This one deserves it's own post...

(Lyrics posted here)

"The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White. For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents." For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role." (Source: Times of London) The reminds of a post I wrote a few years ago about teachers changing the ink color they use for corrections from red to purple.


Ever worry about what your friends and family will do without you after you're raptured (assuming they're not saved)? Wish you could leave them a personal message or other important documents? Worry no more! For $40 a year "You've Been Left Behind" will store those documents for you, and in event of a rapture, will send them to email addresses you provide. Ain't that handy?

Eckhart Tolle has been selling New Age teaching for years, but recently it really took off when Oprah gave him a huge spotlight. Millions have been buying into his teaching and not enough Christians have been saying something about it. Thankfully, Marica Montenegro has written a great article online explaining what Tolle is teaching and where it goes wrong: A New Earth, Ancient deception: An evaluation of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. I'll be interviewing Richard Abanes regarding his new book on Tolle in the next month or so.

A few months ago I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's ever been a switch-pitcher?" Switch-hitting is a useful talent- just imagine how great switch pitching would be! From what I could find out, there's only been one switch-pitcher to pitch in the major leagues, and it was only one game (I'm not sure why since it sounded like he did well). But yesterday, MLB.com posted a video of a guy currently in the minors: What happens when a switch-pitcher faces a switch-hitter? It'll sure be fun to see him in the majors some day!

The Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, simply put, is the belief that the Bible, the Word of God alone is the final authority in all matters of Christian faith and practice.  Where Popes or church councils have seemed to violate the plain meaning of Scripture on these matters, it is Scripture alone that has the power of veto, it does not stand side by side in authority with tradition.

The most common objection I have heard from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers to this doctrine is that it is not itself found in Scripture.  Nor is the list (canon) of books that ought to count as Scripture found in Scripture.  At first brush this seems rather embarrassing, if not outright contradictory.  But I feel this objection has been given far more attention than it deserves, and here I will attempt a brief response.

First, a simple but all too important point must be made:  There are many items of true knowledge to be found outside of the Scriptures, and we can know them.  My belief that the external world exists (including the Bible I'm holding in my hands) is one such item of knowledge.  But this belief, it could be argued, is found at least implicitly within Scripture.  Fair enough.  Another example would be the deliverances of modern Science, or of History beyond the date of the last New Testament book.  The Bible is neither a Science nor a History textbook.  But no one would attempt to argue that the doctrine of sola scriptura precludes Christians from engaging in and learning from these disciplines.  

Likewise, I see no reason why the list of books determined to be canonical or the doctrine of sola scriptura itself cannot be such items of knowledge, arrived at by sound arguments and the use of God-given reason.  

To illustrate the point, one need only study church history.  In the earliest days after the Apostles, there were a few books widely accepted as Scripture (such as the letters of Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas).  There was no single council convened to answer the question of which books belonged in the canon and which did not.  There were several, some with slightly differing opinions than others.  There were also prominent individuals who compiled their own lists (such as Athanasius, who was probably the first whose list comprised only and all of the 27 books we now call the New Testament).  What is important to note about all of these is that each group or individual offered arguments on behalf of their selections.  The church did not arbitrarily pick which books it liked and which it didn't.  Good reasons were given for including books like Revelation and excluding Clement and Hermas, and in the end, the best arguments won the day.  And very recently, such arguments came in handy once more, as many Christians, especially Catholics, had to rebut the claims of the best selling Da Vinci Code.  

If this was sufficient to convince the church at the time, why not now?  Why now must infallible church authority  be added to the mix in order for us to be confident that we have the right canon?  Catholic and Orthodox Christians readily admit that the church never sat down and self-consciously used its belief in its own infallible authority to declare the canon into existence by fiat.  So why is infallibility necessary to be confident in the reliability of the canon today?  This at least seems to lead us to the conclusion that the list of books belonging in the canon need not be in Scripture itself in order for sola scriptura to be coherent. 

But what of the original charge, that sola scriptura itself is not discovered by Scripture alone?  Again, this objection simply misses the point.  If I have good reason to believe, based on the best evidence (both historical and logical) that the Bible (in its final, canonized form) is the infallible Word of God, and moreover, if I likewise have good reason to believe, based on the best evidence, that no other earthly institution bears the mark of divine infallibility, then sola scriptura follows quite naturally.  It is a deliverance of sound argument and reason, and need not be found in Scripture itself (which would be circular anyway).  

***

As a side note, it's worth pointing out that whatever can be said in favor of church infallibility can likewise be said in favor of the infallibility of Scripture, and whatever can be said against the doctrine of sola scriptura can likewise be said against the infallibility of the church.  Consider, upon what basis does the church claim infallible authority?  If the basis is on either tradition or Scripture (which is really a written derivation of tradition anyway), then the argument is circular.  But if the basis is upon reason (or even faith...which are by no means opposed), then whatever can be said for church infallibility can be said for sola scriptura. 

(I recognize that my Catholic and Orthodox brothers have other concerns with sola scriptura, but in this brief post I meant only to deal with this one common objection). 

The annual God Blog convention hosted by the Torrey Honors Institute is only a few months away. This year it's September 20-21 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Most importantly, early bird registration ends on June 20th. So if you want to get the best price, register NOW! (click on the banner) Here's this year's speaker line-up: Andrew Jones (TallSkinnyKiwi) Ken Myers  (Mars Hill Audio Journal) Scott Ott (ScrappleFace) Mark Joseph (HuffingtonPost) Joe Carter (EvangelicalOutpost) Wade Tonkin (Affiliate Marketing) John Mark Reynolds (Buffy Addicts Anonymous) Roger Overton GodBlogCon will take place only a couple of weeks after the publication of The New Media Frontier, and the book is actually the result of past conferences. So this GBC will be something of a premier/launch party for the book. I'll be speaking about the book as one of the sessions, and we'll have a book signing. So come network with other Christian new media folks and get to know what's going on and how to use it all for God's glory!

Introduction to Michael Ward and Planet Narnia
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2

The only critic I've been able to find who's argued against your book after having read it is Devin Brown. Of his criticisms, the inconsistency of the imagery seems most substantial to me. He argues that "Ward's proposed planet-related imagery does not stay rooted in its "home" book, but appears scattered randomly in all seven Chronicles.  For every image that fits Ward's scheme, we can find one that does not." He's offered the prominent appearance of Bacchus and Silenus in Caspian as a counter-example to your argument, since these are clearly jovial characters. I agree that there are strong Martial images in Caspian, but could it be that Lewis sought to make both Mars and Jupiter especially present in this volume?

You say that Bacchus and Silenus are 'clearly jovial characters'.  Why?  Is it that they are festive?  Festivity is definitely an important feature of Joviality, but we must understand what kind of festivity we're talking about!  The festivity of Jove is kingly, leisured, serene, majestic, regal; it comes in the wake of priceless sacrifice.  The festivity of Mars is tied to a different set of qualities: it's Bacchanalian, sensual, reckless.  It's very close to drunkenness!  It's more of a riot than a feast.  It's the sort of abandonment to pleasure that comes as the backswing to physical risk, - like Orual's deep drinking after her single combat in 'Till We Have Faces'.  It's like the sap surging up through the trees in March. 

I have addressed some of Devin Brown's concerns in a conversation we've been having on Narniaweb. 

Why do you believe Lewis only emphasized one planet per novel?

One's enough!  In 'That Hideous Strength' the planetary themes are numerous and they get in the way of each other.  Lewis himself thought that 'That Hideous Strength' was overstuffed.  Better to concentrate on one planet at a time, as he does in the Chronicles.

As the rest of the series are adapted to the big screen, what influence do you think your discoveries should have on the movies?

I hope that 'Planet Narnia' will convince the screenwriters that the Chronicles are very carefully constructed novels.  They were not just slopped together and dashed off in five minutes one afternoon!  If the screenwriters realise how much thought and creative intelligence went into Lewis's composition of the Chronicles, hopefully it will cause them to respect and understand their source material more and stop them from making some of the unnecessary changes which they introduced in the first two films.

One reviewer of Planet Narnia, Rachel Fulton, claimed that your discoveries require a reconsideration of more than just the Chronicles. Seeing as most Lewis scholars have been convinced of your thesis, how do you think your discoveries will impact the general study of C.S. Lewis?

I hope that 'Planet Narnia' will contribute to an understanding of Lewis as a more integrated writer and thinker than people have generally recognised. 

Walter Hooper said that "This will make Michael Ward's name."  Are you planning to continue working on Lewis, or do you have other plans for the future? I already have two definite plans for further Lewis study.  The first is a popular version of 'Planet Narnia', - shorter, simpler, with more pictures!  The second is to co-edit the forthcoming 'Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis', which should be ready for publication in 2010.  Aside from those two projects I have several ideas, some related to Lewis and some not.  But I'm not telling people about these plans yet because they are still at a very early stage.

Let's look especially at Prince Caspian, since at least the movie is fresh in many people's minds right now. You claim that in Prince Caspian Lewis chose to use imagery from the planet Mars. Can you briefly highlight some of the reasons why you believe Prince Caspian is the Martial book of the series? Here are seven brief reasons.  There are many more, and I go into these in detail in 'Planet Narnia':

1) Mars is the god of war and Prince Caspian is a war story. The four Pevensie children find that they have arrived in Narnia ‘in the middle of a war’. The war in question is ‘the Great War of Deliverance’, as it is referred to in a later Chronicle, or simply the ‘Civil War’ in Lewis’s ‘Outline of Narnian History’. It is ‘a real war to drive Miraz out of Narnia’ and restore the kingdom to Caspian. At the start of the story he is a mere boy, hardly aware of the Martial spirit which is already abroad. When Glenstorm tells Caspian: ‘I and my sons are ready for war. When is the battle to be joined?’, Caspian replies that he had ‘not been thinking of a war’. Glenstorm asks why it is, then, that he goes ‘clad in mail and girt with sword’; he informs him that the omens are good: the planets foretell success. Nerved for the conflict, Caspian thinks it ‘quite possible that they might win a war and quite certain that they must wage one’, so he convenes a ‘Council of War’. The Council authorizes action and Caspian leads the skirmishing forces as they engage the usurper’s army. Once the Pevensies arrive, Peter challenges Miraz to ‘monomachy’. Miraz is killed, not by Peter as it turns out, but by one of his own side, after which ‘full battle’ is joined.

2) Mars makes you ‘martial’, and the very word ‘martial’ appears twice in “Prince Caspian”, the only one of the seven Chronicles in which it occurs at all. Reepicheep is described as a ‘martial mouse’ and Miraz frets over his ‘martial policy’.

3) In his study of sixteenth-century literature, Lewis quotes Sir John Bourchier: ‘I know by the course of the planettes that there is a Knyght comynge’. In Prince Caspian he dramatises that sentence. Glenstorm tells Caspian, ‘The time is ripe. I watch the skies . . . Tarva and Alambil have met in the halls of high heaven’. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, ‘salutes’ Alambil, the Lady of Peace, in a conjunction witnessed by Caspian and his tutor, Dr. Cornelius, who declares: ‘Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia’. The conjunction tells us that there is, indeed, ‘a knight coming’, - namely Peter, who will fight the tyrant Miraz and right the wrongs under which Narnia suffers

4) Knightliness is one of the key, recurring images throughout the story: we hear of ‘knights-errant’; in the ruins of Cair Paravel we see ‘rich suits of armour, like knights guarding the treasures’; Peter is ‘Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion’; Edmund is ‘Knight of the Noble Order of the Table’, a ‘very dangerous knight’; Caspian is knighted and then, in turn, knights Trufflehunter, Trumpkin and Reepicheep; even the chess piece discovered at the start of the story is a ‘chess-knight’. This War of Deliverance is a good, medieval, knightly conflict, formalised by the art of heraldry and the rules of chivalry; hence the shining armour, the banners, the ornamented shields, the elevated language of Peter’s challenge.

Peter is the model knight, able to hew the treacherous and murderous Sopespian in pieces (slashing his legs from under him and walloping off his head with the backswing of the same stroke), but gentle enough to kiss the furry head of the badger. He has physical courage (risking his body in the single combat) but also pays attention to forgotten and seemingly unimportant traditions (the Bears’ hereditary right to be Marshals). He is sensitive to his army’s morale (cheering up Wimbleweather by appointing him to the parley); adroit in decision-making (his handling of the bumptious Reepicheep is diplomatic); and self-effacing towards Caspian (‘I haven’t come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it’). He demonstrates the summit of knightliness in refusing to attack Miraz when he is down; this to the frustration of Edmund: ‘Oh, bother, bother, bother. Need he be as gentlemanly as all that? I suppose he must. Comes of being a Knight and a High King’. This is that knightly behaviour, which Lewis wrote about elsewhere, ‘in which morality up to the highest self-sacrifice and manners down to the smallest gracefulness in etiquette were inextricably blended by the medieval ideal’. For more about this tradition of knighthood, take a look at Lewis’s essay, “The Necessity of Chivalry”.

5) The Martial temperament is one of ‘sturdy hardiness’, according to Lewis’s book, The Discarded Image, and the Martial visage is ‘hard and happy’, according to his poem, ‘The Planets’. This ‘hard virtue of Mars’ (to quote his poem, ‘The Adam at Night’) appears frequently throughout Prince Caspian: Peter looks ‘hard’ at Lucy; the soldiers escorting Trumpkin have faces that are ‘bearded and hard’; we meet three badgers called the ‘Hardbiters’; when the children are lost in the woods they find that retracing their steps was ‘hard work, but oddly enough everyone felt more cheerful’; Aslan tells Lucy ‘it is hard for you [to wake the others] . . . it has been hard for us all’; Peter’s army at the end of the battle are found ‘breathing hard . . . with stern and glad faces’. More significantly, certain characters visibly become Martial as the story progresses: Caspian begins ‘to harden’ as he sleeps ‘under the stars’; the children, ‘jingling in their mail’, begin to look and feel more like Narnians and less like schoolchildren; the ‘hard’ ground and ‘the air of Narnia’ work on Edmund so that ‘all his old battles came back to him’; he and Peter have become ‘more like men than boys’ by the time they march to Aslan’s How. The iron has entered their soul, as is to be expected, for these characters are responsive to the Martial ‘influnce’, to that same ‘magic in the air’ that has saved Susan’s bowstring from perishing.

6) In addition to being the god of war (Mars Gradivus), Mars was a god of trees and forests. He was known in this capacity as ‘Mars Silvanus’. This explains why trees have such an important part to play in Prince Caspian. Lewis puts ‘Silvans’ into his cast of characters in this story; they never again appear in any other Narnia Chronicle. Caspian and Dr. Cornelius cannot clearly see the conjunction of Tarva and Alambil because of the interposition of a tree; Cornelius repeatedly mentions waking the trees; Caspian is brought to Trufflehunter’s cave by the intervention of a falling tree; Trufflehunter laments that they cannot ‘wake the spirits of these trees’ for ‘once the Trees moved in anger, our enemies would go mad with fright’; Aslan’s How now stands in the middle of ‘the Great Woods’ and there Caspian’s army must flee; Lucy tries to wake the trees in Chapter 9, but fails; in Chapter 10 the children’s progress is hampered by the fir wood, but it provides them with cover when they have to run from the arrows of Miraz’s sentries; later in Chapter 10 Lucy, at night-time, finds the trees awake in the presence of Aslan; in Chapter 11 the trees stir at the sound of his roar and then join in the riotous procession of Bacchus and Silenus.

7) The month of March, when the trees come back to life after winter, is called March because it is named after Mars in his capacity as Mars Silvanus. It is the only month of the year that is named after one of the planets. Interestingly, the only Narnian month ever named in the Chronicles is ‘Greenroof’, during which all the events of Prince Caspian take place. In ancient Rome, the festival of Mars (the Feriae Marti) began on the first day of March and Bacchanalian festivities followed on the sixteenth and seventeenth, just after the Ides of March (the fifteenth) on which, famously, Julius Caesar was assassinated by being stabbed by his own disloyal Romans. Given the Bacchanalian revelry recorded in this story (in chapters 11 and 14), and given the fact that Miraz is betrayed and stabbed in the back by one of his own men, the connections with Mars grow ever more evident. There are many more reasons why Prince Caspian is a Martial story, and I explain some of these things in my book, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis

Go here for the introduction to this interview.

There's been a lot of chatter on the internet discussing your book, Planet Narnia. Almost every conversant seems to fall into one of two camps: those who have not read the book and think your idea is preposterous, and those who have read it and at least agree with most of your thesis. As you've traveled throughout the and U.K for most of this year, how has reception been among people you've met? I'm delighted to say that the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.  Of course, there will be a rew nay-sayers; that's to be expected with such a large claim as the one I'm making.  And usually the scepticism comes from people who haven't read the book, or who haven't read it in full.  But the vast majority of people, including established Lewis scholars such as Alan Jacobs, Wayne Martindale, Walter Hooper, Andrew Cuneo, Christopher Mitchell, Sarah Arthur, and many others besides, believe that there is a genuine literary secret here that has finally been unearthed.  To see what they are saying about the book, please take a look at: http://www.planetnarnia.com/planet-narnia/reviews

In Planet Narnia, you discuss how following the Copernican revolution astrology and astronomy became separated. It appears that a naturalistic worldview dismissed the "non-scientific" understanding of the planets. You also note that "even where astrology is explicit in Lewis's work, it has received surprisingly little attention" (245) from Lewis scholars. Do you think this quick dismissal or avoidance of astrology among Christians today is related to the naturalism or materialism promoted by science?

I think that's one of the reasons, yes.  Christians who are too anxious to achieve scientific 'respectability' have bought into the naturalistic paradigm, - the idea that nature is just so much raw material to be chopped up and studied without reference to its connection with us, its fellow creatures, or its Creator.  Three other reasons spring to mind.  

1.  An unbalanced notion of human 'dominion' over nature, - where dominion is mistakenly glossed as 'domination'

2.  An excessive focus upon the distinction between 'nature' and 'grace'.  Lewis criticised this in Karl Barth.  Lewis preferred Richard Hooker's line of thinking, in which 'nature hath need of grace' but, also, 'grace hath use of nature'.  In an incarnational religion, such as Christianity, one can't draw a hard and fast line between matter and spirit.  Christ has honoured human nature by taking it upon himself, and by being resurrected in bodily form.

3.  An unbalanced reading of scripture, focusing only upon the condemnations of astrology, and not recalling that there is a much more positive view of star-lore in the Bible as well: e.g. Judges 5:20, Job 38:31, Psalm 19:1-3; Matthew 2:1-10; 24:29, etc.

You say of C.S. Lewis that, "He was not prepared to write off a view of the cosmos, as his schoolmasters had written off paganism, simply because it had been shown to be factually inadequate; ideas could be entertained for their beauty, not just their truth." (29) This seems to suggest that something can be beautiful without being connected to truth. How can something false be beautiful?

Let us distinguish two kinds of falseness.  There is a bad falseness, the falseness of a lie, but there is also a good falseness, the 'falseness' of a story.  Both can be beautiful.  

The former kind of falseness is dangerous because of its beauty, its power to attract.  It's because temptations to sin can be attractive that they are hard to resist.  The devil can appear 'as an angel of light'.  Lewis pointed out how the idea of 'the beautiful but evil fay' has all but disappeared from the modern imagination, which is one of the reasons why the beauty of Jadis in 'The Magician's Nephew' is so emphasized.  She is evil, merciless, false, but she is beautiful.

But there is a second kind of falseness, which is better called not falseness, but fiction or metaphorical thinking.  When Jesus told parables he was not relating historical events; rather, he was using his imagination (his power of thinking metaphorically) in a good way.  We don't need to believe that he had a particular fatted calf in mind when he told the story of the prodigal son.  Parables, though 'false' as histories of particular events, are still true and good and - yes, beautiful - as stories.

It's in this sense that Lewis approached scientific models of the cosmos.  Models of the cosmos are products of the human imagination.  (Imagination, Lewis thought, was essential to rational thought.)  They come and they go.  Once upon a time people believed in the Ptolemaic story of cosmological arrangements.  Then they believed in the Newtonian story.  Then in the Einsteinian.  None of these models is the sum total of truth about the universe.  Each gets in a certain number of facts and leaves out others.  In that sense, none is fully true, but each is useful (some much more useful than others), and all possess degrees of beauty.  Lewis thought the Ptolemaic model especially beautiful because of its orderliness, its comprehensiveness, its perfectly graded hierarchy in which great and small are equally at home.  For more on why he thought this, read his book, 'The Discarded Image'.  

Lewis said that, "the characters of the planets, as conceived by medieval astrology, seem to me to have a permanent value as spiritual symbols—to provide a Phanomenologie de Geistes which is specially worth while in our own generation." Is that medieval phenomenology still relevant for today's postmodern generations?

It's important to quote the next sentence.  Having said that the planets are especially worth while in his own generation, Lewis goes on to say: 'Of Saturn we know more than enough, but who does not need to be reminded of Jove?'  He says this because he thought his own generation had been 'born under Saturn' (so to speak).  Saturn was the planet of calamity and death and disaster.  Lewis thought that his own generation had been born under Saturn because his own generation was that generation which was doomed to grow up (and in many cases, not grow up) during the First World War.  Lewis had been a teenage officer in that conflict and was severely wounded in the Battle of Arras in 1918.  He described much of the poetry of the 1920s and 1930s as 'Saturnocentric', - fixated upon Saturn and associated pessimism, cynicism, and despair.  That was a natural and understandable response to the tragedy which was the Great War, but Lewis thought that the Saturnine shadow cast over his own generation was a historical accident and not an eternal truth about the universe.  He thought that Jupiter (Jove) was a much better representation of the heart of spiritual reality, because Jovial qualities (kingliness, magnanimity, sacrifice, festivity) were a good way of symbolising the Christian God. 

In today's postmodern generation, we have not the same cause for being Saturnocentric, though there is still plenty of cynicism and despair around.  Perhaps our current generation is more likely to be fixated with Venus (sexuality) or with Luna (doubt), than Saturn.   

Whichever planet currently 'dominates', Jupiter remains a valuable summary of spiritual qualities, - qualities which are eternally relevant, Lewis would argue, because they convey important aspects of the divine nature.   

In Spenser's Images of Life, Lewis coined the term "donegality." You've adopted this term to help you describe the planetary themes you found in the Chronicles of Narnia. For those not familiar with the word, what does it mean, and how is it helpful for this study?

Lewis thought that many places, like many books, had an indefinable quality, - hard to put into words, but unmistakable.  London has its peculiar 'Londonness' and Donegal (in Ireland) has its 'Donegality'.  In 'Planet Narnia' I take this word, 'donegality', and apply it to Lewis's technique of conveying atmosphere in the seven Narnia Chronicles.  I believe that what Lewis was attempting the Chronicles was a new thing in imaginative literature, and that 'donegality' is a helpful term because it encapsulates this new thing.  By donegality I mean to denote the spiritual essence or quiddity of the Narnia Chronicles as intended by Lewis and inhabited unconsciously by the reader. The donegality of a story is its peculiar atmosphere or quality; its pervasive and purposed integral tone or flavour; its tacit spirit, a spirit that the author consciously sought to conjure, but which was designed to remain implicit in the matter of the text, despite being also concentrated and consummated in a Christologically representative character, the more influentially to inform the work and so affect the reader.

At first glance, Planet Narnia may sound like an odd name for a book. But according to many C.S. Lewis scholars, it is the most groundbreaking study on Lewis's Narnian Chronicles in at least the past 40 years. This week, I'll be posting a three part interview with the author of Planet Narnia, Dr. Michael Ward. I don't usually do this, but since there is plenty of information about the book online and the interview assumes some knowledge of its thesis, I figured it would be helpful to provide a brief introduction to the book. Most of what appears below is taken from the book's website: www.planetnarnia.com

Thesis: The book argues that Lewis secretly based the Chronicles of Narnia on the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos. What are the seven heavens?  According to astronomers before Copernicus in the sixteenth century, the seven heavens contained the seven planets which revolved around Earth and exerted influences over people and events and even the metals in the Earth's crust. The seven planets of the old cosmology included the Sun (Sol) and the Moon (Luna), which we now don't regard as planets at all. The other five were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Why was Lewis so interested in the planets?  Because he regarded them as 'spiritual symbols of permanent value' which were 'especially worthwhile in our own generation' (this is how he wrote about them when introducing his long 1935 poem, 'The Planets').  What made them so timely for his own generation was that these spiritual symbols were headed by Jupiter (Jove), the kingly, festive, and magnanimous planet.  Lewis thought that his own generation was too often 'Saturnocentric', that is, fixated upon Saturn, the planet of calamity and misfortune and death.  This fixation was no surprise because his own generation had been, as he put it, 'born under Saturn'; many of his contemporaries had been doomed to die in the Great War.  But that was an historical accident, not an eternal truth about the nature of the universe.  The qualities associated with Jupiter were, he thought, a better representation of the heart of spiritual reality.  The hierarchical order of the planets, in which Jupiter was enthroned as king over the other six, was a useful reminder of this heart.  'Of Saturn we know more than enough,' he wrote, 'but who does not need to be reminded of Jove?'

Isn't astrology incompatible with Christianity?

It depends what you mean by 'astrology'.  If you mean 'worshipping the planets' or 'regarding the planetary influences as determinative', then, yes, astrology is unChristian.  But 'astrology' doesn't necessarily mean either of those things.  Literally, astrology means 'study of the stars', and there is nothing dangerous, wrong, or foolish about studying God's creation. 

Although the Bible outlaws worship of the 'host of heaven' (see for example, Deuteronomy 4:19; 2 Kings 17:16; Job 31:26f; Jeremiah 8:2), the Bible also allows that the stars have spiritual significance, which is to be respected, studied, and, indeed, acted upon.  The stars proclaim the glory of God, according to the nineteenth psalm (Lewis's favourite), a psalm which St Paul quotes (Romans 10:18) in order to demonstrate how the Gentiles have already heard the preaching of Christ.  The Magi who followed the Star of Bethlehem to the birthplace of Christ clearly understood this (Matthew 2:2, 9-10).

Throughout the Bible the stars are seen as 'signs' (Genesis 1:14; Jeremiah 10:2; Matthew 24:29). Interpretation of these signs is depicted negatively in Isaiah (47:13) and Daniel (1:20; 2:27; 4:7), but only because it was practised by heathens for godless ends, not because such astrological enquiry was considered evil or dangerous per se. Go here for more on this question and other common questions that have been asked about the book.

Almost every Lewis scholar who has read the book at least generally agrees with its thesis. You can read some of the reviews here: http://www.planetnarnia.com/planet-narnia/reviews

The only critic I can find who has read the book and has offered substantial criticism against its thesis is Devin Brown. You can read a discussion between him and Michael Ward (as well as other forum members) on NarniaWeb.

Hugh Hewitt had Michael Ward in studio to talk about the book, and you can listen to that interview here.

Apparently Rick Warren is “America’s Pastor.” This is unfortunate, since every time I hear him speak, he sounds more and more like a business man than a pastor.

The following is a transcript I typed from clips of an interview Rick Warren recently participated in. In summary, Warren claims that prayer and preaching do not produce spiritual maturity or grow churches. Instead, it takes “skill.” And “skill” apparently means being a good salesman. The interviewer asked Warren if he had read the Reveal Study and what he thought of it:

Of course I’ve read the Reveal Study. The biggest mistake that the church has made is we think sermons will produce spiritual maturity… They will not. Bill Hybels is one of the greatest preachers in history… They forget 95% of what they hear within 72 hours. Well if you’re forgetting 95% of everything you’ve heard in your lifetime, that is not going to produce spiritual maturity... Jesus had a process by which he took people from no faith in Christ to be disciples… First public words of Jesus, what he says to his disciples, is he says, “Come and see”… Now that’s the entry point for faith… “Come and see.” What’s the commitment level of “Come and see”? Nothing. Just show up… Sit in the back- don’t sing anything, say anything, sacrifice anything. Jesus never left them there and… from “Come and see” he took them through consistent steps, and all through the three and a half years of ministry he’s turning up the heat. And as they begin to follow him, he starts saying, “Now, you’re my disciple if,” and he redefines commitment. “You’re my disciple if you love one another.” Right before the cross he turns around to them and he says, “If you’re going to follow me, you gotta take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me.” Now, would you agree that there’s a huge difference in commitment between “come and see” and “come and die”?...

We can’t give pat answers anymore. People say, “Well if you just pray and love people and preach the word, your church will grow.”… That’s just not true… Somebody needs to stand up. I know a lot of guys who pray more than I do and their church is dying. It takes more than prayer to grow a church. Ecclesiastes 10:10 says if the ax is dull and its edge is unsharpened, more strength is needed. But skill will give success. Skill. It doesn’t say dedication will give success. It doesn’t say sincerity will give success. It doesn’t say preaching the word and loving people will give success. It says skill… You know if you go out fishing, sometimes in the middle of the day you have to change bait. Because what the fish were biting on in the mornings they’re not biting on in the afternoon or evening. And what we’re doing in a lot of churches we’re using baits and hooks from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and it’s the 21st century.

The ellipses (…) represent breaks in the audio, as I typed this transcript based on Way of the Master’s cutting of the interview. If anyone has access to the original audio or video, please pass it along. It’s entirely possible that we’re missing some things Warren said here, but I’m not sure there’s much Warren could say to make this sound better (or biblical).

In addition to the criticisms cut into the interview, Fide-o has posted some thoughtful responses, and there’s not much I would add..

Rick Warren: Preaching and Praying Does Not Grow Your Church (the interview audio)
Will the Real Church-growth Expert Please Stand Up! (critique of “church growth”)
The Importance of Preaching
The Importance of Prayer


Update (6/4/08):
Our friend Aaron Snell has provided a link to the original video interview with Rick Warren from which the above cuts were made. It's about 40 minutes in length:


I have to say that I'm disappointed in the editing done by Way of the Master radio. While they did highlight some troubling aspects of the Warren interview, I think some of the cuts they made were misleading and disrupted the context in which Warren made the comments I transcribed above. After watching the entire interview, I stand by most of my criticisms (which are noted in the comments below). However, I do wish to retract one criticism I made:

I no longer believe Warren was talking about being a good salesman in this interview. I think the "skill" he's talking about is being able to communicate to your audience in a manner they understand. This is a good skill to have, and part of what makes a good preacher good. He did misappropriate Ecclesiastes 10:10 to make the point, but nonetheless it is a decent point.

That being retracted, I think the title of this post becomes far too strong. I have problems with aspects of his soteriology and ecclesiology (as well as some other theological points), but I did not hear anything in the interview that necessarily makes his method of discipleship neglectful, abusive, or starves his congregates.

I doubt Warren ever saw, or will see this post, but for what it's worth, I apologize for my part in criticizing him based on a misrepresentation of what he said. I think this is a good example of why context is crucial for understanding and for healthy, God-honoring criticism.