Tag Archives: Spiritual Warfare

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.

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  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.   

Ordinary Time and the Echo of the Far Country [1]

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Canyon, Watercolor, copyright 2007 by Craig Gallaway

According to the Apostle Paul, Jesus our King (the “Messiah” of Israel) has risen from the dead and is, even now, praying for us as we walk in his Spirit on the road of new creation (Romans 8:34). And as he prays, again according to Paul, he is also working through his Spirit to extend his reign over every enemy that opposes the godly order of creation, including the final enemy, death (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). His goal in all of this is to restore the order of Creation throughout the world, corrupted and misshapen as it is since the fall of Adam (Romans 1:18-32), and in particular to restore the order of our Maker’s own creative, strong, and loving image in us human beings (Romans 8:18-29). This is all in fulfillment of the Creator’s promise to Abraham, described in the book of Genesis, that Abraham’s descendent (his seed) would be the means by which the Maker would restore the fallen world (Genesis 12:1-3). According to Paul again, this promise to Abraham, and this restoration of the fallen world, is what King Jesus came into the world to accomplish through his victory over sin, death, and the fallen powers in his cross, his resurrection, and the sending of his Spirit (Romans 4:13-5:21; 8:1-17). That is, in his own body—his faithful life and death, and then through his victorious resurrection and the sending of His Spirit—he is even now at work in those who put their lives into his hands by faith. He is transforming and restoring us and the whole created order with us (Romans 5:12-21; 6:6-14; 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22).

This story of Jesus’s victory over sin and death and his reign as the risen Lord through his Spirit is, Deb and I believe, what Paul means by the word “gospel” as in Romans 1:16. If we want to know what Easter is really about, what Christmas is about, and what God’s purpose for the world is all about, this is the story. There are, of course, various opinions and theories[2] in the history of Christian thought which attempt to interpret some part or facet of these bedrock Scriptural events; but the good news embodied in the events themselves is the main path of Scripture. Jesus was faithfully obedient even unto death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8). He died to sin once and only once, so death no longer has any authority over him (Romans 6:10-11). Therefore, God has raised him from the dead and made him Lord and King over all (Philippians 2:9-11). So now, by his Spirit, he is guiding, strengthening, and leading us toward the great day of our own resurrection, judgement, and the new heaven and earth, of which we now have the first fruits (Romans 8:18-39). With this scriptural account of Jesus’s victory over sin, death, and the devil in his own body, and his continuing work as our risen Lord by the presence and power of his Spirit to restore the fallen world, we find ourselves, if we put our faith in him, on the main path of Scripture moving toward the fulfillment of the promise of new creation (Romans 8:18-39).[3]

With this journey of faith in Christ on the road of new creation in mind, and mindful also of the suffering and spiritual warfare of the current time in our culture, Deb and I offer the attached song as a kind of theme “music for the road,” expressing at least part of the emotional range of the daily path and battle as we know it. The title of the tune is “Craigieburn” which ties Craig’s own name to its Scottish origins, and means “rocky stream.”[4] We hear this music as an “echo from the far country,” a kind of longing for and foretaste of the beauties of the world fully restored. And yet it also has something in it of the groaning that Paul acknowledges for those who are on this new creation path with our Lord (Romans 8:18-26). And isn’t this why the Apostle exhorted the believers at Philippi to put their minds on certain kinds of things: “Whatsoever things are true, noble, just, pure, beautiful, admirable, virtuous, and worthy of praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8-9). We are called to be cheerful in a still fallen, dangerous, and disordered world. Jesus also spoke of this when he encouraged his first disciples, “In this world you will have much suffering, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). And, for a more recent witness, we can recall C. S. Lewis’s thoughts about the Christian doctrine of suffering and how our Lord encourages us to live a life of cheerful insecurity:

The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this [present] world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe [swim] or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on our journey with some very pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.[5]  

Craigieburn Wood, arranged by William Coulter, played by Craig and Deborah Gallaway

And so, Deb and I offer this music as an inn along the way, echoing with strains of the good, the true, and the beautiful from the far country of the restored and reordered world. And as we continue on our journey, we are convinced—despite all of the troubles that we are surely facing—that nothing can separate us from the promise of this homecoming. The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.

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[1] “Ordinary Time” refers to those stretches in the calendar of the Christian year when the great festivals of Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter are not in action; when the days and weeks are simply numbered with the numbering system known as the “ordinals,” such as the first Sunday in Pentecost, or the second Sunday in Kingdomtide. Thus, the word ordinary doesn’t really imply that nothing special or “extraordinary” ever happens during these periods; yet it does, in a different sense, remind us that there are times in our daily Christian lives when we have simply to practice with patience the regular disciplines of our faith. And one of those disciplines is surely to remember well the basic story of the gospel and the Scripture which brings order to all of our lives.    

[2] For example, the various “theories of atonement” such as the moral influence theory, the penalty substitution theory, and so forth; but none of these hold together the full range and depth of our Lord’s new creation purpose which animates and integrates the narrative of Paul’s faith and world view.    

[3] For additional help in tracking this Scriptural story of salvation, see for example: Athanasius, On the Incarnation; John Wesley, “The Scripture Way of Salvation;” Craig Gallaway, The Presence of Christ with the Worshipping Community; and N. T. Wright, How God Became King.

[4] We first heard this lovely melody and the basic arrangement that we are using, on a CD by the guitarist William Coulter titled “The Crooked Road.” The title of the original tune is “Craigieburn Wood,” which comes from a poem by Robert Burns (1759-1796). The compound word “Craigieburn” in the Scottish dialect refers to a rocky or stony stream (a “craggy burn”). The connection with Craig’s own name has given him a chance to reflect on the parallels between his journey, with its many ups and downs and twists and turns, and that of the Apostle Peter (Petros, “rock”) as well as the description of our shared and sometimes-rocky Christian journey to new creation given in Romans 8. All of these journeys evoke the attitude of patient faith and hope that is the way of new creation, of life in the Spirit, as we journey toward the great day of fulfillment and banqueting, when “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14; Revelation 21:1-4).

[5] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (Macmillan, 1966) p. 115.