I’ll never forget coming across C. S.
Lewis’ powerful attempt to explain the moral perversion of strip clubs. Here is something
from a book I will publishing in a little while which addresses what Lewis said,
“People
are generally poorly equipped to question the cultural assumptions of the
society they grew up in. In an era where history is poorly taught, this
inability is only exacerbated. So, perhaps I can step outside of our topic to
use an illustration from C.S. Lewis that will help us here. In his powerful
book Mere Christianity, Lewis makes a series of arguments that show the
intellectual soundness and solidness of the Christian faith. While making his
case for the superiority of the Christian perspective on sexuality morality, to
try and highlight just how fallen his culture was, he reaches into what he
considers to be the realm of absurdity to make his point:
“You
can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a
girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could
fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then
slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights
went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not
think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?
And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was
something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”[1]
What
I find fascinating about this illustration here is that when C.S. Lewis first
published this in 1952 the entire premise of his illustration was ridiculous;
and that is precisely the point. Lewis is seeking to highlight in Big Neon
Letters that something had gone wrong with the sexual appetite of the
western man, and the way he can think to best describe this is to highlight how
crazy it would be to the man of 1952 to see a world where people gathered
around to watch food revealed to a lusting audience. I find this so fascinating
because without intending to, Lewis has described our western world today. This
is what many competition cooking shows are: food lusting events where people
gather around to drool over the fancily prepared blow torched whatever it is.
We are a culture of gluttons. Whether in the Church or outside the Church, many
of our instincts for what is good, and what is not have been thoroughly
inverted.
Meditate
on this for a second: the most ridiculous morally dystopian world that C.S.
Lewis described is the world we currently live in. Evil is wickedness, it is
rebellion, it is that which stands against God, but it is also craziness,
insanity, stupidity, because at heart evil is rebellion against God and his
good order. That which creates chaos is foolishness, foolishness often with
wicked intent. So, the fact that our society reflects in high-definition detail
the absurdity of C.S. Lewis’s illustration is a big sign we have been directed
down an evil path, even more so, than when Lewis was alive.”
Lewis found
the idea of lusting over food so ridiculous that he used it as an illustration
to show how morally decrepit his culture is. This extended quote here is from a
book I am going to be publishing on the evils of feminism and equality.
Feminism and
Equality are just accepted by the mainstream of our modern society, though more
and more people shun the term feminist and prefer to speak in terms of egalitarianism.
Still the policies, ideas, and philosophies of feminism reign supreme in many
aspects of our culture.
I think C. S.
Lewis could have just as easily have used the example of men in his day ogling
a group of women hitting themselves in a boxing ring or smashing into each
other on the football field. The fact that these things are increasingly
happening in our culture is a testament to just how much our moral senses and
worldview have been warped.
Keep an eye
out for this book and others that I will have coming. These are the kinds of issues the
church must address and fix if we want to be salt and light in the culture in which
we live.
[1] Lewis,
C.S. 2002, Mere Christianity, Harper Collins Publishers: p96
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