Was C. S. Lewis a Christian?

One of the surprising facets of modern evangelicals is their willingness to give a pass to anyone that they like. We may hold the preachers in our churches to a high standard, but when it comes to our favorite writers we’re willing to show a tremendous amount of leeway. The moment we find a writer that we like, all desire to critically examine their teachings goes right out the window. We interpret everything they say by what we would mean if we were the ones that said it, and when something really shocking is said we just gloss over it and move on. In other words, we treat them in ways we would never treat our own pastor.

C. S. Lewis is a great example of this. Possibly the most beloved author in all of Christendom, he wrote many books and made a great many theological statements. Because we like C. S. Lewis, and because he was a brilliant and engaging author, evangelicals have given him a free pass. It’s very difficult to find anyone who has actually studied Lewis’ writings from a critical point of view to see how orthodox he really was. In fact, the idea of applying critical thinking to his doctrinal claims doesn’t even cross our minds. After all, we already know that he was orthodox. Why, he wrote Mere Christianity! Countless people were brought to Christ by his books. Why would anyone even bother to take a discerning look at his books? It’s just a waste of time!

But is it really a waste of time? Is it a good idea to simply give Lewis a pass? I’m not asking “was Lewis a Christian?” as a rhetorical question, as if the answer is already known. I am asking it because I want to know. I have read almost all of his books, and there are things in them that deeply disturb me. If our pastors said some of the things that Lewis wrote we would be up in arms – but because Lewis said it it’s somehow ok. There is a tremendous double standard, and I think it’s time for that to end. We need to examine everything we read.

It’s so easy for us to gloss over the actual theology of the writers that we like. One example of this is J. R. R. Tolkien. Now, I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings books as much as anyone, and I understand why they’re ranked as some of the greatest books of the 20th century. The fact is, though, Tolkien was a Catholic – a rather devout Catholic, actually – and Catholics are not Christians. The Catholic Church has specifically and passionately reject the idea of salvation by grace through faith alone, as we can see in the Council of Trent:

SIXTH SESSION, CANONS CONCERNING JUSTIFICATION: “If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 12).

SIXTH SESSION, CANONS CONCERNING JUSTIFICATION: “If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA” (Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 24).

Here we see a very clear, direct, and straightforward rejection of the gospel. The Catholic Church rejects the idea that we are saved by grace through faith alone. They also reject the idea that our works play no part, and are “not the cause of its increase”. The Catholic Church teaches a works gospel, and they are not embarrassed about it. These teachings were reaffirmed by Vatican II in the 1960s and they are still taught today. It is the very core of Catholicism.

The Bible, though, is very clear that we are saved by faith and not by works:

Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Titus 3:5: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;”

Romans 3:28: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

In fact, Paul wrote the entire book of Galatians to combat the idea that salvation comes by works. He was quite passionate about it:

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Galatians 3:1-7

“I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Galatians 2:21

God condemns the Catholic idea that we are made perfect by “good deeds” in the strongest possible terms. This is more than a heresy; it is another gospel entirely. You cannot be saved by a works gospel.

I’m not going to go into a complete analysis of Catholicism here; I have already done that elsewhere. The point is that the Catholic church is not a Christian church. Tolkien was a devout Catholic; he believed in the false works gospel that the Catholic church teaches. Therefore, since he believed a false gospel, he was not saved. As much as we may like his books, the false gospel that he believed could not and did not save him. False gospels have no saving power.

Another example (although not quite as famous) is G. K. Chesterton. There are many evangelical Christians who love his writings, and it’s easy to understand why. Chesterton was a brilliant and hilarious writer; his essay on chalk is one of the funniest things I have ever read. His Father Brown mystery stories are very clever and quite popular.

Chesterton, though, was a Catholic. If anything, he was even more devout than Tolkien. Since we like his books we tend to give him a pass – ignoring his rather blatant heresy. For example, take his most famous character, the priest Father Brown. Brown is extremely likable, full of wit and charm – but he’s also a Catholic priest. What do Catholic priests do? They preach a works gospel that leads straight to Hell. John Calvin would call them a “murderer of souls”. Now, if Chesterton’s stories were about a charming serial killer or a friendly abortionist we would be appalled, but since Father Brown only guides souls to Hell instead of killing them, it’s somehow ok. Because we like him we’re willing to ignore what Father Brown does for a living and the gospel that his church teaches.

We’re even willing to overlook the terrible way that the Protestant church is depicted in Chesterton’s stories. For example, in the Father Brown story “The Hammer of God”, the murderer turns out to be the Presbyterian minister. The blacksmith – described in the story as a Puritan – is said to be “a good man, but not a Christian” (thus condemning the Puritan faith to Hell!), and his wife is a blatant adulteress. That’s a rather charming picture of the Protestant faith, isn’t it? It’s especially galling when you consider the fact that it was actually the Catholic church that spent centuries hunting down and burning people alive for crimes such as believing in salvation by grace through faith alone, owning Bibles, and rejecting the Pope. Yet Chesterton tells us that Protestants are the real murderers and only Catholics can confront them and set things right.

I haven’t even gotten into Chesterton’s books on theology, but do I really have to? My point is that whenever there’s a television show that depicts Christians as murderers, evangelicals are up in arms over it. When Chesterton does it, though, we just give it a pass. We will critically examine TV shows, but not our favorite authors.

So what about C. S. Lewis? Well, first of all, let’s point out that Lewis did not think of himself as an evangelical. His friends were largely Catholics and Anglicans. This is how one man put it:

“[Lewis] had no cultural connections with Evangelicals. He had no friends among them…. His friends were all Anglo-Catholic or Catholic…. Lewis, of course, has been adopted by the Evangelicals in America in a way that would have made him very uncomfortable. He didn’t associate with them; he didn’t think of himself as one of them.” (James Houston, We Remember C. S. Lewis)

Why would being associated with evangelicals make him uncomfortable? This is why:

“On point after point, Lewis taught doctrines contrary to Scripture. He denied the inerrancy of Scripture itself; he rejected the doctrine of the substitutionary, penal atonement; he set forth an odd view of the resurrection of the body, to name only three. In locus after locus of Christian theology, Lewis’ views were unbiblical and anti-Christian.” (John Robbins)

That’s a rather strong statement, so let’s take a look at Lewis’ writings to see if it is true. First of all, there are strong reasons to believe that Lewis did deny the inerrancy of Scripture. If you have ever had the misfortune of reading Lewis’ Reflections on the Psalms you will know exactly what I mean. It becomes painfully obvious that Lewis has what evangelicals would call a low view of God’s Word. For example:

“all Holy Scripture is in some sense – though not all parts of it in the same sense – the word of God. (The sense in which I understand this will be explained later.)” (pg19, emphasis added)

That statement alone should raise eyebrows. Do we really believe that the Psalms are Scripture in a “different sense”, than, say, the book of Matthew or the book of Malachi? If your pastor said that on Sunday morning, how would you react?

Incidentally, Lewis does go on to tell us what he means. We find his explanation a few pages later:

“One way of dealing with these terrible or (dare we say?) contemptible Psalms is simply to leave them alone. But unfortunately the bad parts will not “come away clean”; they may, as we have noticed, be intertwined with the most exquisite things. And if we still believe that all Holy Scripture is ‘written for our learning’ or that the age-old use of the Psalms in Christian worship was not entirely contrary to the will of God… we shall prefer, if possible, to make some use of them. What use can be made?” (pg21-22, emphasis added)

“Against all this the ferocious parts of the Psalms serve as a reminder that there is in the world such a thing as wickedness and that it (if not its perpetrators) is hateful to God. In that way, however dangerous the human distortion may be, His word sounds through these passages too. But can we, besides learning from these terrible Psalms also use them in our devotional life?” (pg33, emphasis added)

If you read Reflections on the Psalms, that book alone should put to rest any thought of Lewis’ orthodoxy. I’m not going to get into the countless errors in the book; there are many, and they are disturbing. But do you see how Lewis viewed Scripture? What would you do if your pastor called the Psalms “contemptible” and “terrible”? What would you do if he said that the Psalms were filled with “human distortion” and that we had to try hard to hear God talking through them anyway? How would you react if he said that using the Psalms in church was not entirely contrary to the will of God? Would you overlook it, or would you stand up and object?

The idea that the Bible is full of “human distortion” and that we just have to make the best of it is a very, very low view of Scripture. It goes far beyond denying inerrancy. It basically says “Here is a book full of trash. Just make the best of it and try to learn what you can.” The Bible strongly objects to the idea that it is “terrible” and full of “human distortion”:

Psalm 119:160: “Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.”

Proverbs 30:5: “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.”

So you can see why Lewis would have been very uncomfortable around evangelicals. We have a completely different view of Scripture than he did. I just quoted two passages; I could have quoted many more. His astonishingly low view of Scripture permeates the book.

Lewis, however, went even further. In Letters of C. S. Lewis we find this statement:

“If every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights, then all true and edifying writings, whether in Scripture or not, must in some sense be inspired.” (pg479 – 480, emphasis added)

Is it a statement of doctrine among evangelicals that all edifying writings are “in some sense” inspired by God? If your pastor went down to the local Christian bookstore, purchased a book on theology, and urged you to read it because it was inspired by God, what would you do? Would you not be horrified?

The idea that anything other than the Bible is inspired by God is anathema to evangelicals, for reasons I will not dwell on here. The point is that God cannot lie, or speak in error, or do wrong. When He speaks He always speaks authoritatively. There are not “degrees of inspiration” when it comes to God. God is either speaking or He is not. As Proverbs says, every word of God is pure. Lewis, however, rejected this. He did not really see anything particularly “special” about the Bible. Yes, God spoke through it – but he thought that God spoke through other writings just as much. It really didn’t matter to Lewis if the writings were part of the Bible or not. In Christian Reflections Lewis listed the grounds on which he based his arguments: “the divinity of Christ, the truth of the creeds, and the authority of the Christian tradition”. The Bible did not even make the list. (Does the fact that Lewis himself claimed that he did not base his theology on the Bible, but instead based them on “creeds” and “Christian tradition” disturb you? It sure disturbs me.)

That statement alone should cause us to stop and give a very critical look at Lewis’ theological teachings. After all, once you accept the idea that pretty much anything can be inspired you open yourself up to a world of heresy and nonsense. Lewis did not have this idea that all theology must trace itself back to the Bible and that there are no sources theological revelation apart from it. He rejected the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura and he believed that the Bible could and did contain numerous errors. He even rejected some books of the Bible (Job and Jonah, to be exact – and this, in spite of the fact that Jesus Himself believed the story of Jonah really happened and was true history. Lewis disagreed with Him.)

But Lewis went even further than that. It was not enough to call some of the Psalms “devilish”, “petty”, and “vulgar”. In Letters of C. S. Lewis we find this:

“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.” (pg 428, emphasis added)

What would your reaction be if your pastor told you that the Bible was not the true word of God? How would you react if he told you that the Bible will only bring you to Christ if it is read in the right spirit and if you have guidance from the right teachers? That, by the way, is the Catholic view of the Bible. Catholicism teaches that the laity are unqualified to interpret the Bible. Instead they must trust the priests to interpret it for them and then they must believe what they are told. Only the priests are qualified; you must not read it on your own. What Lewis is saying is very close to that idea. The Bible, he tells us, is not the true word of God, and it is simply not enough. What you really need are “good teachers”.

But let’s keep going. What do we know about the conversion experience of Lewis? Well, this is how he described it:

“I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought.” (from Surprised by Joy)

That’s a rather odd conversion story, isn’t it? When Lewis got on the bus he rejected the idea that Jesus was the Son of God, but when he stepped off he believed that Jesus was the Son of God. Yet, according to him, he hadn’t really given it much thought on the trip there. His mind was simply changed by the time he got to the zoo.

I have some news for you: according to James 2:19, the demons also believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and they tremble at the thought. The mental thought that “yes, I guess Jesus really was the Son of God” is not a saving thought. There is a universe of difference between thinking “yes, I guess Jesus really is God”, and “Jesus, please forgive my sins. You are my Lord and Master. I give my life to you.” I see no mention of repentance here at all. I see no crying out for forgiveness, no change of allegiance. It’s not even hinted at.

Once again, suppose that a candidate for baptism came before your church, and his entire testimony was “when I got off the bus I believed that Jesus was God”. Would you baptize him – or would you ask more questions to see if there was an actual conversion? I’m fairly certain that this testimony would not satisfy the leadership of any church that I have ever attended. And yet, that is all that Lewis has to say about it – and Lewis wrote books on theology. Don’t you find that a bit odd?

What bothers me is that we simply accept this uncritically, whereas if anyone else had given that same testimony we would have raised all sorts of red flags. We don’t hold Lewis to the same standard that we hold everyone else. What makes this so especially bad is that, in all of his copious writings, Lewis never talked about justification by faith.

I have a massive book entitled The Quotable Lewis, which was given to me by a good friend of mine. The book is more than 600 pages long and has quotes from Lewis on every conceivable topic, but it contains not one entry under “justification”. Not one. Nor will you find one in The C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia, or The C. S. Lewis Encyclopedia, or C. S. Lewis A Companion and Guide. In all of his writings there is only a single mention of justification. It is found in The C. S. Lewis Index, and refers to a letter written in 1941 to Bede Briffiths. This is what Lewis said:

“You see, what I wanted to do in these [radio] talks was to give simply what is still common to us all, and I’ve been trying to get a nihil obstat from friends in various communions. (The other dissentient besides you is a Methodist who says I’ve said nothing about justification by faith.)” (emphasis added)

In other words, the only time Lewis ever talked about justification by faith – otherwise known as the only gospel that can save you – was in a letter saying he was criticized for never talking about it! Isn’t that rather disturbing? Doesn’t that make you stop and wonder if Lewis really understood the gospel? How could a famous Christian apologist, writer of many books, go a lifetime without talking about justification by faith?

So what did Lewis believe about salvation? Well, we find his thoughts on the matter in the famous book Mere Christianity. This is what he said, and I quote it in its entirety:

Humanity is already ‘saved’ in principle. We individuals have to appropriate that salvation. But the really tough work – the bit we could not have done for ourselves – has been done for us. We have not got to try to climb up into spiritual life by our own efforts; it has already come down into the human race. If we will only lay ourselves open to the one Man in whom it is fully present, and who, in spite of being God, is also a real man, he will do it in us and for us. Remember what I said about ‘good infection.’ One of our own race has this new life: if we get close to Him we shall catch it from Him.

Of course, you can express this in all sorts of different ways. You can say that Christ died for our sins. You may say that the Father has forgiven us because Christ has done for us what we ought to have done. You may say that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. You may say that Christ has defeated death. They are all true. If any of them do not appeal to you, leave it alone and get on with the formula that does. And,whatever you do, do not start quarreling with other people because they use a different formula from yours. (pg. 156-7, emphasis added)

Quick question: do Christians really believe that salvation is a “good infection” that we will catch if we just get close enough to Jesus – or do we believe in something called “repentance”, which isn’t even mentioned? In fact, nowhere in this passage does Lewis mention that we have a sin problem, that the wages of sin is death, and that we are facing an eternity in Hell if we do not obtain the forgiveness of God. None of that is even hinted at.

In fact, Lewis actually distances himself from a specific “formula” for how salvation works – something that would horrify any pastor. Do evangelicals really believe that the way you obtain salvation does not matter, and that all ways are equally true? That is utter nonsense! How can opposing formulas be equally true? Does Lewis even understand what the word “true” means? On top of that, can you imagine anyone reading the New Testament and coming away believing that the apostles didn’t really care who believed what, and that they found all theologies equally acceptable? But that is what Lewis teaches.

There are two things I find disturbing about this passage: what it does say, and what it does not say. Do evangelicals believe that Christ did “the bit we could not have done for ourselves”? Doesn’t the Bible actually teach that were dead in our trespasses and sins, and that Christ paid it all because we were incapable of doing any of it? Do we believe that we have to “lay ourselves open” to Christ, or do we instead believe that we have to repent and believe?

As I said earlier, repentance isn’t mentioned at all, and Lewis actually downplays exactly how salvation works. He acts like the details aren’t important, and urges us to find a formula that we happen to like and move on.

Notice how completely different his view of salvation is from, say, Jesus Christ:

Mark 1:14: “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

Mark 6:12: “And they went out, and preached that men should repent.”

Luke 13:3: “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Luke 5:32: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Repentance is completely absent from Lewis’ description of salvation and from the testimony of his own conversion experience. Lewis does not say “all men are sinners and are facing the wrath of God and eternal torment in Hell; our only hope is to repent of our sins and believe in Christ, and then we will be saved”. In fact, he doesn’t say anything remotely like that. Christ spoke a great deal about Hell; Lewis failed to mention it. Christ urged men to repent; Lewis does not. This should bother us, but it doesn’t because we like Lewis. We are willing to give his utter, colossal failure to accurately describe the gospel a pass because we like him. In fact, we will go further and urge lost people to read Mere Christianity, even though the book utterly fails to describe how to actually become saved! All they will discover is that salvation is a “good infection” that you catch by getting close to Christ. The actual gospel – the real gospel – is very simple, but Lewis doesn’t go anywhere near it.

Do you see why I wonder if Lewis was actually saved? How can you be saved when you don’t even know what the gospel is? Is anyone else bothered by this?

But Lewis is not done. Mere Christianity also tells us that faith in Jesus is not required for salvation:

“Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is that God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.” (p64-65, emphasis added)

In other words, Lewis believed it was possible to be saved without ever knowing Jesus – something that evangelicals strongly deny. God, he said, “has not told us what His arrangements are about the other people”. The problem with this is that God has told us what those arrangements are. In fact, this was made clear by none other than Jesus Himself:

John 3:18: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

What does it say? That those who do not believe are condemned already for the sin of not believing. This is very straightforward. Those who believe are saved, and those who do not believe are condemned. This is why mission work is so important – because if people die without knowing Jesus, they are condemned. There is no salvation apart from knowing Jesus. None. This may seem “frightfully unfair” to Lewis, but it is what the Bible teaches and it was taught by Jesus Himself.

But Lewis goes even further than this:

“[H]ere are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position.” (Mere Christianity, pg 176-7, emphasis added)

In other words, Lewis is saying that you don’t have to be a Christian to be saved. You can be a devout Buddhist and still be saved. All that really matters is that you are sincere and that you follow goodness. In fact, it’s actually possible to reject Christianity and “belong to Christ without knowing it”!

We know this is exactly what Lewis meant because in the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, Lewis provides us with a graphic example. In chapter 15 we are told that Emeth, a soldier of Tash, is found in Aslan’s country (basically Heaven). Now Tash is the sworn enemy of Aslan. Emeth the soldier joined with Tash to fight Aslan and conquer Narnia, the country that Aslan ruled. If Aslan was the picture of Christ then Tash was the devil. It would not be going too far to call Emeth a soldier in the army of Satan. After all, he spent his life in service to the devil, attacking the Christ figure and trying to kill as many of His servants as possible on the field of battle.

Emeth is therefore surprised to find himself in the paradise that is Aslan’s country. This is what happens when he meets Aslan:

“But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.” (pg 164, emphasis added)

Quick question: suppose you spend your life as a devoted Satanist and kill as many Christians as you possibly can. When you die, are you going be welcomed into Heaven, and will Jesus Himself kiss you and tell you that your service to Satan was credited as service to Jesus? I ask this because that is exactly what Lewis is claiming.

This is not Christianity. It is not even close! This is a particularly horrifying example of universalism – the idea that God will accept you no matter who you have spent your life serving. It doesn’t matter if you were a Buddhist or a Satanist; as long as you spent your life doing things Lewis considers “good” then God will account those good works as service to Him and will let you into Heaven. (This is actually exactly what Aslan tells Emeth on the next page!)

My point is that Lewis had a false view of salvation. His answer to the question “what must I do to be saved?” is not just a little bit off; it is deeply false. If anyone else had taught the things that Lewis taught and made the claims that Lewis claimed, the evangelical community would be up in arms. But because we like him we are willing to give him a pass for telling us that Satanists will enter Heaven because God will accept their service to Satan as service to Him instead.

There is a great deal more I could say. I could talk about Lewis’ view of Hell, or his acceptance of purgatory (he believed that purgatory was necessary in order to make us “pure enough for Heaven”, thus rejecting the idea that Christ’s death was enough to make us pure in the sight of God), but this paper is getting much too long. Let me just close with this final thought from Lewis:

“I had some ado to prevent Joy and myself from relapsing into Paganism in Attica! At Daphni it was hard not to pray to Apollo the Healer. But somehow one didn’t feel it would have been very wrong – would have only been addressing Christ sub specie Apollinis.” (C.S. Lewis: A Biography, Roger Lancelyn Green, p.276, emphasis added)

To put that quote into perspective: suppose that your pastor told you it wasn’t really “very wrong” to pray to the pagan sun god Apollinis, because the sun god was just a sub species of Christ. Would you just accept that and agree – or would you be horrified beyond words that your pastor had just called a false god a subspecies of Christ? Wouldn’t that tell you that your pastor had not the slightest idea what was really going on?

In closing, I am not going to definitively state that Lewis was not a Christian; I am not the judge of mankind. But do his statements sound like things a genuine Christian would say? Does the gospel he taught really sound like the actual gospel of Christ? Just going by what he taught and the way he described salvation, does it really sound like he believed in salvation by grace through faith alone?

Finally, is it really a good idea for evangelicals to be rallying around Lewis and promoting his works? Given what he believed and the way he thought, I think it would be wise to take a more critical look at the things he said. Or are we instead going to continue giving him a pass because “he was C. S. Lewis”?