Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1259 | Why the Robertsons Reject the Idea That Pro-Life Is Just an Opinion

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

The Robertsons dig into why truth doesn’t always play well in modern culture, and why Jesus wouldn’t be popular in a TikTok world built on virality and approval. The guys talk through everything from their long-running distrust of dentists to why being pro-life isn’t a matter of personal preference or opinion. They reflect on how stories like The Chronicles of Narnia communicate hard truths better than arguments ever could and why true change is often so uncomfortable. Today’s conversation is about Lesson 2 of C.S. Lewis on Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale professor Michael Ward. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about C.S. Lewis on Christianity: Encounter the faith & wisdom of C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis’s writings bring the great questions of the Christian faith to life. Through his imaginative and invigorating style, Lewis answers these questions in ways that are compelling to those outside Christianity and energizing to those within the Christian faith. In this free, seven-lecture course, Professor Michael Ward—a leading scholar of C.S. Lewis—will explore Lewis’s: argument for objective moral value in response to the rise of modern subjectivism; bittersweet path to conversion and the role of enjoyment in the Christian life; advice regarding the proper way to pray and read the Bible; teachings concerning the purpose of pain and how to confront suffering and loss; insights about the nature of heaven and hell. This course examines these fundamental topics not only through his classic works—including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man—but also through Lewis’s personal experiences with doubt, conversion, suffering, grief, and joy. Through this course, students will discover Lewis’s core lessons regarding the truth and goodness of the Christian faith and how to apply those lessons to one’s life.  Join us today in discovering C.S. Lewis’s enduring lessons about the meaning and practice of Christianity. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 0:00 – All good conversations need caffeine 4:05 – Why studying C.S. Lewis still matters today 8:25 – “I can’t believe anything unless it makes sense” 13:10 – Objective truth vs. subjective feelings 18:20 – The problem of evil & why moral outrage points to God 23:55 – How suffering backed C.S. Lewis into Christianity 29:10 – Tolkien, Dyson, & relaxing into the Christian story 34:40 – Faith as participation, not just belief 40:05 – Why C.S. Lewis wouldn’t be popular in today’s culture 45:30 – Christianity isn’t safe but it is good — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. We are in our second CS Lewis episode. We've upgraded with some coffee from John Luke who took a rather long break to go fix one cup of coffee. I'm the one on the time constraint and then I ask John Luke to make me some coffee because it's nice having like a coffee guru, a month. amongst our people, you know. That is true. And because I love good coffee. And we're doing this in the afternoon because our schedules are so crazy. And so I have to have it, especially talking about the objectivity of reason and all that.

Why do you have a heart out today? I got to get my teeth clean. After you're drinking black coffee. I brought a thing of floss. Because I get so nervous about going in to have someone work on your mouth, you know, right after you've had coffee or whatever. So, yeah, black coffee before a dentist appointment, it's a bold move. Well, that is a bold move, but that's no better time. Get it cleaned up, get them bleached out.

That's true. That's true. That has new teeth, which was he made his debut on the podcast. So that is that kind of push you to like make sure you. I mean, I'm just getting mine clean, Zach. Is that like I'm pulling them all out of my head? It's not quite that dramatic. What it got me about Sai was that he waited until 77 years old.

But then I finally found out why. and I don't know if I should if I can say this but I'm going to I guess I was like cut it mad if it's if it's not right but I said well Sao why did you do this wait till 77 he said hey because it's it's free so the guy apparently

traded side the work for whatever he's doing for him so well it was worth it because they look he has all his teeth man oh he's amazing yeah I've never seen him look that good he looks great yeah well this is Unashamed for Hillsdale you guys can check it out

Unashamed for Hillsdale.com, you can take the course with us, or going through the work of C.S. Lewis, which is super exciting. My brother's a dentist, by the way, Al. So if you lived up here, you might get a discounted. I don't want your brother anywhere near my teeth. I'm just going to tell you right now. He's got, I love him to death, but this man, he may just implant something in there that later he could, you know, make me suffer.

I don't know. Grant's got a sadistic personality at times. I don't want him anywhere near my teeth. It's starting to sound like an anti-Dentite. I'm an anti-grandite. I'll tell you, if he's the dentist. One of the best Seinfeld episodes. Anti-Dentite.

And what does he say? Next thing, you know, you're going to say they should have their own school. He's like, they do. Here you go. You're an anti-Dentite. Thank you for bringing up Seinfeld because the young people don't appreciate Seinfeld anymore because, you know, it's a 30-year-old television show, but people at my age love it. Yeah.

We watched the whole thing. America and I watched the every episode of Science loved it. Yeah. And it was like new to you, right? It's new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so good.

It's still funny. And it's so funny because a lot, like the office is kind of y'all's air, I guess. Is that right? Yeah. And then so, and I love the office too, by the way. Love the office. But Seinfeld was a little different animal,

but it's funny because a lot of new generation, they don't think Seinfeld's very funny. And especially because, you know, it was old comedy that, you know, you could make fun of somebody. And it didn't mean you were demeanour. meaning or race of people or whatever, whatever, like the anti-identi. But there were all these like double meanings, and that's what made it funny.

And it was kind of like old comedy that now people are kind of run away from. But it seems to be coming back. It's coming back. Seinfeld was classic, though. There's a little bit more nuance to the humor than slapstick comedy. Right. Yeah, so you got to, it is more of a higher-brow humor. Oh, man, I love some Seinfeld.

Well, that fits what we're doing in this course, is that? Because we're in high-brow country. right now. Christian and I have been brought into the world of philosophy and apologetics. But I will say it's been great. Everything we've done in this Hillsdale study, all of our biblical study as well as now what we're doing, C.S. Lewis, has helped me grow. And, you know, as someone who's 61 years old, I've spent my entire adult life studying the Bible, teaching, traveling around the country, trying to help people, just what we're going to. we're talking about today, which is people converting to Christianity, changing their life,

you can never stop learning. And you never want to quit reading and quit exposing your mind to things that can help you grow. And so I just think it's been great. And I hope you guys out there, I know you're listening, so you're going along the ride with us, but tell other people about it too, because we want them to experience this. And Hillsdale is a great opportunity of just what we talked about last time, this idea that objective truth will clear the path to water and irrigate those deserts out there,

young people coming in wanting to know what they need to know. Yeah, and that's what's been cool about the course. It's like whether it's been Genesis, Exodus, David, or now C.S. Lewis, like, I'm writing a, like, a devotional series now on David because of how inspired and encouraged I was doing the Hillsdale course because it made me want to learn more and study more. And usually when you take courses, you know, it'll be, that's all you want. want to do. You don't really want to, you know, go do more things outside of that and kind of keep studying it post-post lectures. But with everything we've done so far, I've just kept reading

Genesis. I've kept reading Exodus. I've kept reading David because the, yeah, just the lectures. And whoever's taught them has encouraged me and inspired me so much that I've wanted to actually stay in the material and keep learning. So it's been actually awesome and really, really beneficial for me. Yeah, one of the things that I didn't mention that in the last episode, I think it's key when I kind of mentioned it. I think that back. I mentioned it at the very end when I mentioned Dr. Starns, when I mentioned Dr. Arns's introductory episode to the course, he had mentioned that C.S. Lewis said, I can't believe things unless it makes sense. And I thought about what, like, there's a lot to that statement. It sounds like kind of simple, but really there's a lot of

depth in the way that C.S. Lewis acquired a certain belief system. It had to make sense. And I was thinking back to, you know, there's another philosopher named Renee Descartes, and most of us have heard this phrase before, but we've heard this phrase, I think, you know the rest of it? Therefore I am. Yeah, I think, therefore I am. And so this became like a really famous saying in our culture. But what Descartes was essentially getting at was that the most foundational thing that you could know to be true.

The most fundamental thing that a person could know to be true is that they exist because in order to contemplate their existence, in order to think they must exist in order to contemplate their own existence. And so that was like the most fundamental thing that you can know to be true,

but there's actually something even more fundamental than that that I think Lewis was hitting on. And it is that law of non-contradiction, that things have to make sense, that something can't be true and not be true at the same time, that things have to make sense.

And so his method of figuring out what's true about the world, about God, about the claims of Christianity, the claims of any other belief system is, in the end, does it make sense? And that's what he was moving towards. And so I think that's the foundation of like his whole work is just trying to figure out what actually makes sense.

You know, and I think that's good for us too as we move into kind of his work. Especially now we're calling it kind of the return, the era, the return to common sense in terms of as a people. Because last couple of decades, that's correct. Let's be admitted it's been crazy in terms of politics and a lot of other things. When you said that, Zach, it took me back to something Ronald Reagan said when he was talking about, you know, being pro-life or pro-choice. And he said, well, the thing about it is you have to be born to have an opinion one way or the other. And I just thought that was such a powerful thing because it's true. Like, in other words, if you're on the side where you're for abortion, you're on the side for somebody not been ever able to have that opinion that you hold because you've ended their possibility to do that.

And so I think that's another one of those just straight common truths and objectivity we should look at. And it really ties into this because you remember in abolition of man, C.S. Lewis uses. it was three things. It was interesting when you go to people's era as his examples. The airplane, the wireless, and contraceptive. That was his three things to talk about those things out there that change, you know, and can become subjective for people. And he talks about with the airplane that people were just starting to go on an airplane.

He said, but so you think, oh, this gives me all this freedom. But only if they'll take you where you want to go was this point about objective. In other words, if that thing is out and land at the right time at the right place, then you're not free at all. whoever's in charge the airplane is in charge. And he used this same thing about contraceptives. And it was interesting because probably in his mindset there, he couldn't have even imagined abortion.

But I guess contraceptives were new. And he took that as the idea that somehow now we're planning the future, meaning that we're going to be in charge of that. But his point was every time there's a future, then whatever you've planned, they're a slave to what you've planned for them, which is very interesting. You don't think about that, what you do for the next generation. So I just thought those were interesting thoughts back to that argument about objective versus subjective.

And, of course, ultimately, it's what led him to Christ because his argument was suffering. He was like, you know, how could there be a God if it's such a cruel place? And so then he basically ridiculed Christianity for what he claimed until, like Zach, you said at the end of our last podcast, he came to that point and said, but that is objective. Like my thought is a judge. So there must be something more. Why would I even have this morality? Why would I care about cruelty?

Unless there was something in me. Well, I wrote out kind of an argument of how I interpreted C.S. Louis backing into the Christian faith through the problem of evil. And this is how it goes. I think it'll make sense. I don't believe in God because objective evil exists. But objective evil can't exist unless God exists. And objective evil does exist, therefore God must exist. So that's how he backed into the argument.

He looks at the world and he's like, man, how could all of this like horrible pain and evil and abuse and disease and horrible, horrible things? How could this exist in a world where there was a God? And then the question is, well, why is it horrible? Why is it bad? Why are these things bad? And without God, you really can't make a, you can't come up with a coherent reason for why any of that is evil. Why is the Holocaust evil? Without God,

it's just, it's just chemical, physical reactions that are happening. What makes something inherently evil or inherently good is that it has to be objective. And so the very, like, and think about where you live at. Like, it's really the most real thing that you can know. Like when someone that you love dies and you feel that pain or when there's a divorce in your family and you you feel that pain or when there's a child that's born and you feel overwhelming joy, whatever that is, that good or bad that you're absorbing and feeling, it transcends anything else that you know. And it may be the most fundamental thing that you can know is that, man, I don't know why,

but that is good. And I don't know why, but that is horrible. Well, it's objectively good or evil. We want you guys to take the course with us so you can sign up. It's free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And what I love about it is his conversion, because again, I didn't even know he was converted. I just, I kind of always assumed he probably was always a Christian and, you know, like grew up with a pastor dad or something like that and became the man he became.

And so I was fascinated by his story. And the fact that J.R. Tolkien, I mean, who was one of the guys that led him to Christ, blew me away once again because I had no idea. I didn't even know he was a Christian or a believer. And, you know, I've loved all the, his stuff. his works. I've read them, watched the movies. And so the fact that he and another guy took the time to tell the story and shape this man that would shape so many others, I think really is the heart of Christianity. Now, the first one really was hard of me to wrap my brain around.

Today's lesson and today's lecture is right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. Because it's about leading people to the story. Yeah. And I thought the way Professor Ward did that was cool because you know it was C.S. Lewis Tolkien and then he said, Dyson, he said another guy who's not as well known. It's kind of like me, Jason, Zach. I was going to say that, but I didn't want to be offensive. I know, I don't mind.

I'll say. Well, there was an article that came out. It's like that Dynasty Stars. Oh, and the guy. Yeah, there's a Fox News article. I don't want to be offensive. I'm already mad about that. There's a Fox News article that, I'm just going to throw it out there because this does

make me mad. We had this great conversation, which was my idea to bring it out. You sent me the material. And then the article literally, it's about an episode we did, and it references Al and Jay's conversation. I'm not even in the picture. And a couple of the lines, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I said that. I haven't gone back to verify yet, but I think they took my lines and attributed them to

Jace. So, yeah, I'm the forgotten guy. I'm the Hugo Dyson of the team. So the clickmate was Doug Nottiscius starts to discuss this incident and another guy. I didn't even get another guy. You're the, I didn't even get that. You're the other guy that also was there with CSLIS and Tolkien. So there you go. Well, it was Tolkien. You know, there's a pub in England. And Jill and I went there when we went recently, or last year we went, we went to London. We actually got to go to the kilns and where C.S. Louis's house is. We went to Oxford. We did the whole thing. It was pretty awesome. We went to his grave, went to his church. It was quite the experience because I'm kind of a C.S. Louis buff. But there was, you know, when you think about, there's a pub there where he would drink beers with, I'm sure Dyson was there, but Tolkien was there.

And I think T.S. Eliot was there as well. And you think about the brilliance around those conversations, I would, like to me, that would be the best movie that someone should make is a movie of these guys who all of them are just brilliant in their own right but i mean independently they're amazing but can you imagine that collective conversation between these guys well you you run a production company Zach you could yeah make that movie you can make that movie if anybody's got a bunch of money they want to spend on a movie call me up I will make the movie but I don't have enough money to fund it so it won't be free like hillsdale yeah it won't be free like hillsdale but you can um It won't be free.

Yeah. It won't be free like he's not anywhere close to free. But I thought that story was so cool of just thinking about, yeah, the three of those men who were so brilliant, just walking around campus at nighttime. And they kind of challenge Lewis to think about the Bible. Yeah, more as a drama and as a story. Because you see that with people, and I thought it was cool the way Professor War was talking about that with Lewis was that he would, he loved the idea of the Bible in other things.

situations, like whether it was mythology or these, because he was like, I love the idea of a God sacrificing himself, basically to himself. If it were Bacchus or one of these pagan deals, yeah. Loved it in the pagan world. Yeah, but when he got in the Bible, he didn't like it. I think you see that with people all the time. It's like they love these other principles, but then when it gets in the Bible, it's they don't, for something about it, it gets squarely to them. But yeah, just thinking about those three men just walking around campus at night and them challenging Lewis, And it was that simple framework of just reading the Bible through a drama and storyland and kind of take out all the theological and all the, you know, the more, you know, higher thinking stuff and just read it as a drama. And that's pretty much what converted him back to Christianity.

But I thought him saying, I thought Lewis saying that he loved the idea in the more pagan sense. He loved that. but something about the Bible, it kind of turned him off, which I thought that was interesting. And that was really how they got him to reconsider it, was to look at the story of Christ, look at the story of the Bible, and take it for what it is,

not what you presuppose going into it. And I'm almost sure there's no way that he wasn't impacted by that early life experience. Because remember, I think it was his mother's father was an Anglican pastor. or whatever they would call him back then. And so he had that experience. And then he went through the thing at the school.

And then he went through the thing where he basically lost, you know, his vision or faith at all for then, you know, a big chunk of his life until he's older. And so you can see how that impacts you. And I even thought about Zach, you mentioned a little bit on the last podcast about how you came to faith. And it was kind of like him. It was like, because you grew up. I mean, I know you grew up knowing about Christ because of your mom.

mom and dad and my aunt, who's Zach's mom, is one of the most, you know, amazing spiritual, godly women you ever met. I mean, you're talking about know the book and know the word. And yet you had to come to it yourself. I mean, you couldn't just rely on that. At some point you had to come to that organization. And I think it was similar with Lewis for sure. For me, mine was less about that and more just about environmental because I grew up in a

terrible situation, which we made a move, Jack made a movie about. and the little kid running around it is just a kid in a movie unless it's you you know and then you watch the movie and you're like whoa you know and you remember back what that was like and so for me it was more just survival and then all of a sudden it was like we're in this good situation like it was good and dad is there and he's like trying to do the right thing and still slipping a little bit here and there but i mean you just saw him trying and then all of a sudden i just i lost my bearings because everything i had known changed And even though it changed for the better, you think, well, man, that's the perfect situation for you.

But sometimes it's not because now all the old ways of thinking are all upside down. And so a lot of times in my mind, at my age, that became a doubt point for me. And it wasn't really doubting God. I just didn't know that I wanted to be godly anymore. And I had been for a long time because now of a sudden my world was godly and I started darkening. So I became a prodigal son for like four years. And first it was just hiding in plain sight. And then finally I did just like the Luke 15 kid, and I hit the road.

And then I came to the point of realizing, like my dad did, that if I stay here, I'll die here. And I'll die here not the way I want to. It's terrible. It's a miserable existence to be alone, not have your family, not have anybody. And so then I come back to Christ now, finally heart and hand open to who he is. And so at 18 years old, I mean, that started my journey. And so, but it was completely different than this experience. But that's the beauty of Christ and God is wherever you are, whether it's environmental,

intellectual, some other setting or situation or someplace, you don't know anything about God. You may grow up in three generations and nobody ever talked about God. And then all of a sudden, the story hits you and you realize that, man, this gives me some meaning. It gives me something good. So my story's act was completely different from yours, but we now share that same bond. I don't know if it was that different. I mean, I think as you were talking about that, I was thinking about with Lewis, you know,

I get a ton of, I've gotten a lot of pushback over the years on teaching apologetics and presenting apologetics, mainly in the form of your intellectualizing the faith or some version of that. You're making it's too smart or what it's to this or too heady or whatever. It's some version of that. And I understand the pushback in it. And I will say this, that I have gone down the rabbit hole with people on, like, back in, not in the last probably 12 years, but up until about 12 years ago, like, if you want to get

into a discussion on apologetics, you want to get into a debate on the merits of Christianity, you want to talk about intelligent design, you want, whatever, like, let's go. And I would argue until I was blue in the face, and you know how many people that I saw come to Christ through those arguments? Gooseig. I never really did. And I think for me it was super helpful in apologetics. It has been super helpful for me in my own personal journey and answering objections and being intellectually satisfied in all of that. But my experience has been very similar to what C.S. Lewis had what happened to him is that he had gone through more of the intellectual side of it and had wound up, at least

in this moment where he's taking walks with Dyson and Tolkien, where he was more of a deist. So he believed intellectually that these things were true. But to your point, which I thought was probably the best point of this whole entire lecture, was what Christian was talking about, how he would approach the pagan religions. And he would be like, this is beautiful. I love this. I'm inspired by it.

But it came to Christ. He was like, ugh, I can't accept it. And the reason what moved him was when Tolkien and Dyson, I wrote it down, because I thought it was expressed very beautiful, very beautiful by Dr. Ward, is that they encouraged him to forget about the theological and logical explanations for a minute. We're not throwing it away. We're just, for a minute, can you just put that to the side? I can just imagine them saying, just settle down with all of that heavy intellectual stuff.

And for a moment, can you relax into the Christian story? And I love the way that sounds and the picture that that paints. Can you relax into the Christian story? Can you enjoy the story of Jesus Christ and explore it with imagination? And probably the last 10 years of my life, I've been focused more on that, the imagination that is cultivated when we explore the story of King Jesus. And that, to me, is the ultimate apologetic that transcends some kind of intellectual your argument. Not that that's bad, not that that's something we shouldn't be engaged in, but

man, Christ has invited us into a story. So when you, how, the language you just used was that same language, you accepted an invitation into a new story. You were re-storied, and I have been restored and continue to be a restory. So I found that to be extremely powerful point of this whole entire lecture. Yeah, and the way that, and we want you to sign up, by the way, take the course with us free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. The way I described it, the wording I use, and it's very similar to some of the wording Dr. Ward used, was I say that my story finally intersected Christ story, which had always been there.

In other words, Christ's story was there, but my story finally intersected. I mean, it only intersects when you're finally open to the idea of who Christ is. And I love the way that they described Dr. Ward does in the lecture at how he first believed in God, but then he came to believe in Christ. And he even quoted John 14-6 when Jesus is, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father God except through me. So in other words, you have to go on that journey to get there. And I've even thought about Zat, just look at the historical timing of it. Like this was in 1931 when this happened for C.S. Lewis. And his lecture series on the radio, which was the airwaves he talked

about, you know, in this book, was second only to Winston Churchill's addresses about the war itself. That was a cool fact. Very powerful. So you think about the whole world that was getting that at the time. Yeah. And getting those lectures.

And if he had not become a believer in 1931, he wouldn't have been available to this stack of books and much more to do those lectures for all those people in the hardest, most difficult time up until that point, you know, in human history for the modern world. And he was there. He was God's guy in the moment, but only because his story intersected with Christ's story. I mean, what a powerful thing to show you how powerful God. A couple of things. Think about CSU's overall. But before that, Zach, I want to push back on you saying that you never saw someone converted through your apologetics. Because I think that one of the powerful ways that apologetics is,

teaches us about God and have people share about God is that it makes us think about it and it's a slow learning and it's a deep learning it's not a like alter call moment so you don't see people get baptized but it does shift minds and I think that definitely happened and specifically for me I think about myself as a kid listening to you preach apologetics at whitesford road I think it was like a special like Wednesday night thing yeah I did a series yeah Yeah, series. Now, I remember seeing there as a kid watching you, I guess, you know, how old I would have been, but thinking like, oh, wow, there's more to this.

And, like, starting to think deeply and hearing, like, all the different, the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, like, being exposed to all of that for the first time and starting to think deeper. And that was just impactful for me. Wow. Thank you. There you go. That is awesome. Well, can you put that on Instagram and taggies.

Yeah. Clift that. There's your clip for this episode. Clip that and take it. Tag me hashtag. Well, it's funny. You started back, was saying you wanted to push back,

but then you didn't love making Zach the happy. I love that kind of push back. I'm like, let's keep up. Well, it's true, though. I mean, I think this particular thing is about his,

like when they talk about his conversion, but I think you're right. It is a, I mean, like to get to the point, even in C.S. Lewis's conversion moment, you know that there were years

before these conversations and these long walks that he would take with his friends, that paved the way for this conversion. So that's actually a really good point. I received that. Well, my next point on C.S. Lewis is, I really think, I don't think this might be a hot take, but I don't think it is.

I don't think that if C.S. Lewis was alive today and he was riding today, I don't think that he would be as well-loved as he is right now. I think you're right. I think one thing he did so well at the time that is actually applicable to us is, he pushed back on both sides. He was against subjectivism. He really challenged that in like a cultural view, but he also really pushed back on fundamentalism.

Yeah. And dogma and beliefs and not questioning the Bible. And so he really challenged both sides. And I think if he was saying the things he was saying and you were watching it on TikTok or reels while you were scrolling through, I think he would get so much hate from Christians saying like, he's not quoting the Bible. Bible, he's not reading the Bible, he's making it to whatever, he's being too philosophical.

Because if you read these books and this whole stack of them, rarely does he quote a verse. In all of his Narnia books, rarely does he make like a specific Bible quote. But what he does is he asks these questions, like, what is the problem of pain? why do we suffer? Why do I feel sadness even though I'm joyful? And he wrestles through these questions and you watch him wrestle through the questions in the books from a philosophical perspective that you just don't see in like the mainstream now. You're not really allowed to do it. You're not right. You can't wrestle. And you don't see it. You don't see the wrestling, but that's what he's doing in the books. And there's, and there's, and,

even to say this, this might be a hot take. I don't, there's things that, there's answers to those questions and the arguments that he makes that are very outdated from a philosophical perspective. Yeah. Like modern atheists or theologians

or whoever's, the people debating right now are, have new answers to the questions and have quote unquote beaten, some of the answers that C.S. Lewis provides in these books from a modern perspective, but that's okay. Like that's how, like that's what philosophy. Arguments go on. Arguments go on. But we as a, as Christians and as a culture, we, I think, kind of got stuck on some of these C.S. Lewis arguments and it was like, that's the answer when really the

point was the question, was the arguing it and was from looking at it from a philosophical perspective versus I think what we see a lot. What we do have a lot now, which is scientific perspectives, Bible literature perspectives. We have a lot of those apologists, and I think they're doing really good work. But we don't have this like philosophical mindset like C.S. Lewis had had at the time. Yeah, I had a very well-known Christian apologist on the Not Yet Now podcast and someone who I've read a lot of his work, respect a lot, and think is absolutely brilliant. So let me say that. But asking the question, kind of like what Lewis is talking about here, or what Dr. Ward was talking about of just like when CS Lewis's buddies were like, man,

can you just like relax into the Christian story? Can you just enjoy the story of Christ? Can you just explore it with imagination? And I was asking this particular apologist about just the beauty of the gospel, just the beauty of the kingdom, just the beauty of the story of Christ. And I said, what do you think about that? Like, don't we need more apologists? Like, how would you talk about the intersection of aesthetics and beauty when it comes to the story of Jesus and how we participate in that? And he was, like, stunned by the question. And he was like, I've never thought about it. He said, but I think that'd be a good field of study for somebody to go into. And I'm like, not talking about a field of study. I'm talking about like a real participation.

in the life of Christ. And I think that's what's interesting to your point, John Lucas. I don't think Lewis was trying to construct a systematic apologetic so that we had an answer in a flowchart for every objection that someone might have towards Christianity. What he did instead was really open up the story in a way that you could sit into it. And I love the way that Dr. Ward has said that he became a participant

in the story. of Christ in 1931. I love that language. He became a participant in the story of Christ. And I thought about how what we talk about so much on the podcast, that we are partakers of the divine nature. Christ has invited us to participate in the inner life of God. Lewis painted over and over and over again a picture that stirs my imagination for

just that very thing. I love another phrase that was used. I think it was in abolition of man, and that was an effective believer. Or it could have been in mere Christianity, but that's another gray one. I mean, that's right there with a participant, an effective believer. In other words, it's one thing to be a believer, but to be effective, that means you have to be willing to be used to be effective. And I like that picture you painted John Luke,

because it also shows you that the kingdom of God needs a broad structure in it to be able to be effective. And so, you know, if you try to be all things, you know, you're probably not do any one thing really effectively. It's better. Everybody has a gift or an ability. And we talked about just our group around the table. We have different things that we're good at.

And so those are the things that I stick to what I'm best at. I want to expose myself to every thought that's out there that helps me grow as an individual. But I know there's areas that I'm good at a text in the Bible. That's what that's who I need to be. That's my wheelhouse. That's where I need to go. But, man, to study this and to listen and hear you guys talk about it, it inspires me. Or to go see Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, or one of those movies.

I totally see the nuance of how he's bringing out these pictures of Christ through Aslan and all these different things. And so I thought, man, that's brilliant because that was beautiful art about what we believe. And it was done subtly. And, you know, I used to think he was doing it just to like hide it. But now I realize that's just who he is. I mean, it's just the way he approaches this. So I think the kingdom of God is such a large movement. You go to Hebrews 12 when you read about it.

I mean, this is going across human history. This is other beings. This is us. This is philosophers. This is pastors. And we're all in this thing to try to get to this relationship with God. So I think it's beautiful. Yeah, the nuance of the line with the witch in the warbub is pretty incredibly.

I mean, John, we were talking about that earlier. when we were driving in together of just how yeah because the thing that's so cool about lewis is that you know in the line the witch and the wardrobe it's he kind of takes his higher thinking and kind of makes it simple uh you know for kids to understand with the wardrobe and with aslin and then the witch and you know just kind of the way that the um you know you see the good versus the evil um but yeah it makes you watch the movie and makes you read the book book, but it makes you, you know, want to dig deeper into those meanings, because it is nuance and it is, you know, because kind of like, kind of like what you said, you don't know if it's,

if he's trying to hide it, but it is, it's hidden enough to where you have to actually go seek out something beyond that and kind of find the deeper truths in it. But, yeah, I haven't seen that movie in forever, but listening to these lectures and talking about, it makes me really like to watch it. Go back to see the whole series again. You know, he mentioned something I want to get into. I'm glad you brought up about the movie in the book, in that particular book. And then it's in apparently several other ones.

This idea of, he called it a V-shaped where you have to descend to a sin. Yeah, you know, he talks about it. He said, utter descent, and then ascension, which is that idea of brokenness and, like, come into Christ. And he experienced it as well. And the way he talked about was it was bittersweet this idea and dismay. in discomfort coming to Christianity because otherwise, and that was one of the stories, his first writing after he became a Christian was the member of the guy that sees the island and then, you know, so he's trying to figure out how, you know, how he's going to get there.

But he never would have gotten there had he not been dismayed and uncomfortable. Otherwise, he would stay there more because obviously CS Lewis is talking about himself because he had this intellectual picture and he was going forward and there was no God and, you know, So they didn't have to worry about everything until one day he realized that his own objective truth led him to the idea there had to be a God. Well, now he's uncomfortable. I got that question wrong on the quiz. Did you really? I put despair.

The answer was dismay. Yeah. And so they were similar. I like that idea. And then the diver one was cool. The diver analogy with the other one. What was that miracles? It was from miracles.

Yeah. The diver that dives down into the abyss and he's in the kind of the warm water, then goes down further. He's in the cool water to reach the jewel and then comes up to the depths and then, you know, sticks the jewel above the surface and his lungs are about to explode. And I thought just the imagery of that with Jesus descending into from heaven to earth. Well, and he quotes this. I want to read it because he quoted Philippians too. Dr. Ward did.

Your attitudes should be the same as that of Christ. Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God's something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. There's that descent. into humanity, right? Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself, became obedient to death, even death on a cross. There's the utter dissent. So not only did he just come here, he came here and suffered, was persecuted, was mocked, was ridiculed, and then was crucified. Therefore, and here's the ascent,

God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. And so there you see the ascent. So you made the point that that's why we understand. That's why Lewis understood this idea that unless you understand who you are and then

understand who you really are, you'll never understand who you can be. And you can only find that in Christ, which I thought was a very powerful analogy. Yeah. It caused it the bittersweet. It's the bittersweet. It's the essence of the conversion experience, too, that kind of goes along with that because it's not all roses. You know, he mentions in the Great Divorce, the man that's had to live.

lizard lust on his shoulder. And when he saved, his face shone with tears. But if they have been only the liquid love and brightness, one cannot distinguish them in that country that flowed from him, or in the hideous strength, Jane's soul is remade amidst the kind of splendor or sorrow or both, or then you got eustace when he was transformed into a dragon, can only become a boy again when the painful claws of Aslan kind of penetrate his armor and pilling back to bring him back to who he really is.

And so you think about some of these really powerful quotes. And one of my favorite quotes from the Narnia books was whenever Aslan, he's revealed as a lion, the great lion. And Susan says, oh, I thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. Safe? Mr. Beaver said.

Who said anything about safe? of course he isn't safe but he's good he's a king i tell you and i love the way that he writes and paints that picture of who christ is because a lot of times in our culture i've used this in many many many sermons to talk about the sovereignty of christ that christ is not a cosmic bellhop christ is not simply the you know the character petting the lamb or have the kids around him christ is a lion from the tribe of judah and he's not safe but he is good and so you get that picture of that Aslan has claws, and those claws will enter into you, and they will rip your shell off to restore you back to something good. And so that to me is one of the most powerful things

about Christianity. He mentioned a letter that he wrote to somebody who had became a Christian, and it was like, congratulations and my condolences or something to that effect. My commismate. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's just hilarious. But I thought, you know, that's such an honest way of portraying conversion that so often what we tell people in the church is because we're trying to sell them we're like, come to Jesus that everything's going to be better than it's ever been.

And my experience with coming to Christ has been a very painful experience, almost like that song that Shane sing, Slay me. You know what I mean? It hasn't been roses, but it's been very rewarding because I am becoming

who Christ has called me to be. I'm getting to participate in his story, which is the beautiful part of what we're invited into. Be sure and sign up to take the course with us for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. I do think that's true, Zach. And when you were saying that, I was thinking about mom. When I tell the family story, when I'm out on the road, I talk about when she came to Christ, it was totally out of desperation.

She was in dissent. Then the utter dissent was the life she was living with my dad. And her assent was to come to Christ because she was so alone. abandoned. And she had three boys and she's like, what am I going to do? That's how she came to Christ. And, of course, personally on the inside, man, it was such a relief because now she realized she wasn't alone no matter what happened with Dad. The problem was her life got way worse. Because now, Dad already had a problem with her and it was always accused of being unfaithful and all this stuff because he was being unfaithful. And now it's like, oh,

now you're you're like misbeliever, Miss Goody Tushus and you got your church for. friends and blah, blah, blah. So I just, you know, me as a kid, just remembering the arguments and the fights, he used her faith now as a cudgel, and he just bludgeoned her with it. And so here was the one thing she had found some security in in Christ, but that was being used against her in her life. And that went on for like a full year before he finally kicked us out. So to your point, Zach, of talking about Christianity doesn't, I mean, sometimes it remains bittersweet. I mean, how many times of people around the world, and you can, you can, you can, you go to different countries where you make a decision for Christ, you're bringing a world

or hurt on yourself. You have the security of known who Christ is. And your family. And your family, because now you're going to face because of some other religious group or whatever, you're going to face the worst persecution you've ever faced. And yet is it worth it? So you let the V-shaped template of down, the way he categorizes Dr. Ward is it's down, down further, up, up further. And that is the Roman soul. sixth passage that Paul talks about when it talks about our coming to Christ and baptism, that we go down. Like there is an old man that goes down and down even further and then raised up and then raised up even further to live that new life through sanctification and

ultimately our glorification when the kingdom of heaven comes back down. I would add another one then something, then the kingdom comes down to meet us, which I think Lewis kind of hits on in the great divorce because he paints a really good picture of that. But when you think about like his coming to Christ. I love another language. It says take it on its own terms is what they encouraged him. And I think Lewis said this. It's the language when you understand the story of Christ.

It's the language that's more adequate than any other. And there's another quote that I looked up, that I remembered from Lewis that kind of goes in the same vein of this. And I may have butchered this because I actually quoted it from memory, that I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but by it or through it, I could see everything else. And so his understanding of Christianity was that it was what illuminated the world for him. So he doesn't believe in it because he can see it.

He believes in it because through it, he can see everything else. And to me, that is how he talks about the myth. Did you all catch that, by the way, when it said he believed and kind of moved from more of the cognitive. He moved from just assessing Christianity as a set of rational belief. and cognitive beliefs that he would acquire and moved into approaching it more as a myth. I don't know if y'all caught on that. No, in fact, when John Luke was talking a minute ago

about how he wouldn't be popular in today's culture, that was another line I was thinking. If you said Christianity is a myth, you would immediately be rejected as a kook. But the way he described it, I thought, well, no, he's right. Like, you'll say something. Like, if I were introducing Christian,

I said, there you go, Christian, the man, the myth, the legend. You would take that as a compliment because I'm saying, you know, this is a guy that everybody knows. about what that's what he's talking about with Christianity, the idea, it's a myth, it just happens to be true. This happens to be true people in a real world versus paganism. But the minute you said that, you'd be rejected.

Yeah. Well, if you said, they're giving away free GMC pickup trucks down there at the Chevy Place, and someone said, oh, that's a myth. That means it's not true. That's right. But that's not how Lewis is approaching it. Well, there's actually, because I just heard this from a Christian apologize. He was

they were arguing he was arguing with this other guy and the other guy was saying that Christianity's not true because it was taken from all of these other more ancient myths like

the writers of Christianity took all these examples from earlier religions and kind of morphed them all together to be Christian. To be Jesus and to be Christianity. And CSU actually specifically believes

that is the case that Christ represents and fulfills earlier myths but that we have the earlier myths because that was God working to get us

to Christianity which is you can believe that or not believe that but specifically CS Lewis thought that earlier missed did point to Christ

and was very similar to Christ because that's how God was working. So he kind of took a different approach on it. But I just heard another well-known Christian apologist who I respect, I listen to a lot of his stuff, disagree with that point. Well, and the thing about it is, John Luke, that's not so crazy, because the whole Old Testament is full of symbolism pointing to Jesus. It's not really him.

But then once it happened, everybody says, oh, yeah, that's why you had the scapegoat. Oh, yeah, that's why you had the land. I think it's a good. point because even like with the temple stuff and when we had dr jackson on the podcast and he had mentioned on the podcast that that that there were earlier iterations of the temple that the precede the tabernacle that was constructed this was on our exodus study that preceded moses building the tabernacle and he's like they all had similar structure and that perhaps uh by the way if you want to take the course with us sign up you can take the course free at unashamed for hillsdo dot com and you can go back and listen to

the Exodus one and the one we're in now, which is CS Lewis. But when Dr. Jackson was talking about these other temples that preceded the one that was built by, or instructed by Moses and then the one built by Solomon as well, what he's, that there were similarities and that it's very likely people could say, well, they're just borrowing from old other temple structures. But the point that I've read from Dr. Beal in his book on the temple is that all of these temples. The ones that preceded the tabernacle and the temple that Solomon built, they were all predicated on, guess what, the Garden of Eden, the original temple. So what you actually see in the early

myths and the early temple structures and the early stories that they're all reflected, they all came from somewhere, and they all have a common origin. And that common origin is the Genesis story. And so I think this certainly can be true of these myths, but the way he, the way he distinguishes He says a myth doesn't mean false. It's historical. But it is a story, and it's a real story. And so he says, C.S. Lewis came to believe in the myth as the true myth. This is the true one.

This is the one that's true. Real people, real events, exactly. I have a really quick question. I know we're almost out of time. But I got this, I'm going to preface. I got this question right on the quiz simply because I put all the above. Because most of the time, that's probably your best bet. I learned a lot about criticism.

One of the answers was, and this confused me, but this was Dr. Ward talking about something that C.S. Lewis was saying that we must sometimes be deceived in order to pursue what is truly good, which is a great quote, and I know we're almost out of time, but what is that, what is he necessarily, like, what does he say? Well, that's the quick answer was what he had said before, that the idea is unless you're uncomfortable, in other words, unless something happens to change your worldview,

which is how he put that deceit, you'll never seek anything more. In other words, you'll just continue on the path you've always been. I mean, that's what I took that to me in that question, because I wasn't sure he did there exactly. But then I took that, that's that idea about if I'm not dismayed in where I am without God. In other words, if something doesn't happen. There has to be something to propel you to ask more questions.

So if I'm not deceived in the sense that if I'm not willing to be tricked or whatever word you want to use. What's the parables? It's why Jesus taught in parables. Seeking you will find, knocking the door to be open. That makes sense. Because I was really confused at what he was talking about. And there's several of those words that are like that.

So we're out of time. Man, what a great study this is turning out to be. I'm loving it. I hope you guys are taking it along with us. It's free. Take it with us. Read the books. You're going to be exposed to some great stuff with C.S.

Lewis. We'll see you next time on Hillsdale Unashamed. And next time you see us, our teeth will be whiter. Wider. Move the mic. There they are. Yeah, let's get a before and after.

pick we'll put that in the next thumbnail yeah that'll be that'll be the thumbnail picture and then we'll put size in uh-huh yeah guys join us every friday for unashamed academy powered by hillsdale college make sure to go to unashamed for hillsdale.com and sign up it's no calls to you that's unashamed for hillsdale.com and don't miss an episode of the unashamed podcast by subscribing on youtube and be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode