Along the lines of a central theme about scriptural language in David Mill's recent feature article in Touchstone (July/August), "Preaching with Reaching," I read the following excerpt in one of our features from 1990, now available on-line: C. S. Lewis on Gender Language in the Bible: A Caution by Wayne Martindale, Professor English at Wheaton College.
If the modern sensibility is troubled by gender language, Lewis’s advice to one of his correspondents who is worried about a confusing passage will serve very well. Lewis writes that baffling, even shocking passages in the Bible must be allowed to stand. He explains that our responsibility, when we don’t understand certain passages is to let them alone until a greater person will come along who knows how to read them rightly. When a person does come to understand such passages, Lewis explains, the result will be that God will appear “good and just and gracious in ways we never dreamed of.”
And what should our attitude be when, all about, the voices of theologians go up in a demand for changes in gender language in the Bible? Can we afford to ignore the experts? Here is a final caution from Lewis: “When you turn from the New Testament to modern scholars, remember that you go among them as a sheep among wolves. Naturalistic assumptions, beggings of the question . . . will meet you on every side—even from the pens of clergymen.”
You can read both articles on-line at the links above. Plus, in case you're interested in what Professor Martindale had to say about AN Wilson's notorious book about Lewis, one he was sure he would loathe, you may also read that review in our 1990 archives here.
Having read both Wilson's and Sayer's biographies of Lewis, I find I mostly concur with Prof. Martindale's comments about them. Nevertheless, there is a strange two-sidedness about his Wilson review -- "It is insightful and well worth reading, but Sayer's was far better and Wilson gets the centrally important facts about Lewis wrong (or ignores them), doesn't prove a major allegation about Lewis' moral life and makes critical errors of fact and omission." This is a recommendation?
Posted by: Dcn. Michael D. Harmon | July 20, 2007 at 06:20 AM