could, and I shared this video from Greg Boyd there, as I think it makes a very good point (and happens to address a certain famous preacher mentioned above as well lol).