Kim Gentes

There are few Christian writers that have had as deep and ongoing impact in the last century as C.S. Lewis. One of his most celebrated books has been "Mere Christianity". Originally written in 1944 from the texts of various radio broadcasts, Lewis compiled and revised this collection of thoughts into his seminal work that preserves both his legacy as a great thinker and his profound skill as a writer.

While I had originally read this book in the mid-eighties, I knew it was time to revisit it. So, the last couple of weeks I re-read this classic Christian book a couple of times. In fact, reading it once actually was somewhat painful. I kept scouring the book and furrowing my brow as Lewis would make his knife sharp points at the end of each chapter. By the time I had completed one pass through the book, I knew immediately I must run through it again. The insights, and even more, the narrative flow are sparkling examples of great writing, from a master of language.

The more I read Lewis, the more it occurs to me that he is first and foremost, a writer. A brilliant writer, to be sure, but that primarily. In fact, Lewis makes this point in this book and tries to derail people who try to come at this book as theological treatise. This didn't strike me at first as being important, but the more I talk to others about this book, the more I realize it is true. I often hear others talk about "Mere Christianity" as though it were a theological defense. It is not. That isn't to say it is bad theology; rather that it isn't really written as a theological book (one in which Biblical texts are used as the centerpoint of building a case for a Christian perspective). 

In one sense it is a Christian apologetic, but it doesn't come from the perspective of arguing Christian points against alternative religions or even atheistic ones. Instead, Lewis approaches the concepts much more broadly, dealing with the (universe, humanity and reality) and eventually narrows his scope to point at which the "big questions" of life are asked. Into that stream of thought, the author presents his thesis that the Christian God is not only the Creator but the ultimate Father of our eternal souls. But Lewis goes there in very deliberate, progressive steps, making sure to explore the thought process and objections of people who might be learning of the Christian faith.

Along that path, from investigation to discovery to comprehension to obedience (and all along the way, transformation), Lewis plants some of the most succinct and powerful phrases about the nature of man, the Creator and the universe we live in. For example:

In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine.1

There are literally dozens of quotable passages in this book- and pastors and authors have been quoting them for decades. In some ways, this book contains an expanded version of some of the core facts that Lewis writes in his famous sermon "The Weight of Glory"- but here he expands and draws a usable entrance way to non-believers to understand the Christian claims and follow and intelligent discourse about it. To be sure "Mere Christianity" is more meat than the sermon as well, and Lewis uses that storyboard to gradually move a reader from an unintelligent and lost world into a comprehension of the plan and love of God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Lewis travels the distance from talking about a grand Cosmic Mind who is not only the author of the moral code, and behind the extance of all things, but who becomes the personal 3-in-One God who stands beside us (in Jesus), acts from within us (in the Holy Spirit), and opens grand arms to recieve us (in Father God) all as part of his program of love to draw man out of his death-ridden self into the life of being "sons of God".

The author does a spectacular job of answering the questions we all wonder about, but don't or can't find our way through the philosophical jungle of competing or amoral reasoning to find the truths we seek. With Lewis as our guide on this philosophical journey, we are in good hands, indeed. His mind, his writing and his raw humanity ask the tough questions and graciously walks us through both false and proper narratives to funding the likewise conclusions. It would be silly to say this book is a classic- everyone already acknowledges that. And yet it is that. It belongs alongside the best writings in Christian history.

Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/X0aUE3

Review by Kim Gentes

A Brief Review of Experiencing Healing Prayer

As a book, Experiencing Healing Prayer is largely an anecdotal text told from the author’s personal narrative.  Author Rick Richardson employs extensive personal examples and ministry situations as a means of covering both his own story and the major teaching points he has called out in this book. Richardson does this while focusing clearly on the topic of “inner healing” primarily. While the book connects to some physical aspects of healing, its primary concern is with the foundational change in the psychological, mental and spiritual aspects of a person. Physical healing is not discussed in depth, and certainly not the extent that inner healing is addressed.

Experiencing Healing Prayer is a  book which is a joining of two main ideas- restoring the holistic identify of the person, and restoring the communication/relationship to God and his presence. Out of these ideas the author explores everything from sexual issues, gender conflict, family archtypes (mother/father) and many more. The goal, it seems, is to explore the territory of identity to recover the missing elements (or confused ones) such that a person can “re-live” the confusing experiences in light of God’s love, allowing for “reprogramming” of the foundational understandings that were altered in light of such powerful experiences.

As these understandings are re-moored to God’s love, Richardson also explores how we might communicate better with God. He explores various ways we hear God, and helps walk through common misconceptions and guides us to clearer sense of knowing God’s voice. Towards the end of the book, he prescribes liberally the power of sacramental practice and human touch as remedy for all sorts of healing. More practical exploration of ministry techniques and personal freedom from various religious vices round out the book, as Richardson returns time and again to the power of forgiveness as a primary truth in our stories.

Readers will note an acknowledged reliance on the work of CS Lewis and Leanne Payne (along with theological underpinnings via Dallas Willard) making their way throughout this book. Philosophically, Richardson draws from Lewis on major points where he finds it difficult to work through complex understandings. Practically speaking, he leans on Leanne Payne for examples that help him work out a practice of healing prayer. Willard is not referenced much except for the beginning of the book for his theological influence.

In truth, Richardson does win the empathy of most readers with his personal stories and thoughtful inner explorations about the nature of people (beginning notably with his own failed and healed nature).  This gives life to his writing and allows him to lay out his six (6) main “signposts” (as he calls them) which are his self-described roadmap for a journey from brokenness to wholeness. These signposts are clearly articulated through the book and drive the chapter layouts, sub-points and stories.  Richardson has thought well and given a nice sketch of the healing journey of a soul, but one should be careful not to take the architecture as a highly prescriptive formula to inner health. The next section will discuss details of some of these points and also some of the main critique of those points within the book that we can see.

Critical Review of the Book

My initial reading of Experiencing Healing Prayer was very positive. I found his insights quite compelling and helpful. The signposts he uses are reflective of many people’s understanding of the main issues that need to be addressed in bringing holistic renewal to human beings. In his signposts I found both my main positive support and my main criticism are contained in the first of his points. While there are critiques to be made on this work, they are relatively small, and don't deter from the effectiveness and positives this book makes to the field of healing prayer. My critiques given below represent nuances and positions which would improve the book, in my opinion, and should not take away from anyone referencing and garnering the overarching positives that this book brings to us.

I appreciated the initial focus of his signposts was the person’s actual relationship with God, specifically the need to hear his “voice”. In fact, Richardson uses this as his first point.  While many of the points in his signposts are not necessarily required to be sequential for application, he is pointing out that we must first practice faith of our Christianity in that we rely on the reality of God’s presence and care to be our profound “reality check”. That is, Richardson is saying that apart from God’s voice and inclusion in the matter of healing, we cannot even begin such a process.

...we practiced the healing presence of God and waited to hear God’s still small voice. In that environment, healing descended on our hearts...[1]

This is a profound and positive point to be made, and this inclusion of the reliance on God’s presence to enter into and bring about revelation in the hurting person is a repeated point in the IHP model presented by W. Thiessen (found in the “prayer based” section[2], the “God of IHP” section[3], and the article “Turning Inner Healing Outward”, where it is stated explicitly that the process is ‘followed by a direct invitation from God into at least the potential “embrace”’[4]).

The benefit of this focus is clear- this is a uniquely Christian approach that appropriately requires the presence and activity of God for any healing to occur. One cannot apply the methods taught in Experiencing Healing Prayer (or the IHP model presented by W. Thiessen) without this foundational element. This also seems useful as both a distinctive of Christian inner /healing prayer therapies and a boundary for which Christian practice of the such therapies (as far as they are called “Christian”) can possibly be laid.

This very point also leads to a possible problem. While Experiencing Healing Prayer excels at its Christian centric solution path, it occasionally does so at the expense of validating counseling or talk therapies. Richardson says, crisply:

Counseling can lead us to talk our feelings round and round without any ultimate relief or change.[6]

Likewise, he also perjures himself slightly against talk therapies by saying:

Talking about our emotions can lead us into self-absorption, enmeshment in an anxious, subjective inner world.[7]

This is an interesting tact to take, since, while God is clearly the center of the therapeutic map, Richardson expects people to get their using their own faculties of the mind and emotions. Specifically, an entire chapter is engaged on exploring the concept he starts regarding the need for the client imagination to be in full cooperation of the process:

Images and the imagination matter.[8]

The criticism being made by the author against other (counseling and talk) therapies may not be necessary and might wane on the credulity of his request for the use of the imagination (instead of God intervention) as part of the process.

That said, the need for God-focused solutions was especially helpful to me to see, especially in a context when trying to help in a problem saturated situation was not having success at taking the focus off of the broken person.

Amazon Product link: Experiencing Healing Prayer - Rick Richardson

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Rick Richardson, Experiencing Healing Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005) Pg. 46

[2]See the section on “Prayer-based” component in the notes from - Walter Thiessen, Inner Healing Prayer - Draft (St.Stephen’s. NB: VBI, 2005), Pg. 4

[3]Walter Thiessen, Inner Healing Prayer - Draft (St.Stephen’s. NB: VBI, 2005), Pg. 9

[4]Walter Thiessen, Turning Inner Healing Outward / Practical Theology in South Africa (South Africa: University of South Africa, 2008), Pg. 138

[5]Walter Thiessen, Narrative Therapy from: Summary excerpt from chapter 2 - Praying in a New Reality (St. Stephen’s, NB: University of South Africa, n/a), Pg. 1

[6]Rick Richardson, Experiencing Healing Prayer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005) Pg. 36

[7]Ibid., Pg. 36

[8]Ibid., Pg. 36

C.S. Lewis is one of the most celebrated Christian writers and thinkers in modern times. His literary gift extended his philosophical genius into almost every kind of written scope- children’s books, science fiction, morality lessons, personal narratives, apologetics, theology, counseling, and more. Lewis’ most prized construct was the narrative allegory, exampled most brilliantly in his most well known work of the Narnian Chronicles. Because he is such a master of language, one rarely reads Lewis simply and directly on a given topic. Rather, even his shorter works often speak about the thing obliquely, as a better method of communicating powerful points (drawing on the readers imagination to fill in the powerful truths). While the gift of allegory is at play in poignant manner in his famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, it is his contrasting forthrightness that makes the paper take shape so quickly it stands out as, arguably, Lewis’s most brilliant short work, and what I consider the best sermon recorded since the New Testament preaching of Peter and Paul.

The Weight of Glory is nothing less than an essay on what it means to be truly human, what rewards are truly in store of those of aiming at “heaven” and what God intends by creating us in the first place.  As tall an order as this seems, Lewis accomplishes this in just 10 pages of some of the finest English writing ever composed. Lewis begins by outlining the nature of love and desire. He moves to comprehending our desires, God’s wishes, and his commendation on us at “glory”.  He concludes by circumspection back to love, but this time as a union of both our desires and God’s, founding us centrally in the great belief that we can please God and that God loves us.

What is astounding about Lewis is that he arrives in so many of his works at such great theological conclusions, without primarily taking the route of theology to explain them. Allegory, philosophy and logic are the language here, but Lewis uses them to make points only now being made by some Biblical researchers and scholars.  Primarily, in this work, Lewis comes to the powerful conclusion that humanity is weighted down by the image and glory of God to an extent rarely considered orthodox by his Biblical scholar contemporaries.  Lewis explores with us the nature of our desiring God and his nature to give us immense desires, and then grant them through His love.

So great is the immense attribution of God’s favor on us, Lewis contends we must revise our understanding of the glory set upon us from the creator. In this revision, we find ourselves moored to the profound love of God and enraptured by a favor of God so great it has no match within creation.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.[1]

and

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.[2]

But the profound truth we encounter on the road to this glorious discovery is that we are foundationally loved of, and pleasing to, God. In the context of the thread of human desire (for something we call heaven) and God-ordained glory that Lewis draws together for us, the treatise culminates into a richly relational understanding of God and our place with him. We find, most surprisingly, that his promise of glory and heaven meets with our deepest desires not only of him, but in him. This is said best, of course, by Lewis himself:

The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.[3]

The Weight of Glory examines our deepest longings and, in its final sentences, places them soundly on the hope of utter delight and joy in a life founded in God’s love and acceptance. We are his, and we can live like it- for the good of ourselves and the betterment of our neighbor.

Amazon Product Link: http://amzn.to/vfmZqF

Review by Kim Gentes

[1]Lewis, C. S. “Weight of Glory (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis)”. (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1949), Pg. 46

[2]Ibid., Pg 46

[3]Ibid., Pg 38-39