It seems that part of being a modern Christian is loving C.S.Lewis. I mean, who doesn’t? A prolific writer, teacher, and scholar, not to mention brilliant thinker, C.S. Lewis shows that believers can roll with the intellectual best-of-them. Most of his casual admirers, however, have no idea that at one point in his life, C.S. Lewis was a staunch atheist. And not just an atheist because he hadn’t heard the gospel, but an adult who, having been raised in a religious home, grew to reject the faith of his upbringing.
As a father of three, I worry about my children rejecting the faith of their upbringing. I have seen the statistics. Just about half of millennials identify as Christian, even though 80% were raised in Christian homes. There are lots of theories as to why they are leaving, but that just makes the prospect of my “prevent defense” that much more difficult. I see and hear the same worry from other parents in a similar position.
Then I look at C.S. Lewis. It was his skepticism that drew him away from the church as a young adult. He rejected what he saw as faith without logic. But it was his skepticism and intellect that ultimately brought him back. In fact, he credited G.K. Chesterton’s book The Everlasting Man, which was a logical rebuttal to an H.G. Wells book (did nobody have first names back then?) with turing him from an atheist back to a theist.
G.K. Chesterton once said, “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk around the whole world till we come back to the same place.”
I don’t want my children to doubt what I have taught them, but I do I want them to be skeptical, to question what they are told by authority figures. I want them to think for themselves, be creative, and consider alternative points of view. I know that I cannot ultimately decide for them what path they will follow, but I can rest in the truth of what I have learned through my own doubt, skepticism, and discovery.
I can also look at the life of C.S. Lewis, who took the long road, around the world, and came back to where he started. Keeping this in mind makes parenting a little less scary, and reminds me that God is in control of all paths, not just the one I’d choose. And perhaps it also makes me want to call my children by their first initials.
Jeff Hyson