***I suppose I first learned of the inevitable idolatrous tendency of protestant liberalism (and apologetic approaches to theology generally) from Karl Barth. He convinced me that unless we allow the God-borne witness to in Holy Scripture to speak for Himself, we find ourselves speaking in His place, and so, wittingly or not, we make a “god.”

Now that I am writing on C.S. Lewis, I find in him something of that distinctive, hard-nosed dogmatism I found in Barth. Note this passage from Mere Christianity: “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive. . . . And half of you already want me to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much. . . .I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do―I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it.”

Those words could as easily have been written by Karl Barth. Dogmatism is justly associated with the darker dimensions of human nature and behavior; the furrowed brow, the protruded neck vein, the angrily pointed finger. But in Lewis and Barth, dogmatism puts on a happy face. Lewis found a way to let Christianity be itself while pursuing Christian unity. He shied away from internecine Christian squabbles. He found it unseemly. Barth loved a good debate, but also enjoyed good faith ecumenical dialogue and insisted that theology, above all else, is a “happy science,” because it deals, first and last, with Good News.