C.S. Lewis’ secretary and longtime friend Walter Hooper scoured archives and libraries in the years following Lewis’ death in an effort to read everything his prolific friend had written. God in the Dock is the fruit of that labor. Lewis is best known for his fantasy series and several theological works, but this work contains scores of essays and letters on theology, ethics, politics, and culture. The insights below share main themes expressed in the collection.

Answering the question of how to share the Christian message with others is complicated by a number of factors. For one, the audience matters a great deal. As someone whose experience is mostly limited to interacting with the English, and with academics, students, and members of the Royal Air Force, the author considers it presumptuous of him to prescribe a method that would work in those and all other contexts.

In the specific contexts mentioned above, one finds all sorts of interesting beliefs and assumptions—many of which are incompatible. Some people who hold to theosophy or new age spirituality. Even when some claimed the Christian faith, their articulations were usually vague and unsubstantive—even pantheistic at times. The High Anglicans and Roman Catholics were notable exceptions.

Yet another challenge in sharing faith with unbelievers in a meaningful manner is the language barrier. Sometimes there’s even a barrier between people who speak the same language. For those in the academic environment, it’s difficult to discuss faith in a way that connects with people outside the academy. Just as a missionary to China learns Chinese before preaching to a Chinese audience, anyone who wishes to share the Christian message with believers needs to learn a language commonly used among most people—even if it’s a variation of the language he grew up speaking and then cultivated in the academy. 

Perhaps the most looming complication to sharing the Christian message with others is that there are some cultural circles and lines of work where the language of sin is conspicuously absent. This sets our era apart from most previous eras of human history. No one wishes for a cure if they do not believe they have a disease. The appeal of Jesus’ message to the first-century world he inhabited was that we are guilty as charged and need someone to save us. The Good News was actually good news.

In antiquity, people came to God or the gods as one comes before a judge. There was a sense of reverence and trepidation. In modern times, it’s as if the roles have been reversed: Each person sits in the judgment seat, and God is in the dock (where the defendant sits during trial), justifying himself to us. Some might listen to his case and even judge it to be convincing.

One thing is for certain, it is no use trying to scare or manipulate people with such a mindset  with fire-and-brimstone rhetoric. Older preachers who did so failed. If consciences are to be softened toward God, conversation must take a different form. Vocabulary should be altered in such a way that faith becomes approachable to those who know little about it. The pure and simple invitation to “Come to Jesus” still does far better than fire-and-brimstone or heady lectures.

It’s not an uncommon argument among modern secularists that Christianity is a dead old shell of a thing. The argument goes that Christianity might retain a certain ethic and vocabulary, but it has been emptied of any real substance. Let’s humor the critics for a moment and assume they are right, that Christianity is a myth, in the narrow pejorative sense that it is false. Let’s invite them to look at their criticisms from a historical perspective. Their criticisms are part of a long line of sects that have sprung up over millennia that criticize this Christian myth.

There was Lucretius and his variety of epicureanism, Julian the Apostate and the pagan renaissance that he led, and the Gnostics. In more recent times there was Voltaire and his (mis)conception of God. Christianity’s critics and champions have come and gone, but the so-called myth remains!

The persisting “myth” of Christianity does not hang on as a matter of economics, as some argue. Christians are not a class of priests who spiritually whore themselves out to make ends meet, but millions of people (with no financial stake) have the most difficult time letting go of this Christian myth.

Could it be that this enduring myth is the substance, and fleeting criticisms, such as modern enlightened secularists’, are the shadow?

The truth is, there is a Myth at the heart of the Christian story, but it’s a Myth that is both powerful and true. The Myth Became Fact when God took on flesh and bone. There is a mythological splendor to the Christian story that need not be embarrassing to Christians. Neither should we be scared of parallels between the mythologies of other religions and the Myth within Christianity. It’s reason to rejoice that there are echoes of the “Self-Sacrificial Dying God” story in other places. It would be far more disconcerting if there weren’t any. The difference between Jesus and, say, Osiris of ancient Egyptian mythology, is that the Incarnation was a Myth that became Fact. Unlike Osiris and other Dying God myths taking place in times and locations of which we are completely ignorant, Christ suffered a Roman crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. The poetic and mythic power was not lost in the act, but amplified.

Jesus is the Myth that has become Fact, a Myth that nourishes the human soul. You can find a story beautiful, moving, and somehow important while refusing to believe it’s true. Many non-believers have been strengthened and edified by the Christian Myth without ever considering Christ their Lord. They may even have more spiritual vitality than some believers who recite creeds every Sunday without devoting much energy to exploring the True Myth behind the creeds.

To be human is to live in the tension between the abstract and the experiential. Say you are falling in love and find yourself experiencing all the feelings that come with it. You do not arrive at that state of euphoria by studying the process or developing a set of principles. As soon as you start analyzing and abstracting, you have removed yourself from the immediate moment, and you cease to experience it. What’s true of the experience of falling in love is true of pleasure, ecstasy, grief, and pain. The more deeply and abstractly we think of these things, the further we separate ourselves from them.

Myth has the unique ability—at least partially—to bring the abstract and the concrete together. It does not solve our dilemma all together, but it helps us understand and experience things tangibly that usually need abstraction. Just as myth is higher than mere thought, Incarnation is higher than myth.

Myth is like the mountain, and truths are like the little brooks and tributaries that trickle down to us here in the valley of the Shadow. Believers should be lovers of myth. The Fact was Myth before It revealed Itself in the Incarnation of Christ. We can and should be moved by mythologies because we find in them echoes of the True Myth, the Myth that became Fact.

[In Lewis’ day, some people within English Christianity, particularly among the youths, were calling for national repentance. Lewis offered his reflections on the matter in an article published in The Guardian in March 1940.]

On their face, calls for national repentance have a brighter luster than the stuffy self-righteousness many have come to associate with England. There are, however, some troubling aspects of their current expression that must be addressed.

England does not possess agency in the same way that you, your friend, or any other individual does: England represents a civil society, and those who have taken action on behalf of England are in the British Government.

The allure of national repentance lies in the fact that it’s easier for a person to repent of a more collective sin, their contribution to which is nebulous at best, than to honestly own their own personal failures. It’s all the more easy for young Christians to make bold sweeping claims about what horrible things England has done, because they were young children or not even alive when those decisions were made.

The common language that usually accompanies stentorian calls to national repentance obscures these important distinctions, however. Speakers use the vocabulary of “we” instead of “they” or “our government.” By effectively fusing one’s identity to the government, it entitles one to pile on all sorts of angry invectives, adding any sin and abomination to the ledger. You get to avoid honestly confronting your own shortcomings and zealously denounce the behavior of others. This creates a privileged but untenable position of considering oneself part of the collective entity while also being above it and able to viciously renounce it.

A seasoned politician in his forties or fifties renouncing policies he had a hand in enacting long ago could be admirable. That’s old enough for some kind of patriotic luminescence to have grown in one’s heart. The young intellectual, by contrast, seems rather disingenuous. There’s rarely any sentiment of affection toward his country that he must, with great pains, put to death. He’s long been restless and cynical, unable (or unwilling) to find good in the institutions he eagerly denounces.

A call for national repentance from a young intellectual is an attempt at showing integrity, but it’s a virtue cheaply bought. Such calls are best made by those with more to lose, those who are pained to bring it up and who were themselves involved in decisions that necessitate repentance. When a grown son chastises his mother in public, it could be a good and necessary thing. Hopefully, it pains him to do so, that, despite the natural affection he has for his mother, his spiritual zeal leads him to speak against her. As soon as there’s any sign that the son is actually enjoying the occasion to rebuke his mother, it becomes a circus and a disgrace.

Attempts at new translations of the Bible can make some cringe and others suspicious. Many ask, “Well, what’s wrong with the Authorised Standard?” (This was the common translation in Lewis’ day.) No doubt there were some in the 1500s who had similar concerns about the Scriptures being translated from Latin into a savage language like English. To translate Scriptures from the euphonious Latin only heard in Mass, into a common tongue, using everyday, pedestrian English, probably seemed like a travesty to some.

But the only problem with a modernizing translation is when it moves us further from the ideas the original writers of Scripture intended to convey. If new translations create new meanings that those writers did not intend to communicate, that’s an issue.

We hardly need to be worried about making the Scriptures vulgar with modern translations. Look at the language in which the New Testament is written. Jesus’ first followers did not write in a high, classical Greek, but a pragmatic, rudimentary kind of Greek that was used in trade and civil service. It had become the vulgar language in that day, and as such had been drained of anything lovely or clever.

The Incarnation itself is a very earthy, undignified doctrine. The Most High God was willing to take on human form, and assume its frailties and messiness. Christianity is an audacious, impertinent faith. The beauty of the New Testament and of Jesus' life comes not from the biblical language, but from something else, something "further in."

Moreover, if older translations do not connect with a new generation, or worse, if they obscure the meaning of the text, then a new translation is no longer a matter of preference but a necessity. Language is constantly changing, so we will never have a final, authoritative translation. If your son is six years old, you don’t buy him a once-and-for-all jacket, or your daughter a once-and-for-all dress.

In the case of the Authorised Standard, whose advocates will boast of its graceful solemnity and beauty, sometimes it’s the very comfort we find in the beautiful words that can lull us away from fully appreciating what those words mean. Maybe the words  appeal to our sense of aesthetics while dulling our sense of the divine. In other words, our (over)familiarity with something beautiful can actually hinder deeper encounters with God.

Where good scholarly work has been applied, we should welcome new translations, especially if they make the message clearer for those who have never heard it.

There’s something very unusual about how modern theologians and many modern lay people understand Paul and Jesus. The basic intuition runs something like this: Jesus came preaching a message of love and compassion (as found in the gospels), and then Saint Paul came along and tainted it with his bullying and forceful epistles.

This is a rather incredible assertion, considering that the most sobering, soul-jarring pronouncements come from Jesus. If there were any change at all, it would be more that Saint Paul had softened Jesus’ message. All the texts that people would use to build a case that all will be saved come from the mouth or pen of Saint Paul. 

Obviously, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection preceded Saint Paul’s missionary work among the young churches, but Saint Paul’s epistles preceded the written accounts of Jesus’ life in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We don’t have anything earlier than Saint Paul’s letters to help us make sense of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection and what it means for the believer. This is reason for greater respect for Saint Paint and for assigning more centrality to Paul’s work in relation to Christ’s story. The gospel accounts came much later when the disciples were on the verge of death and wanted to preserve a record of Christ’s life and teachings. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John assumed a converted audience and didn’t wrangle with doctrine and church conduct like Paul did.

The popular formula that attaches to Saint Paul everything unpalatable about Christianity has it all backwards. But, of course, this is how most coups begin: You don’t attack the King directly, but some of his closest associates.