Make a choice: will you choose heaven or hell?

books:

	• The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis HarperOne, 2001 - 160 pages average customer review:based on 220 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Theological Version of "A Christmas Carol"

In some ways one could compare "The Great Divorce" to Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Both are allegories speaking to the consequences of earth choices. Or more properly, the consequence, singular. Or even more properly, the eternal consequence of life's one major earthly choice.

As the title indicates, Lewis sees a great divorce, or a great divide between all people of all time: there are those who choose for Christ and there are those who choose against Christ. The title also highlights the relationality of our choice: we either choose to accept the marriage proposal of Christ our Worthy Groom, or we choose to divorce ourselves from the final Marriage Super of the Lamb.

Choice made, Lewis, as only he could do, takes us on a bus ride to heaven and hell illustrating the types of choices we make, the moral peril our choices place us in, and the end result of a life time of choices that confirm us either in good or evil.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."

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You'll see yourself in this book.

Seriously. If you're honest, you'll either see your past self in this book or you'll see your current self in here. Lewis wasn't just a good writer, but also had a keen insight on human nature.

The Great Divorce makes an excellent discussion tool for the believer to share with their unsaved friend. Of course, don't build your theology DIRECTLY off of it - it IS allegory and all of the images presented therein (i.e.- folks in the shadowlands simply going on about their lives in the perpetual gray darkness and the opportunity for a 'shadow' to become 'solid' by travelling to the foot of the land of the solids) may have to be stretched a bit to be fully Biblical, but folks will get the idea.

As a believer, this book will give you some serious thinking material. Pick it up, read through and re-read. A few of the images from this allegory on heaven and hell will sit with you for a long time.

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Make a choice: will you choose heaven or hell?

This week in class we read The Great Divorce. It's a great book and if you haven't read it... just... go read it.

The book is about a bus that goes from hell to heaven. People from hell can get on the bus and go to heaven where people are waiting to greet them and convince them to let go of their sins and follow them to the mountains. The people who come from hell, however, are like ghosts against the landscape of heaven which is very hard. It is more real (hello, Plato!). Anyway, the narrator is met by George MacDonald, the Christian writer whose writing helped to convert/inspire C.S. Lewis.

The thing about C.S. Lewis' view of hell is that it is essentially a hell of your own choosing. He takes human freedom so seriously that God's grace can ultimately do nothing about it.

The interesting thing, which can be seen in other works by Lewis, is that all of the sins that keep people from hell are the deep sins that take a person over. Each person is very consumed by themselves. My personal favorite character is the Episcopal theologian who is so obsessed with the questioning and the prestige that he can get from coming up with new questions and theories that he forgets that the questioning should lead to answers.

Interestingly, the one person who made it from hell to heaven was the person who had the sin of lust. The thing that I found interesting about all that is that if you looked at the media or even just what the Church focuses on, you would think that lust is the WORST SIN POSSIBLE. But, it is not all consuming like some of the other sins and, as I said, ultimately the person with the sin of lust is the only person who makes it to heaven.

This is one of my personal C.S. Lewis favorites, the other being "The Screwtape Letters". If you like Lewis, you'll love these and if you haven't read anything by him, "The Great Divorce is a perfect place to start.

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The Divorce betwixt Man and God

If you haven't yet read any theology or Christian apologetics, this novella is a fine place to start. If you already read such, then you know that you just HAVE to read this classic.

C.S. Lewis uses a dream device, ala not only Dante and Bunyan, but also echoing of Isaiah and John, to give us a keyhole glimpse of the afterlife, albeit in more modern terms.

Hell is an endless, shabby, grey city in the rain, where the quarrelsome and disputatious residents are given a chance for a bus ride to Heaven. There they must confront their sins and foibles and make the ultimate choice. Even faced with the reality of God, many are still unable to free themselves from the shackles of vanity, uncertainty, and pride!

Lewis clearly is intending The Great Divorce as a metaphor, for the notion of the damned being given "another chance" and a bit of a day-excursion to Heaven is, of course, not in accord with any Christian doctrine. However, he uses the metaphor to illustrate many telling points of Christian theology, starting with God being the Great `I AM.' The bus ride itself, and the relative sizes of things are also evocative of the extra-spatial nature of the Godhead.

In summary, Divorce is a short, brilliantly-written tract and a wake-up call for many: A thought-provoking read for anyone and worth multiple readings! Get it.

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One of my favorites all time

Lewis' imagination runs wild in this book. He sees the reality of Hell as a place where people choose to go, and Heaven as another possible choice. Through encounters with several spirits and help from his teacher, George MacDonald, Lewis learns how different attitudes toward God affect eternity.

To use an image from the book, I've always found this book useful as a lens to see things more clearly.

reviews: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, page 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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