Mere Preaching: What We Can Still Learn From C.S. Lewis
By Harry L. Poe
C. S. Lewis died forty years ago this November 22. In his own way, he was one of the most influential Christians of the twentieth century. Most of the great theologians of his day are now passé. The sermons of the great preachers of his day are long out of print. Lewis once wrote that most of his books were evangelistic, and he had one of the most fruitful evangelistic ministries of the twentieth century with every indication that it will continue well into the twenty-first.1 People from all walks of life have found spiritual direction from the writings of Lewis.
What can a preacher learn from C. S. Lewis? Lewis was not a preacher. Though he preached from time to time, Lewis would probably have been the first to acknowledge his short comings as a preacher. He was not an expository preacher. His sermons were lectures, brilliantly conceived and biblically based, but lectures nonetheless. He used wit and humor, but he did not tell jokes. His sermons were filled with vivid illustrations, but the great teller of stories did not tell stories in his sermons. Lewis, the poet who loved and taught poetry, did not end his sermons with a poem. Lewis, the philosopher who had a passion for logic, did not employ an obviously discernable three point outline to his sermons. What, then, can a preacher learn from C. S. Lewis?
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The Point of the Sermon
C. S. Lewis never stood up to speak or put pen to paper without having a specific point to convey. He had a single, major idea to communicate. He wanted his audience to understand the idea and leave persuaded of the importance of the idea. He fit the structure of the sermon to the idea he wanted to convey.
For the pastor who feels bound to have three alliterative points to a sermon, this approach may seem heretical. It is easy to get lost in the mechanics and structure of a sermon. In the effort to make the points alliterate, the preacher may fail to make the main point. The cleverness of the sermon may outwit the audience to the degree that they miss the point. In fact, the point may never get made.
The Difficult Work of Preparation
C. S. Lewis was not a trained theologian. He never attended seminary nor studied for the ministry. He never considered himself a theologian. In fact, he received sharp criticism from professional systematic theologians for writing about subjects that belonged to systematic theologians. Many pastors leave the difficult matters of religion to the theologians to sort out. On the other hand, many other pastors “shoot from the hip” in vague but dogmatic declarations of theological truth.
Lewis provides a model of a humble approach to preaching that begins with a profound sense of spiritual poverty. Lewis knew that he needed to look to great teachers in order to understand the Christian faith in an ever maturing way. As a result, he read the great Christian teachers from ancient times until his own day. By the time of his conversion, Lewis had already digested Augustine and Boethius, the two greatest theologians until Thomas Aquinas appeared almost a thousand years later. As a maturing Christian, he read Thomas as well as the Reformers. He named his most important apologetic work Mere Christianity after a phrase from Richard Baxter, on of the great Puritan pastor-theologians.