Tag Archives: culture wars

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: Chapter 5

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Once again, the pre-covid cast for the THS movie directed by Antione Fuqua included a promising actor, this time for the role of John Wither, that creepy embodiment of prevaricating obfuscation and manipulating control.

ELASTICITY

Overview Question

In Parts 1 and 2 of Chapter 5, Mark is drawn yet further into the manipulations of the lifeworld of Belbury. Deputy Director Wither continues to flatter Mark’s vanity while refusing to give him a clear job description or to make a solid job offer. Fairy Hardcastle warns Mark not to expect a clear job description from Wither; and then explains how, if only Mark will do as he is told, he can begin to rise as a kind of activist journalist swaying public opinion for the NICE. And then Mark learns that his position at Bracton College is in jeopardy because Lord Feverstone has informed them that Mark is joining the NICE. When confronted, Feverstone simply shrugs Mark off with a dismissive comment. All of these passages portray in some detail how the modern worldview operates at the level of personal and interpersonal relationships. And this leads to our Overview Question for the week:

How do the different actions of Wither, Fairy Hardcastle, and Lord Feverstone in relation to Mark’s own servile mentality illustrate the basic principles and practices of the modern worldview and lifeworld at Belbury?

For additional help in answering this question, remember the brief outline that I provided with the Chapter 3 Overview Question: Yoram Hazony’s analysis of the “practices” that characterize both the modern and the traditional worldviews. In particular, keep in mind how the modern worldview valorizes above all individual freedom and reason, and rejects the need for religious, moral, or even familial traditions of loyalty, honor, and acknowledged hierarchy to guide and shape the freedom or the reason of the individual.    

As artfully evoked in the expression of actor Ewan McGregor, Mark’s lack of a transcendent religious and moral point of reference, and his desire above all to be counted among the elite, leaves him imminently vulnerable to the manipulations of nearly everyone at Belbury.

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

1. In Part 3 of Chapter 5, Arthur and Camilla Denniston take Jane on a picnic, and treat her in a manner that is quite opposite of how Mark is treated at Belbury. They propose a specific role for Jane: namely, to consider her dreams as a special gift that can be of great help to the community at St. Anne’s. When Camilla begins to put pressure on Jane to decide right away, however, Arthur reminds her that the Director of their community would not want Jane to join them under that kind of pressure or coercion. In contrast to Mark’s interview, what interpersonal conditions are given priority in Jane’s interview, and how do these reflect the principles and practices of the traditional worldview? (see again Yoram Hazony)   

2. How do the conditions of the two interviews reflect the customs and values of the two groups of people and the two worldviews that inform Lewis’s story, the modern worldview and the traditional worldview? In particular, what role do the values related to the family and religion at St. Anne’s play, in contrast to the emphasis at Belbury on the individual and his or her “freedom.”

3. Where, in our current cultural and political turmoil in 2022, do you see signs of the kind of individualism, disunity, coercion, cancellation, and manipulation of power that characterize Mark’s job interview at Belbury? Where are there signs of the open discussion, debate, transparency, and the freedom to deliberate and practice informed consent that are given to Jane?

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: Chapter 4

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Sub-Warden Curry and Rev. Busby look on as the NICE police watch while rioting workers destroy the grounds of Bragdon Wood and Bracton College. When these two college administrators first manipulated the faculty into selling Bragdon Wood at a profit, they hadn’t realized that the NICE would destroy the college grounds. Now they must try to put a good face on their own short-sighted leadership. Collusion with an authoritarian state can have hidden costs! (This is a screenshot from the pre-covid THS movie that has now, I believe, resumed production with a new cast.)

THE LIQUIDATION OF ANACHRONISMS

Overview Question

This chapter portrays a truly nightmarish attack by the NICE on the basic rights of the English people who live around Edgestow. The Dimbles lose their home in an abrupt and legally questionable cancellation of their lease. Bracton College loses its landscaped buffer zone (Bragdon Wood) and its historic stained-glass window as rioting workers run amok. And the village of Cure Hardy is scheduled to be razed by the NICE to make room for an “improved” state-run model village. Furthermore, all of these abuses of private property are accompanied by a psychological assault on the legal traditions and moral sensibilities of the people (all of which are seen as “anachronistic” by the NICE). The people can’t quite believe this is really happening.  Overview Question:    

Given what you already know about the “long march through the institutions” (from Chapter 2), what makes it possible for the NICE, with little if any resistance from public authorities, simply to ignore and run over the basic rights of the people? And what parallels can you see in America today for this kind of government action that routinely ignores and runs over the basic constitutional rights of the people?

Screenshot from pre-covid THS film. Are the NICE police trying to stop the rioting, or are they egging it on? No one will know for sure until the local papers, now controlled by the NICE, clarify the story. O, that story is already in print, and the riot would have been much worse except for the NICE intervention. O.K. got it.

 To get at the heart of this problem in Lewis’s story, I suggest that you combine what you have learned about the “long march” in Chapter 2 with what we discussed in the Introduction concerning Yuri Bezmenov’s description of the stages of cultural revolution. In particular, the first two stages: 1. Demoralization, and 2. Destabilization. These should help you discover a very plausible interpretation for what takes place in Lewis’s story.   

This may also be a good time to consider the larger shape of Lewis’s story as it spreads out before and behind us. A quick glance at the Table of Contents reveals a definite trajectory in Lewis’s plot. In general, the story moves from a.) the early chapters where the NICE at Belbury are expanding their reach and power over both people (including Mark) and institutions; to b.) the middle chapters where Mark and Jane are discovering the challenges of their “callings” at Belbury and St. Anne’s; and then c.) the final chapters where both Mark and Jane come to a crossroads as the spiritual battle is fully joined. The following diagram shows this dramatic sequence at a glance:

1. Sale of College Property

2. Dinner with Sub-Warden                            a. The Taking and Holding

3. Belbury and St. Anne’s                                            of Territory

4. Liquidation of Anachronisms

5. Elasticity

6. Fog

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7. The Pendragon

8. Moonlight at Belbury

9. The Saracen’s Head                                    b. The Calling and Inward Battles

10. Conquered City                                                       of Mark and Jane

11. Battle Begun

12. Wet and Windy Night

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13. They Have Pulled Down Deep Heaven

14. Real Life Is Meeting                                   c. The Road of New Creation

15. Descent of the Gods                                           and the Way Ahead  

16. Banquet at Belbury 17. Venus at St. Anne’s

A photograph of an English village by a river that looks a lot like the description of Lewis’s Cure Hardy. This is the kind of village, note well, that the NICE plan to relocate in the novel in order to reroute the river and make a new model village somewhere on the higher ground nearby. (Photo by Colin Braidford.)

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

1. In Part 1, the Dimbles lose their cottage. In Part 6, Mark works with the NICE to condemn the quaint village of Cure Hardy. And in Part 7, Bracton College loses its Wynd River, its land, and its famous stained-glass window. In the conversation between Mark and Cosser at Cure Hardy (Part 6), Lewis portrays the kind of thinking (the basic premises of the modern worldview) that warrant these actions. What are these premises, and where do you see them at work in American politics today? (The “Four Stages of Revolution” in the introduction should also help with this analysis.)   

2. In Parts 2 and 5, we find Jane continuing to have dreams, and wishing that she could somehow just get rid of them altogether. At the same time, her experiences with Mother Dimble expose her to a worldview where prayer and a desire to grow in virtue demon-strate a kind of faith that Jane simply does not possess. How might Jane’s aversions to her dreams and her discomfort with Mother Dimble’s traditional faith be related?

3. In Part 3 of Chapter 4, Mark finds himself confronted with the religious views of the Rev. Straik, who serves as a kind of advisor for the NICE. How do Rev. Straik’s views on Christianity fulfill the requirements of the modern worldview and of the “long march” at NICE? (Consider your answers in the light of the “disestablishment” clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.)

4. In the Discarded Image, Lewis explains how, in the medieval worldview, everything is mediated in the relations between God and man. We see an example of this when, in the midst of his work with Cosser, Mark’s conscience is awakened to the beauties and virtues of Cure Hardy by memories from his past experience with family and friends. As a consequence of these “messages” mediated from the past, Mark’s conscience is awakened, and he almost turns against the mentality of the NICE. What are the thoughts, experiences, and memories that mediate this awakening, and why does Mark turn away from them?   

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: Chapter 3

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Ewan McGregor was well chosen, in my opinion, as Mark Studdock in the pre-covid 19 cast for the THS film directed by Antoine Fuqua. MacGregor would have helped us see, I can well imagine, how the manipulative and unaccountable atmosphere of alleged “equality” at Belbury was perfectly suited to exploit Mark’s obsequious desire to please those in power.

BELBURY AND ST. ANNE’S ON THE HILL

Overview Question

In this chapter we encounter the very different social and interpersonal dynamics that characterize Belbury and St. Anne’s on the Hill. What is most striking is how nearly opposite these two groups of people are in terms of how they treat Mark and Jane. Indeed, the contrast is so sharp that it begs for some kind of explanation. And this provides the focus for our overview question this week:       

Why do the people at Belbury (who hold the modern worldview, as we have seen) confound and manipulate Mark the way they do; while the people at St. Anne’s (who hold the traditional worldview) make every effort to behave with candor, transparency, and informed consent toward Jane? 

 

Rose Byrne, as Jane Studdock, has also been replaced in the post covid 19 cast for the new THS film. But these screen shots give us an opportunity to reflect on these characters, Mark and Jane, and how different they are from each other though both begin as holders of the modern worldview. And then how differently Jane is treated by Grace Ironwood and others at St. Anne’s in comparison to Mark’s entry into an arena where “every man for himself” is the unspoken rule.

Note well, I am asking you (with the overview question, above) to think about why each worldview–lifeworld seems to produce such starkly opposite results at the level of personal and interpersonal relationships. Of course, Lewis doesn’t do this analysis directly in the story itself; but his very consistent portrayal of both groups, which only gets sharper and clearer as the story proceeds, suggests a definite set of observations on his part. In order to clarify this contrast, let me recommend another interpretive tool that you may at your choosing find helpful: A brief sketch of Yoram Hazony’s analysis of worldview practices from Conservatism: A Rediscovery.

Hazony gives a remarkable history of what he calls the Anglo-American Conservative paradigm with its traditional worldview, on the one hand, and the Liberal Enlightenment paradigm with its modern worldview, on the other. Of particular interest in this regard are Hazony’s observations that the traditional worldview valorizes specific principles and practices such as loyalty, honor, family, hierarchy, religion, and empirical knowledge (based on evidence); while the modern Enlightenment worldview valorizes the opposite: freedom and independence of the individual, the alleged “self-evident” truths of reason and nature, and the rationalistic approach to knowledge (based on a priori first principles rather than evidence). As such, the modern individualistic worldview rejects the need for religious or moral traditions and practices to guide or inform its use of reason; while this is precisely what the traditional or conservative point of view calls for. Are there clues here about the two opposing “styles” of Lewis’s two groups?

I think Hazony’s observations are in close alignment in many ways with what Lewis is trying to show us in his fictional portrayals of the very different worlds of Belbury and St. Anne’s on the Hill.

The cover illustration of Scribner’s 2003 edition of THS portrays the landscape of the moon with its dark cold side (pointing toward earth where the marriages are “barren and cold”) and its bright living side (pointing toward the joys and creativity of deep heaven) as Ransom describes this to Merlin later in the story. Are there hints here of the two very opposite ways of living–specifically in this case related to marriage and sexuality–that are reflected at Belbury and at St. Anne’s on the Hill?

 

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

1. In Part 1 of Chapter 3, Mark has a long conversation with John Wither about the possibility of taking a new job with NICE. How would you describe the “style of communication” that Wither uses with Mark? What seems to be Wither’s purpose for using this style? How does this style tie in with what you already know about the larger social vision, lifeworld and worldview at Belbury?    

2. In Part 3 of Chapter 3, Jane tells Miss Ironwood about the strange dreams that she has been having. How would you describe Miss Ironwood’s style of communication with Jane? How does Miss Ironwood’s style and manner differ from that of Wither? What does Miss Ironwood’s different communication style suggest about the different values of the worldview embraced at St. Anne’s?

3. In Parts 2 and 4 of Chapter 3, we are introduced more fully to Professor Hingest (chemist at Bracton) and Fairy Hardcastle, head of the NICE institutional police. We learn that Hingest and the NICE hold nearly opposite views of what science is really all about. Why do the NICE regard Hingest as “the wrong sort of scientist” while he regards their work, including Mark’s sociology, as not really science at all? How are the two worldviews reflected in these different approaches to “science,” and how are the differences also reflected in the politicization of science in America today?

4. In Parts 3 and 5 of Chapter 3, Jane struggles through her interview with Miss Ironwood. Everything that happens–Jane’s wandering thoughts about Camilla’s beauty, her premonition of a passage on sex and sexual attraction in a book she picks up while waiting to see the Director, and Miss Ironwood’s unwelcome advice about her dreams—seems to go against how Jane wants to see herself. What pattern, if any, can you detect in what Jane wants for her own self-image, and what keeps happening to her to interfere with this?

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: Chapter 2

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Screen shot of Pierce Brosnan as Lord Feverstone in the 2019 pre-covid cast for what was then planned as a new THS movie directed by Antoine Fuqua. In my view, Brosnan would have made a convincing, cold-blooded Lord Feverstone.1

DINNER WITH THE SUB-WARDEN

Overview Question

Having accepted Sub-Warden Curry’s invitation to dinner after the all-day faculty meeting (where Bragdon Wood was sold!) and hoping to strengthen his position in the “progressive element” at the college, Mark attends the gathering in Curry’s rooms with several elite college faculty and sponsors including Rev. Busby the bursar, Curry himself, and Lord Feverstone, the latter an important political figure with connections in London.2   

As the evening progresses, it becomes clear that these men do not really know each other in a personal way, nor are they loyal to each other. Both Busby (as a representative of the college) and then Feverstone (as a representative of the NICE) expound their views on “man, nature, science, and society,” and then speak at length about how the elite leaders of the NICE will take over all of the major institutions of society. All of this echoes what we saw in the introduction (8/3/22) concerning the modern worldview with its administrative state and its neo-Marxist “long march through the institutions.” Meanwhile, Mark is watching every move to see where his best opportunity will arise to join the “inner ring,” if he can only figure out where the real “ring” is.    

Question: As you read the speeches of Busby and Feverstone in Part 1, what specific cultural institutions do they name or allude to as they spin out their visions for the influence of the NICE in the college and in the wider world? How are these same institutions at play today in the culture wars of America?

Cover for the 1965 Simon & Schuster edition of THS illustrating the different levels of local, global, and spiritual forces at work in the story.3

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

1. At the faculty dinner, after Curry and Busby have left, Feverstone belittles them and declares them to be mere pawns in the grander scheme of the NICE, which is global in scope, not just local or academic. What parallels for this two-tiered struggle for power between the local (regional or national) focus, on one hand, and the global (or interplanetary!) focus, on the other, can you discern in the geo-politics of the world today? And why is it important (for us as for Lewis) to mark these levels?

2. Still in Part 1, Mark becomes flushed with excitement as Feverstone verbally runs down the college men and goes on to paint a picture of the administrative state in which “some men have got to take charge of the rest.” What does this scene tell us about the pattern of loyalty and honor that one may expect (not only between Mark and Feverstone) but also in an administrative state that is based strictly on natural reason and individual freedom, as opposed to the values of religion, family, congregation and community that guide the traditional lifeworld?

3. In Part 2, after lunch with the Dimbles, Jane hoped her anxieties about her dream would go away. But they didn’t. So, when Mark comes home from his dinner, he finds her in an unusually vulnerable mood. But then in Part 3, the next morning, Jane is angry and defensive about having let herself get upset in the first place. What do these layered reactions say about Jane’s struggle with her own personal formation? Are there hints about her own nature that she has a hard time accepting given her preferred self-image?

4. In the final Part of chapter 2, Jane and Mark are moving in opposite directions, one by fast sports car to Belbury, the other by slow train to St. Anne’s. How do the details of Lewis’s descriptions reveal not only the two very different geographic destinations, but also the two opposing worldviews (modern and traditional) that are, so to speak, hidden in the landscape?

A train trailing smoke through the English countryside may help to remind us of the kinds of beautiful, agrarian places Jane would have seen on the way from Edgestow to St. Anne’s on the Hill. Photo from stock images online at Flickr and Pinterest.

_________________________________________________________________

  1. A new cast has recently been announced for this movie version of THS which will, at the time of this writing, feature Hugh Grant as Feverstone. Other new cast members include: Daniel Day-Lewis as Ransom, Emily Blunt as Jane Studdock, Emma Thompson as Grace Ironwood, and Jeremy Irons as Frost, plus a host of other great picks. Should be a worthy effort if our government, in contrast to Feverstone’s vision for 1940s England, can wean itself from further lockdown and emergency powers.
  2. Lord Feverstone is also the Richard Devine of Out of the Silent Planet, the first volume of the space trilogy. Devine/Feverstone is an old classmate and enemy of Dr. Ransom, the Director at St. Anne’s. In the first book, Devine and his partner Edward Weston kidnap Ransom and try to use him to gain control of the creatures on the planet of Malacandra (Mars). But Ransom fights back and makes some surprising discoveries about interplanetary spiritual powers. The portrayal of good and evil in the first two books will add much to the understanding of these themes in THS; but as Lewis himself says in his Preface, though the stories form a sequence, each “can be read on its own.”
  3. The illustration for this 1965 Simon & Schuster cover with its picture of a) the college, b) the chess game pieces, c) an interplanetary map, and d) a symbol of mysterious power floating overall, suggests the various “levels” of interest and engagement for the different kinds of actors who support the NICE (in keeping with Lord Feverstone’s own description in Chapter 2). At one level, there are those, like the college faculty, who support the NICE simply because it promises to increase their salary. And then there are those somewhat higher up, like the administration of the college or Mark himself, who see an opportunity to rise within the frame of regional politics. And then, yet higher (or spiritually lower as the case may be), there are those like Lord Feverstone and the leaders at Belbury who represent forces that want to use the NICE to dominate and control the whole world or even the universe. One reason it is important to mark these levels is that, as in Dante’s Inferno, they reveal different motivations and degrees of evil that betray people at each level. This is also relevant as we try to take stock of the spiritual forces at work in the geo-politics of our own time. Some people at the lower levels of involvement are what the Marxists have called “useful idiots,” for they do the regime’s dirty work and are later dispensed with. One such group was the Red Guard in Mao’s China who were banished to the wilderness after helping to oppress the general population into subservience. Lewis was clearly aware of these different levels in the culture war of his time. And he explores this issue in greater detail as the story proceeds.

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: Chapter 1

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Illustration by J. P. Cokes

Illustration by J. P. Cokes.

SALE OF COLLEGE PROPERTY

Overview Question

Mark and Jane Studdock are in many ways a typical young modern couple: college educated, with professional aspirations. One might look at them, whether as characters in Lewis’s 1940s story or as people we meet on the street today and conclude that they have everything going for them. What more could they ask? Given this, who would think that Jane’s feminism, or Mark’s professional ambition, could lead either of them into any serious trouble? And yet, spoiler alert, that is what happens.

Likewise, who would think that the long description of Bragdon Wood and Merlin’s Well in Chapter 1, or the account of the Wood’s devaluation by Mark and the “progressive” element at the college, could have any special import for our story as a whole? But what if the Wood represents that whole sense of sacramental and mediated life in creation which we find both in the Bible and in the Middle Ages—including the importance of obedience to God, submission in marriage, humility toward creation, and the disciplined practice of the virtues and affections of the Christian community? For that is what the Wood does symbolize already at this early stage in the story.

Question: What conflicts can you see brewing between the worldview/lifeworld of Jane and Mark, as well as the “progressive” element at Bracton College, on the one hand, and the values and traditions represented by the history of Bragdon Wood, on the other?

DEEPER-DIVE QUESTIONS

  1. From the beginning of the story, how does Jane view marriage and family life? How does she see these traditions fitting into her larger plan for her own life?
  2. What seems to be Mark’s strongest motivation in life? How does this affect his relationships with other faculty at Bracton? With Jane? (For a major clue into Mark, if you are able, look up Lewis’s short essay “The Inner Ring” in The Weight of Glory.)
  3. Given what you already know about Jane, why do you think she becomes so troubled by: a.) her dream, and b.) Mrs. Dimble’s womanly attentions? Do these somehow interfere with or “trigger” her desired self-image and life-world?
  4. What impressions of Arthur and Merlin do you get from Dr. Dimble’s descriptions, and how is this reinforced by the narrator’s sketch of Bragdon Wood and Merlin’s well?
  5. What signs of the opposition between the modern and the traditional worldviews can you identify in the story so far?

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The illustration (above) of Bragdon Wood and Merlin’s well, with the college and Merlin’s visage rising on the horizon, was the cover for the 1983 Pan Books edition of THS.

THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH: STUDY GUIDE 2022

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THS cover

That Hideous Strength (THS) by C.S. Lewis (1945), is an amazing and multilayered story about spiritual and cultural warfare in the modern world.1 Set in the fictional college town of Edgestow in mid-twentieth-century England, the story portrays events that presage the troubles and traumas of American society today. Anyone reading the story in the United States today will surely discover many alarming and revealing parallels. This should not surprise us, however, for the forces that are at war in America today have their roots in movements that have been trying to reshape both England and America since at least the early twentieth century.2 Lewis was aware of these forces.

The “Big Picture.”

In his preface to THS, Lewis says that his book is a “fairy-tale” with a “serious point,” a point that he has tried to make elsewhere in The Abolition of Man (TAM). In TAM, Lewis also describes a cultural war: a war between the modern post-enlightenment worldview (or life-world), with its exaltation of so-called “objective” or “scientific” knowledge, and the traditional worldview (or life-world) that reaches back through the Middle Ages to the Bible, with its emphasis on spiritual values and virtues that shape every part of human life in obedience to God.3 According to Lewis, the shift toward the modern life-world, especially in the institutions of modern British education, has resulted in “men without chests,” that is, people without training in the kinds of virtues and values that build strong families, congregations, communities, nations, and a healthy interaction with nature. These are, indeed, the themes of THS as well, though in THS they appear in a fictional story of dramatic detail with an unfolding narrative of personal struggle.

Thus, the conflict between the modern worldview and that of the biblical tradition through the Middle Ages is the “big picture” within which the story of THS is set. In a way, it is a story about the conflict between two big pictures, two life-worlds.

Major Corporate Characters of THS: The NICE at Belbury and St. Anne’s on the Hill

There are two primary institutional “characters” in THS, and each represents one of the life-worlds in question. At Belbury, we find the organization known as the N.I.C.E. (the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments). This group promotes the modern worldview, where all moral and religious values are considered subjective and relative, and where the primary goal is to create an administrative state, led by scientific elites who will manage and control the lives, the work, the futures, and even the sexuality of the common people. Sound familiar?

In this way, the NICE embrace, in a fairly straightforward manner, the modern post-enlightenment worldview. It is a world in which “nature” includes everything in the universe in a vast cause-and-effect system; and man is free to experiment on nature guided only by his own reason. As such, the NICE are also in league with what is called in THS the “progressive” element at the local Bracton College where, once again, the goal is to move the college away from its older scholars who represent the traditions of classical learning (Prof. Jewell) and even away from basic, “hard,” laboratory science (Prof. Hingest).

On the other side of this spiritual and cultural battle, we have the group that lives together at St. Anne’s on the Hill. This group, which is really more of a community—with marriages and families, gardens and animals—is led by Dr. Ransom, who is also variously called the “Director” and the “Pendragon” (the latter is a link to the medieval Arthurian legend).4 The plot thickens at this point, note well, for where the NICE are in league with the progressive element at Bracton, the community at St. Anne’s is in communication through Ransom with a group of “angelic” beings known as the Eldil. These angelic messengers, or Eldils, are guiding the people at St. Anne’s in their efforts to defeat the demoralizing influence of the NICE and to restore what is truly good, natural, and normal to the people of England.5

In this way, the life-world at St. Anne’s is open to many things that are simply unthinkable at Belbury. For at St. Anne’s, nature is not a vast cause-effect machine, ruled only by human reason. Rather, it is a living organon in which the power of God and of other spiritual forces are at work. Within this world, moreover, and shaped as it is in Lewis’s story by the medieval tradition, human beings are guided above all by their obedience to God and their submission to the living order of creation itself which God sustains. Their practices of marriage, prayer, and care for creation, for example, are inherent in how they view and value the world.

Major Individual Characters: Jane and Mark Studdock, and Merlin 

Among all of the characters in THS, both at Belbury and at St. Anne’s—all of whom carry in some way the weight of their group and its life-world—there are three characters whose roles deserve special attention now. The first two are married to each other, Mark and Jane Studdock. They are a young professional couple. She is a feminist who wants an academic career rather than a family. He is an ambitious young professor who wants, above all, to climb the ladder of success. One might look at them in the story or in a real-life situation and say, “My, what a fine young couple.” But Mark’s and Jane’s marriage is in trouble. She wonders if she has made a mistake. They do not share deeply with each other about anything.

As the story progresses, furthermore, Mark and Jane move in opposite directions; one toward Belbury, and the other toward St. Anne’s. But in neither case are their movements streamlined or seamless. Both wrestle a lot with how to understand themselves, and with how to understand what is happening to them in these very different settings. Indeed, with Mark and Jane, we are given a personal life, two lives in a personal relationship with each other, as the canvas upon which to discover what is really at stake in the life-worlds and the worldviews that they (and we) embrace.  

And then there is Merlin. Part of the medieval worldview that Lewis loved was the Arthurian legend. In THS, in this regard, both Dr. Dimble and Dr. Ransom are character types of Lewis himself. Both are Arthurian scholars, and both are aware that the NICE are trying to unearth the legendary grave of Merlin at Bragdon Wood. As a result, Dimble and Ransom are concerned about what this blending of modern atheistic science with ancient “magic” may portend for the spiritual battle ahead. In the end, Merlin—back from the dead after 1,500 years—plays a critical role in the defeat of the dark powers at Belbury. But he also presents one of the greatest challenges for us in trying to figure out how the fictional battle of THS may also apply to our own situation in America today.

Some Contemporary Concepts to Keep in Mind

As we work through the story, reading about both the individual characters and the corporate ones, each of us will, I believe, notice parallels, analogies, and echoes between what is going on in the story and what seems to be going on in America today. I want to encourage you to take note of these parallels and, indeed, some of my questions will ask you to name and list the parallels that you discover. In addition, I want to offer three major conceptual tools that I believe will help you to interpret what these parallels signify, both in our time and at the time of Lewis’s story. Keeping these in mind as you read may help you to make sense of the sometimes-chaotic strands of Lewis’s story, a kind of chaos that I believe we also encounter as we try to understand the strange and nonsensical things that are taking place today.  

  1. The Four Stages of Cultural Revolution – As described by former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov in the 1970s, these are the stages by which Russian agents worked to infiltrate and undermine America and other western societies. 1. Demoralization – using pornography and other methods through media, entertainment, education, etc., to break down the moral courage of the people.  2. Destabilization – By undermining police, courts, borders, etc., to overwhelm public safety and further demoralize the people. 3. Crisis – Build 1 and 2 to the point of a crisis where people resort to rioting or to civil war. 4. New Normal – Declare emergency powers and install the administrative state as a solution for all of the problems which the revolutionary forces have themselves caused.6
  2. The Long March through the Institutions – This is a central concept of cultural Marxism, (see endnote 2). It concerns the strategy of neo-Marxists in America and in other Western societies to overcome the resistance of successful middle-class cultures to the Marxist rhetoric of revolution. Middle-class people tend to be somewhat satisfied with their lives and tolerant of income differences with others. Cultural Marxists therefore target all of the institutions of middle-class society—church, family, public education, media, the press, entertainment, business, academia, science, law, etc.—in order to create the problems and crises that lead to the imposition of emergency powers and the administrative state.  
  3. Mass Formation – This is an academic concept that has been used for many years to try to understand the mass psychology that appears to be at work in societies like Bolshevik Russia, Nazi Germany, and Mao’s China, where thousands of ordinary citizens either turned a blind eye to the suffering of their fellow citizens or, in some cases, joined the forces that shamed and tortured them. The process is based on fear and the desire to survive or escape the threat of suffering. Under these conditions, “normal” people may become callous to the suffering of others. They “go along to get along.” But the result is a complete collapse of genuine religious and moral civilization.7

A Coherent Picture?

Using these conceptual tools, and others that come in along the way, I believe our reading of That Hideous Strength will provide numerous insights into the troubles—cultural, political, and spiritual—that we are facing in America today. And, since the conclusion of Lewis’s story involves a time of reflection by the people of St. Anne’s on what has happened and what may be expected to happen in their future, the story also gives us an opportunity to consider what kind of strategy and what view of our future we should take if we are to embrace the traditional worldview, at least as C. S. Lewis understood it. My hope is that our reading of THS will enable us to make a more informed response to these kinds of issues for the sake of our own time, for the sake of our own country, for the sake of our own “great heartedness.”

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1. That Hideous Strength (1945) is the third volume in Lewis’s famous space trilogy. The first two volumes are Out of the Silent Planet (1938) and Perelandra (1944). All three are connected by their main character, Dr. Elwin Ransom, Cambridge philologist and space traveler. But each can be read separately as a story in itself.

2. I am thinking of the movement known as “cultural Marxism” or “Neo-Marxism” which began in Europe in the 1920s when Antonio Gramsci and the early members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory in Germany launched their plan to revitalize the forces of Russian Marxism in America and in Europe by engaging in what they called “the long march through the institutions.” This involved infiltrating and undermining the traditional institutions of Western culture—such as the church, the family, education, the media, entertainment, the courts and police, etc.—in order to create an administrative state by which to manage and control society. See, for example, Roger Kimball, The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America.

3. As this paragraph already suggests, and as the story of THS shows, a worldview is more than simply a set of beliefs, ideas, or first principles. It is also a way of life that people live out in various ways because they look at the world the way they do. For example, we only pray in a world where we believe God listens. For this reason, I will also use the term “life-world” interchangeably with “worldview” to indicate the kind of consequential process that I believe Lewis himself has in mind. 

4. In the Arthurian legendarium, King Arthur’s father was Uther Pendragon, and “Pendragon” became one of the names for the line of kings that later descended from Arthur himself. Thus, Ransom is identified as one of these descendants.  

5. The traditional worldview, as I am using this term, includes both the biblical worldview and that of the Middle Ages as both of these influence Lewis’s story. His portrayal in THS of the angelic eldil, in relation to the planets, for example, is borrowed from the medieval tradition. In this regard, Lewis brings into his story not only the biblical references to angels, powers, and principalities, and the like (Col. 1:16; Eph. 6:12); he also articulates this in terms of the medieval analysis of the major virtues (angels) and vices (fallen angels) that were metaphorically associated with the planets. Thus, the power of love, Venus, can become the fallen power of unbridled passion. And the power of courage, Mars, can become the fallen power of coercion, the bully. Or, yet again, the power of language and intelligence, Mercury, when it is warped by fallen power becomes the confusion of Babble. Lewis gives an extended description of the medieval worldview in his book, The Discarded Image.

6. You can still find videos online of Yuri Bezmenov giving lectures to Canadian and American audiences on these topics. He often remarks how easy it was to influence the American public by these methods.  

7. See Matthias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. According to Desmet, in a totalitarian society, three groups emerge: 1. Those who support the totalitarian power, usually a minority. 2. Those who resist it. Also, a minority. And 3. Those in the middle who swing toward whichever side seems to offer safety and security, usually a majority. Against this backdrop, one can see why the great freedom fighters of history, like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, speak of the importance of faith in God in order to follow conscience and “live not by lies.” Desmet himself appears to hope for a resolution based on human reason alone (the modern worldview). So, though his analysis of the problem is helpful as far as it goes, he doesn’t seem to understand the spiritual depths of the problem of evil or its resolution in obedience to God’s guidance and power as portrayed in THS.   

The Politics of Jesus: First Born of the New Creation

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Hello Sparrow, pen and ink drawing, copyright 1973 by Craig Gallaway. The presence of a bird sitting and singing peacefully just beyond the bathroom screen once put me in mind of the biblical promise of new creation, when “the lion shall lie down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

When Jesus rose from the dead on the first Easter morning, he became what Paul would later call him, the “Firstborn from the realms of the dead” (Colossians 1:18). Thus, Jesus was for Paul the beginning, the source, and the pattern for the restoration of the whole world, human beings included, according to the Creator’s original and ultimate intention for creation. This vision of creation restored is at the very heart of Paul’s theology as shown throughout his letters, and especially in several climactic passages such as Romans 8:18-39 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. It is echoed as well in the final visions of John’s Revelation, (chapters 21-22).

The big picture, according to Paul, is that something has happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus that comprises a complete reset for fallen human beings in our role as stewards and keepers of God’s good creation. Moreover, the restoration is ongoing for those who live in Jesus’s Spirit, and it will not be complete until the Day of the Lord when all things are finally and fully restored (1 Corinthians 15:20-28). So, right now, “the whole creation waits in eager expectation for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed,” and to take back up the role that we lost under idolatry and sin (Romans 1:14-32; and 8:19-21).

What is more, this restoration of creation that has begun first in Jesus himself—his faithful life, his death, and his resurrection—is now going forward among those who put their faith in Him and are, thereby, led, guided, corrected, strengthened, and restored by his Spirit in the pattern of his life, death, and resurrection. But what does this pattern look like in terms of public life and behavior? Can we really speak of something like the “politics of Jesus,” the “politics of the new creation?”

I believe we can. But if we want to be true to Paul, perhaps we should begin with an important distinction between things that are essential to this political vision of new creation in Christ, and things that are not essential. Other terms for the non-essential side of this contrast include: things indifferent, and the Greek term, adiaphora. Paul uses the latter term in Romans 14:1, where he begins a longer discussion about disputable “cultural” matters such as what one should eat or drink, or which special religious rules and holidays one should observe. His primary point is to steer the Christians at Rome away from the temptation to make a federal case out of every type of issue. Not all issues are absolute. And when we are dealing with non-absolutes, Paul says, we should practice charity; that is, we should be willing to let go of our own preferences in order to support, protect, or appreciate the consciences or sensibilities of others (Romans 14:1-6).  

John Wesley, in the eighteenth century, summed up Paul’s concern in terms of a threefold principle:

“In essentials unity. In nonessentials, liberty. In all things, charity.”

A simple ecclesial example of what it means to defer to others regarding something non-essential is C.S. Lewis’s memory of the value to his soul of joining in the hymn singing of his little Anglican congregation at Oxford, even though his own more highbrow tastes were sometimes offended in the process. This may sound petty until it is one’s own musical tastes that have to be set aside. Another example might be the decision to forego a “harmless” glass of wine if one’s alcoholic friend could be tempted as a result to “fall off the wagon.” There are many such examples, where the Lord’s Spirit of love could lead us to give up our own “rights” or preferences in order to help, appreciate, or take care of others. Indeed, it is not hard to imagine situations in our schools and communities where the political decisions we face offer no single best solution for all parties, but only trade-offs between different agendas and priorities. In such situations, it is important that we remain open, flexible, and neighborly toward different opinions and possibilities.   

At the same time, the principle of adiaphora does not mean that all of our behaviors and decisions are indifferent, or disputable. This is certainly true for Jesus’s followers. It is also true for other groups who self-define their priorities in the culture wars of our time, such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, though their list of “essentials” is in many cases diametrically opposed to the politics of Jesus.

It should be noted right away that Paul keeps his list of essentials relatively short. He is interested in life in the Spirit of Christ, not in creating a continuously expanding list of rules for behavior. Nevertheless, Paul does not fail to identify areas where Jesus’ followers are called to a specific way of life in his Spirit that is absolutely non-negotiable. We will look here at three of these: 1.) Unity in Christ which moves beyond all ethnic identity groups or divisions, 2.) Holiness in personal life that focuses especially on marriage and sexual self-control and rejects the pan-sexual self-invention of pagan or neo-pagan culture, and 3.) The servant goal of work in Christ that springs from the motive of service rather than status or entitlement. These three essentials in the politics of Jesus, moreover, clearly address several contested issues of racism, justice, and economics which preoccupy our current political debate. Let us look briefly at each in turn.   

Unity in Christ beyond Ethnic Divisiveness:  In his letters to various churches (Galatians, Corinthians, Romans) Paul often addresses claims of favoritism, superiority, or abuse between different ethnic groups. The primary tension he faced arose between those of his own Jewish background who believed that their identity as God’s people conferred a special status, superior to all of the other ethnic groups of the ancient world—Gentiles, barbarians, Scythians, Greeks, Romans, etc. Though he had himself once been a zealous Jewish Pharisee (Saul of Tarsus), who sought above all to priviledge his own people, and probably hoped at one time to see them freed from Roman domination through violent revolution, Paul the Christian had come to see, after his encounter with the risen Jesus, that, as he put it in Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek; neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in King Jesus.”

For Paul, this unity of all ethnic groups in Christ was an essential. One could not compromise this unity and remain a member in good standing of Christ’s people, the church. When Jews came from Jerusalem to insist that the Galatian Gentile Christians must be circumcised according to strict Pharisaic custom, Paul insisted that to submit to this demand would make the death and resurrection of Jesus of no value (Galatians 2:21). Indeed, what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection was to fulfill the ancient promise to Abraham that God would bless all nations (ethne) through Abraham’s seed. He would bless, that is, not just the Jews but the whole world. And Jesus was the fulfillment of this promise. For he was the “seed” of Abraham, along with the people of every ethnic background who put their trust in Him (Galatians 3:16, 29).

We see a very similar set of ethnic tensions playing out in the culture wars of our own time. On one side, we find groups like Black Lives Matter insisting that since whites have been priviledged in the past, African Americans must be priviledged now. In other words, one of Black Lives Matter’s essential principles is the notion that blacks and whites must be kept in adversarial conflict in order to achieve the BLM conception of justice. On the other side, we find a large and growing group of leading black Christians and public intellectuals who argue that the Black Lives Matter strategy is a sad diversion from the real problems that trouble the black community and other struggling groups. Leaders such as Robert Woodson, Shelby Steele, Glen Loury, Carol Swain, and others, take a more Pauline and Christ-centered approach to this debate and argue that what is needed in the black community is a recovery of individual self-discipline and responsibility grounded in the renewal of the black family, educational choice, leadership training, and in the community of faith. This kind of renewal, furthermore, according to Shelby Steele, will focus on the individual as an American citizen, not as a black, or brown, or white person who belongs to a separate identity group. The contrast could not be clearer. (See Shelby Steele, Race in America, Virtual Policy Briefing, the Hoover Institute.) 

Here, then, are two pictures in high contrast to each other of our political and racial future as a country. One is a picture of the unity of all ethnic groups as citizens of one country, working together with common tools for common goals. This is a picture that is commensurate with the politics of Jesus and the new creation. The other is a picture that promotes and prolongs ancient divisions between ethnic groups, pitting identity groups against each other as a strategy for correcting the past. Such demands for diversity have a long history already of producing division rather than unity. This vision is not consistent with the politics of Jesus. A similar set of contrasts emerges when we look at matters of marriage, sexual ethics, and the role of the family in relation to recent political debates.

Holiness in Marriage beyond Pan-sexual Self-invention: As mentioned before, Paul did not make a long casuistic list of behavioral practices that are essential for the political life of Jesus’ followers in the new creation. But holiness in sexual practice and marriage is one of the essentials about which he was very clear. He writes again and again in his letters of the necessity of turning from the old fallen pattern of sexual license, self-indulgence, and promiscuity in the surrounding pagan culture (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Ephesians 5:1-10) and of channeling the God-given desire for sexual union into the central Christian praxis of marriage (Ephesians 5:21-33). Indeed, when this praxis is idly ignored at Corinth, he insists that the community there must discipline a wayward brother in no uncertain terms if they are to maintain their identity as a community in Christ (1 Corinthians 5:1-5). Furthermore, as his extended discussion in Ephesians 5 and 6 suggests, Paul’s long-range concern is not just about sex per se. It is about the fully human and healthy formation in Christ of husbands and wives along with their children and other members of the household. And all of this relates, finally, to the restoration of the Creator’s original intention for human beings (Genesis 1:28; 2:24; Ephesians 5:31). To be “in Christ,” the first born from the dead, and to celebrate life and faith in Christian marriage (whether one is married or not), is to be on the way to the new creation.  

Someone might think that marriage and sexual ethics are a rather tangential topic if our focus is on solutions for political, economic, and racial issues. It is remarkable, however, that some of the primary voices in the current debate take positions precisely on this topic. In the Black Lives Matter mission statement, for example, there is a clear rejection of the biblical essential for holiness in marriage and sexuality as an obstacle to the kind of social changes that BLM seeks. According to the statement, BLM seeks to disrupt what they call (oddly, given its sources in the Middle-East) the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure . . . by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children . . ..” Also, the statement goes on to affirm “the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking” in order to foster “a queer-affirming network.” By contrast, according to Shelby Steele and others in the 1776 Unites project of the Robert Woodson Center, the recovery of the black family, with a mother and a father in the home raising children, is an essential key to the economic and political recovery of the black community. Indeed, according to Steele, if the black community does not address this issue of individual character formation within the black family, then there really is no hope for a broader political or economic recovery. (Shelby Steele, Race in America)

Unity in Christ across ethnic lines that would otherwise divide, and holiness in marriage against sexual self-indulgence and self-invention: To these two essentials in the politics of Jesus and the new creation can be added a third.

Work as Service Rather Than Status:  What motivates us in the work we do? Paul clearly encountered a lot of status seeking among the early Christian communities with whom he worked. Jesus himself was tempted by vanity just before he began his public ministry (Matthew 4:1-11; especially 6-7). Over against this status-seeking or vanity, Paul regularly raised up a picture of the Body of Christ, given a variety of gifts, all of which are given for one purpose, “to serve others” (1 Corinthians 12-13). In Romans 12:3-8, after calling Christians to offer their whole lives to God as a living sacrifice, he advises them not to “think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think,” but rather to think soberly, in line with the special gifts that God has given to each one. If the gift is giving, he says, then give generously; if it is kindness, do so cheerfully. And all of this aims in the end toward a great and final goal in the new creation, to be fully formed as those who love as God loves (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).

Loving service is the ultimate goal and motive for the Christian life in the new creation, of which Jesus is the first-born from among the dead. But how does this play out in the political ideas that are shaping our current debate? Perhaps the best place to address this topic is with the strategy of the Woodson Center to foster “Community Enterprise Centers” and “Violence Free Zones.” In various parts of their print, video, and audio resources, members of the Woodson Center staff, including Robert Woodson himself, speak of how they work with youth in troubled neighborhoods to build self-esteem and a sense of dignity and leadership that comes from helping others; and of how this has led to the transformation of neighborhoods once oppressed by gang violence into “Violence Free Zones.” The emphasis in these programs is upon Christlike service and self-discipline that transforms individuals from the inside out. By contrast, what we see and hear from the Black Lives Matter groups are threats of violence, riots, and unlawful mayhem (“No justice, no peace!”) unless they are given what they demand, whether this be reparations, defunding of the police, or other collective and monetary demands.

Again, the contrast between the politics of Jesus and the new creation, and the politics of groups who seek a solution through government programs and collective threats, could not be clearer. On one side is a clear set of three essentials for those who embrace the Christian way toward political health and healing: ethnic unity, the family, and work as service. On the other side, in direct opposition, are three contrary essentials aiming at a very different outcome: identity politics, pan-sexual anti-family ethics, reparations and entitlement. One may choose between these optional visions. One cannot combine them. The essentials on either side are not so superficial as that. They drive all the way down to bedrock in both social praxis and in the human heart. Even so, it is important in concluding these brief remarks to frame the essentials of the politics of Jesus as what they indeed are: partially realized goals toward which the Christian community is called and committed to work. The essentials of the Christian vision are grounded in the ongoing work of God’s Spirit to bring his Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Still, the work we do now is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).