In my view, chapter 5, where Baxter illuminates Dante’s influence on Lewis, is Baxter at his best. Baxter compellingly shows that in Dante Lewis found a model poet who is able to furnish our imagination with images that enable us to love God and his kingdom as we should. Dante’s images of core Christian teachings kindle the fire of our loves, which often wanes when only taught in abstract and purely didactic ways. Moreover, Dante taught Lewis how to communicate these truths in palpable imagery: “decapitated troubadours, sinners who scream at God, blind beggars leaning on one another’s shoulders for support, or the souls on Saturn buzzing around like tops to express their joyful zeal” (91). This chapter sings and is exactly what I would have guessed the book was about. 

Grove City, PA. Most of us first encounter C. S. Lewis’s works in one of two forms: the imaginative or the apologetic. As children, we wander into The Silver Chair or as young adults we wrestle with Mere Christianity. We immediately come to delight in Lewis’s ability to enchant and instruct, to explain and defend Christianity through simple prose and astounding images, and to weave tales that usher us into profound truths. Jason Baxter’s The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind aims to show that, in addition to these two better known “Lewises” – the imaginative and apologetic (or devotional) – there is a “third” Lewis: Lewis the medieval scholar, a role that provided the inspiration for his imaginative and apologetic works. That is, Baxter contends that this third Lewis is not related to the other two as a mere addition but rather as a source or foundation. Baxter explains, “The purpose of this book is to explore how this third Lewis is just beneath the surface even in his more appreciated imaginative and devotional writings. We will see that the great medievalist was not a successful modernizer of Christianity and writer of fiction despite the fact that he spent so much time studying old, dusty books, but because of them” (6).
As the reader will observe, there are two central aspects of the third Lewis. First, he is a “a great medievalist.” Second, his studying of ancient works is part of what makes his apologetic and fictional works so great. Let’s consider these claims in turn. While at times the third Lewis seems simply to be the scholar at Oxford and later Cambridge, it becomes clear that Baxter is really interested in Lewis’s scholarship connected to the medieval period, and so gaining clarity on this third Lewis requires us to grasp exactly what the medieval period covers. Here we find a rather odd feature of Baxter’s book. Where exactly we draw the boundaries of the medieval period will be a disputed question in part because it depends on the distinctive concerns of various scholarly communities. Lewis himself noted that the distinction between Medieval and Renaissance literature had for too long been “exaggerated.” Thus, one could understand that Baxter might endorse a definition of the medieval period that others would dispute. But, as far as I can tell, Baxter’s definition of the medieval period, or what he calls “the Long Middle Ages,” (9) is all his own. It extends from Plato (4th century B.C.) to Samuel Johnson (17th century A.D.) and “sometimes even to Wordsworth” (11). I can’t say I have ever heard of a scholar who suggested that Plato was medieval.
When I first encountered this puzzling periodization, I was inclined to think the best way to gloss Baxter was that he is really interested in Lewis the premodern. This hypothesis seemed justified insofar as so many of Baxter’s chapters focus on the way the books of the Long Middle Ages formed Lewis’s aversions to many aspects of modernity and populated his imagination with ancient, more grounded ways of being. From the fact that Lewis denies knowing such modern thinkers as Tillich and Brunner while being on intimate terms with St. Augustine, Dante, Thomas à Kempis, Edmund Spenser, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, John Milton, Thomas Traherne, and William Law, Baxter concludes, “In sum, this was C. S. Lewis the medievalist” (4). While such a list hardly justifies the conclusion that Lewis was a medievalist, all these works might reasonably be considered premodern.
A second hypothesis that occurred to me was that Baxter was especially concerned with those authors who contributed to or expounded on the Medieval Model of Reality, the great synthesis of pagan and Christian learning developed over a thousand years, which aimed at explaining everything from the nature of God and the heavens to the nature of plants and rocks, and which began to be widely abandoned in the late 17th century. Lewis describes this model of reality in his masterful The Discarded Image. Plato contributed to it, and Spenser was deeply informed by it, and so perhaps that is the best way to understand Baxter. And yet even this does not seem quite right, as some 20th century figures, such Rudolf Otto and Martin Buber, figure significantly in Baxter’s discussion of works that influenced Lewis (in chapters 6 and 7 respectively). In the end, the works discussed by Baxter as significant influences on Lewis belie any simple taxonomy.
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Overture 37 provides a helpfully pointed guide for character examinations that meets the evident needs of our situation. Church courts will be greatly aided in fulfilling their biblical duty by focusing on sexual immorality, relational sins, abuse, racism, and gross financial mismanagement. It also will communicate to our leaders what character is regarded as necessary for holding church office. On its merits, the proposed change to the BCO is one for which we have had an urgent need for many years.

Overture 37 from the 2021 PCA General Assembly (approved as amended by a substantial majority of commissioners) proposes a change to the Book of Church Order (BCO) in Chapters 21-4 (for teaching elders) and 24-1 (for ruling elders and deacons). If approved by 2/3 of the presbyteries, the change would call for presbyteries to examine the personal character of candidates for office, giving specific attention to notorious concerns, such as but not limited to relational sins, sexual immorality (including homosexuality, child sexual abuse, fornication, and pornography), addictions, abusive behavior, racism, and financial mismanagement).
I want to urge our presbyteries to affirm Overture 37 and thus insert this paragraph into our BCO for the following reasons:
Reason #1: To bring unity and peace to the PCA. The cause of unity is served by taking clear stances on controversial issues. The PCA went into the 2021 General Assembly with a great deal of controversy centered on same-sex attracted ministers and answered this controversy with a resounding endorsement of biblical teaching. Not only did the study committee on sexuality give clear and lucid affirmation to the Reformed doctrine of concupiscence—affirming that all sin desires and orientations must be repented and mortified—but the strong majorities in support of Overtures 23 and 37 signaled a desire for the PCA to take a clear and biblical stance. Unless these overtures are passed by the presbyteries, then the statements of the General Assembly will have resulted in no action and no progress will have been made on our unity as a denomination.
Reason #2: To align with the biblical emphasis on character. As it now stands, our BCO does not specify the examination of an ordinand’s character. This deficiency is surprising since in 1 Timothy 3:1–7, almost all of the apostle’s qualifications deal with character and personal fitness. For the PCA not to have clear and pointed areas of concern regarding character leaves us out of step with Scripture.
Reason #3: To protect the church from problems arising from character deficiencies. It may be argued that doctrinal error produces the greatest harm to the church, but character concerns produce the most frequent damage to our congregations and people. We live in a time when serious harm brought by the sexual misconduct, addictions, or abusive leadership of Christian leaders regularly hits the news. It simply would be irresponsible of our denomination not to take formal action to ensure that our leaders have no tendencies toward child sexual abuse or demeaning leader behavior. In a time when pornography wreaks untold damage to marriages and families, the PCA must take a firm stand against the use of pornography by its officers. In short, the PCA needs clear categories for the examination of character that will preserve the honor of our Lord, protect the flock from distress and harm, and guard the peace and purity of the church.
Reason #4: The categories of Overture 37 are clear, appropriate, and helpful. Overture 37 provides a helpfully pointed guide for character examinations that meets the evident needs of our situation. Church courts will be greatly aided in fulfilling their biblical duty by focusing on sexual immorality, relational sins, abuse, racism, and gross financial mismanagement. It also will communicate to our leaders what character is regarded as necessary for holding church office. On its merits, the proposed change to the BCO is one for which we have had an urgent need for many years.
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You also say that “strangers have attacked strangers behind the safe confines of computers, news agencies, and conferences,” which “proliferates fear and distrust,” and that “there will always be people who are all about power.” In all of this I remind you that you hide yourselves behind confines safer than the things you mention here, all of which are at least public, and that your organization has a clever scheme to use committee assignments and other machinery of the General Assembly and presbyteries to accomplish a desired agenda.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Argumentative Method and Use of Scripture
Your appeals are essentially emotional in nature and misuse Scripture, as seen in the following excerpts from “The Letter.” Perhaps you will say that this is no creature of yours, but it was written by one of your number, you discussed and commended it among yourselves, and it bears the signature of many of your foremost members who are known. He who signs a document attests his assent to the veracity thereof, and so the arguments of the Letter might be deemed your own, even if they are accepted by many others as well.
In the Letter you say that in the midst of our controversies “specific brothers in good standing have been labeled.” All offenses in the church are committed by people who are in good standing; if they were not in good standing they would not be in the church. You should not be zealous to use such an argument which was widely used by liberals in other denominations to deflect criticism. The, too, you seem to object, not so much to the particular labels used, but to the mere fact that polemic labels have been applied to some, since you draw a contrast between the labels and the “straw men” you say have been erected “even more frequently.” Labels are permissible in our discourse: Christ himself denounces the Nicolaitans, and he refers to a false prophetess as Jezebel (Rev. 2:14, 20).
You later say that “if the sins of unbiblical practice and unconfessional belief that are currently being voiced with such vigor were true, we would agree that they should be opposed.” Men are not known by self-testimony (Jn. 5:31), but by their deeds: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). A professed orthodoxy that does not stand at the point at which truth is attacked is useless speculation, not the robust, active faith that confesses Christ before men. So it is with you in this matter, for the culture’s view of sexuality invades our communion and rather than joining the battle you criticize the war effort and plead the glories of making peace in parliament. You continue:
We hear the concerns of our brothers and rarely disagree with the principles behind them. We believe that we desire the same commitment to Scripture and our Standards that they do!
It is hard to see that there is as great an agreement as you suggest when you maintain a secret organization where others act publicly, and when you elsewhere dispute the propriety of public polemics and favor private interactions between those that disagree. In questions of polity there is of course utter disagreement between your view of subscription and that of others, concerning which it also makes for a strange claim that you have the same commitment to the standards when you consider the permissibility of taking and even teaching exceptions to be essential to the PCA’s effectiveness and assert it incessantly. You then denounce:
Social media characterizations that turn suspicions into speculations that become accusations without proof – to achieve political ends within our church. Where compromise or sin is true and can be proven, we have sessions, presbyteries, and judicial processes to engage.
As “wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matt. 11:19), so also do the nature and consequences of bad deeds testify against them, whether done in public or brought there by exposure. We do not dream up our criticisms, but use as proof that which you yourselves have furnished. A thing is not proved true by the judgments of the courts but can be witnessed and testified to by those who act outside of official processes. You continue:
If we do not find more ways of speaking charitably and biblically to one another in our national discussions, we run the risk of doing damage to the nuanced work of individual local churches.
“You brood of vipers! Who told you to flee from the wrath that is to come? . . . do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’” (Matt. 2:7,9). Was John’s personal address there uncharitable? No, for he bore sound testimony to the Pharisees’ true nature – and no one who speaks truth rightly can be deemed uncharitable. Why then do you imagine we wrong you when we testify to the course of your deeds?
Instead of raising and publishing suspicions about brothers we do not know in other regions and presbyteries, it is far healthier and more biblical to trust our churches and sessions to follow our Standards, to believe that they were acting in as good faith as we were, when they took their vows to uphold the Faith. If we can prove otherwise, then we have processes to adjudicate error. But until error is proven, restraint of suspicious expression is a key mark of true faithfulness.
This demands a level of trust that the Holy Spirit works beyond our immediate setting – that pastors will continue to preach “the gospel of God’s grace,” and “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:24, 27), and presbyteries and sessions will address sin and sins as they and their sessions see fit in their contexts.
These are the next four verses of Acts 20:
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.
Blind trust in other professing believers is not a gift of the Spirit, nor is it a virtue. Discernment, however, is. Your point above directly contradicts the passage to which you allude and supplants true wisdom with a naïveté that is not commanded, but rather warned against repeatedly. As for your claim that “until error is proven, restraint of suspicious expression is a key mark of true faithfulness,” I remind you again that all process is instituted against men who are in good standing when charged. If we are not able to oppose the bad behavior of some because they are in good standing and the offense has not been proved by the courts, then you condemn, by implication, Peter’s rebuke of Simon Magus (Acts 8:20-22), Paul’s of Peter (Gal. 2:11-14), and John’s concerning Diotrephes (3 Jn. 9-10), in all of which condemnation of wrong was public (or via letter to a third party) rather than private, and in which it apparently occurred toward people who were in good standing who had not been censured under the prescribed form of the Matthew 18 process. You later say that:
Before the Internet connected everyone, and before online news agencies became conduits for agendas, we trusted local churches, Sessions, and presbyteries – We want to propose that we continue to see this as the most excellent way of caring for the Church, and to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
This is historically doubtful. What is done now via the Internet was done in print with equal vigor in previous generations – The Presbyterian Journal comes to mind – and far from trusting others, our forefathers organized and published against them, and eventually separated to form our present denomination. If you mean the period between the PCA’s formation and the popularization of the Internet, your remarks still run counter to what I have heard of the tone of our own polity in its early days. In addition, Jude’s enjoinder to recognize and resist heretics is twisted to say ‘trust other professing believers without question,’ the direct opposite of his point. You continue:
Yes, there will be inaccuracies, even heresy – not because we trust one another, but because God’s Word tells us that there will be. Demas will always be in the church (2 Timothy 4:10). There will always be wolves (Matthew 7, Acts 20).
Misplaced confidence in man does in fact allow the proliferation of heresy, which can only be stopped by decisive action (as is the church’s duty, 1 Cor. 5:1-6; 1 Tim. 1:20; Tit. 1:9, 11) or else divine judgment (Rev. 2:15-16). Such mistaken trust receives God’s censure: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength” (Jer. 17:5). As for Demas, whether or no he was a final apostate or one who stumbled temporarily, his failure recorded in 2 Tim. 4:10 was not being in the church when Paul needed him (“Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me”). As for the universality of wolves, that is no excuse to an apathetic trust, which is what you imply at several points in this letter. You say later:
When we pick apart words and statements, often out of context, we do damage to the fabric of our Witness – We are the better to not go there (and all of us have been guilty!), because to the watching world, we would no longer appear as a community that graciously holds forth truth, but one that is torn and divided – and this invalidates our proclamation.
What you call picking apart words is simply exercising prudence, and far from it being better to “not go there,” we are commanded to test all things in order to hold fast what is good and reject what is bad (1 Thess. 5:21-22). My own belief is that your statements have not been frequently taken out of context by others; and I can attest that I have done my utmost to avoid doing so myself, for I have scoured this letter and other primary sources for many hours and have excised many points, including several full paragraphs, because further reflection made them seem debatable. You also say:
When we speak in extremes, in order to press a position, we hurt those we love, and do damage to our Witness
Scripture deals in extremes: life and death, truth and falsehood, wisdom and folly, wickedness and righteousness. This is no quirk of Hebrew literature but is a true testimony to the nature of our world. There are many matters in which the question is one of two or more alternatives that are largely questions of preference, and which bear consequences that touch rather upon form than essential substance. It is not so with many of our present controversies, which touch upon the essential form of our denomination and the course it will follow in the coming years, not least the question of whether we will be faithful to the truth about sexuality or will follow after other denominations in increasingly tolerating wrong conceptions of it. You later say:
Under the flag of, ‘they said it publicly, so we can challenge them publicly,’ friends have been pitted against friends – with no attempts to contact one another personally!
If the friends in question, whomever they may be, are worthy of the name they will no doubt contact each other personally rather than allow strangers to stir them up to mutual distrust. Also, there is no mandate to speak privately with those whom one believes err publicly, and the scriptural data suggest the propriety of public confrontation when it affects third parties (Prov. 18:17; Gal. 2:11-14; 1 Tim. 5:20).
You also say that “strangers have attacked strangers behind the safe confines of computers, news agencies, and conferences,” which “proliferates fear and distrust,” and that “there will always be people who are all about power.” In all of this I remind you that you hide yourselves behind confines safer than the things you mention here, all of which are at least public, and that your organization has a clever scheme to use committee assignments and other machinery of the General Assembly and presbyteries to accomplish a desired agenda.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.