It’s very common to put off an act of obedience, because we tell ourselves it’s too impracticable at the moment. To obey God now is too complicated, so we decide to postpone it to a time when, in our heads, it will be easier. For example:
– rather than cancel my commitment to play on a Sunday sports team, I’ll wait until the end of the season.
– I won’t stop wearing the rainbow lanyard now; I’ll wait until I’ve left my job.
– When I’ve finished my exams, I’ll make sure I give God more of my time.
– I’ll end this unhelpful romantic relationship in a couple of months, because I don’t think it’s fair to end it sooner.
– I’ll do my part to patch up a broken relationship when I’m in a better place.
There’s a brilliant example of this mind-set at work in 2 Chronicles 25. Amaziah, king of Judah, teams up with Israel’s military and hires an Israelite army for 100 talents of silver (v.6). That’s a lot of money!  But a man of God tells Amaziah he is not to take these Israelites into battle (v.7-8). Amaziah’s understandable response is: “But what about all that money I just paid?!” (v.9).
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C.S. Lewis described his own conversion to Christianity, from a fashionable and rather mindless form of atheism heavily tinged with late Romanticism; and he depicts that transformation as beginning with the unexpected effects of a chance reading of George MacDonald’s book Phantastes on a train ride. Lewis says very clearly that, even in the wake of this “baptism” of the imagination, the development of his intellect and conscience was just beginning—in fact, was yet to begin. But looking back, he was equally sure that a certain necessary threshold had been crossed, and that the capacity to see things as they actually are, radiant and vibrant with the life of Christ animating them, was being born in him at that moment. A kind of deep and nonverbal presupposition was becoming embedded, the basis for all other insights to come.

These remarks were first delivered at the Second Annual Davenant DC Award Banquet, where Dr. Wilfred M. McClay was given the C.S. Lewis Award for Christian Wisdom. What follows is a lightly edited version of Dr. McClay’s acceptance speech.
I was very pleased to accept my recent award for Christian Wisdom from the Davenant Institute, and delighted that the award bears the name of C.S. Lewis, who has been so important to me and those closest to me–a surprisingly versatile and beloved guide. I say “surprising,” because each time in my life that I have achieved some fresh insight, climbed an inner spiritual mountain, I always seem to have discovered at the mountain’s peak a modest little flag, fluttering in the alpine breezes, informing me that “Jack was here.” I am sure that others have had a similar experience with him.
I am also delighted, if also a bit overwhelmed, by the privilege of following in the footsteps of last year’s recipient, Carl Trueman, who in many respects is a Lewis for our times, a thinker for whom I have the greatest admiration. Carl uses crystal-clear prose to recall the sharp insights of Christian theology and bring them to bear on the problems of our collapsing culture. He does it in ways that are both troubling—because he tells the whole truth—and also restorative—for the same reason. For the whole truth about our condition must always include the balm of hope. Optimism is merely wishful thinking, but hope is an imperishable virtue, and a token of redemptive possibility.
I share with Carl a concern with the alarming state of our culture, how to think about it, and what to do about it. I will get to that eventually tonight, but first let me lay some groundwork. My title might be puzzling to some of you. And indeed, whenever one borrows a sacramental concept such as baptism, and starts using it in a metaphorical way, attempting to appropriate some of its luster for the sake of a rhetorical flourish, well, one may be making trouble for oneself, especially if one is speaking to an audience of serious theologians.
But I can offer a preemptive excuse in this instance: I got the idea from C.S. Lewis. He described his own conversion to Christianity, from a fashionable and rather mindless form of atheism heavily tinged with late Romanticism; and he depicts that transformation as beginning with the unexpected effects of a chance reading of George MacDonald’s book Phantastes on a train ride. Lewis had snatched up a copy at the train station, “an Everyman edition in a dirty jacket,” to serve as a distraction for the ride ahead. How appropriate of him, to choose a lowly “everyman edition” of a book dressed in humble raiment, to be his preceptor.
The effect of reading the book turned out to be very dramatic. Let me allow Lewis to tell the story, as he relates it in his editorial introduction to a 1947 anthology of MacDonald’s writings. It’s a lengthy quotation, but worth every word, as it defies easy paraphrase:
It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought—almost unwillingly, for I had looked at the volume on the bookstall and rejected it on a dozen previous occasions—the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier. I had already been waist-deep in Romanticism; and likely enough, at any moment, to flounder into its darker and more evil forms, slithering down the steep descent that leads from the love of strangeness to that of eccentricity and thence to that of perversity.
Now Phantastes was romantic enough in all conscience; but there was a difference. Nothing was at that time further from my thoughts than Christianity and I therefore had no notion what this difference really was. I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it’s also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence, and also, quite unmistakably, a certain quality of Death, good Death. What it actually did to me was convert, even to baptize (that was where the Death came in) my imagination. It did nothing to my intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later and with the help of many other books and men. But when the process was complete—by which, of course, I mean “when it had really begun”—I found that I was still with MacDonald and that he had accompanied me all the way and that I was not at least ready to hear from him much that he could not have told me at that first meeting.
But in a sense, what he was now telling me was the very same that he had told me from the beginning. There was no question of getting through to the kernel and throwing away the shell: no question of a gilded pill. The pill was gold all through. The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying, and ecstatic reality in which we all live. I should have been shocked in my teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I see there was no deception. The deception is all other way round—in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from “the land of righteousness,” never reveals that elusive Form which if once seen must inevitably be desired with all but sensuous desire—the thing (in Sappho’s phrase) “more gold than gold.”
One could say a great deal about this rich and fascinating passage. In fact, we could be here all night with it.
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As shepherds we must remember that no idle word should come from our mouths. If we are willing to say it before our congregation, we should be ready and able to defend it. If we “nail our colors” to the inspired Word of God, we can rest easy that we are in a defendable position.

I am confident we have all heard something in ministry that takes a profound doctrine, and condenses it into something digestible in pop culture. These quippy…“meme-ified” statements have become viral over the last decade or so. This isn’t to say that quippy statements, that only “scratch the surface” of the sentiment expressed, are a modern convention. It just seems that, with the advent of “modern memes,” information that should be nuanced (so that the reader has a better grasp of the subject matter) is simply expressed quickly, to get it out there with less characters.
Something that has been working around in my head recently is how our witness needs to be carefully considered. I have the tendency to get overly defensive on a number of topics. It happens suddenly, and I must be considerate of who I am talking to—and Who I am representing. When thinking of how “theology memes” play into our witness, we should be extra aware of what we let loose from our lips. Let’s take this short expression as an working example:
Work as if it is all up to you, pray as if it is all up to God.
Whether it is attributable to Augustine, Ignatius or John Wesley: What do we think of this? Good? Incomplete? Useful? Some combination? Like any quick, quippy, “tweetable” statement—it’s not bad. It is just incomplete. The sentiment it expresses is not—necessarily—unbiblical. And it is tempting to pull these one-liners out in sermons…in counseling…in lessons…or in conversation. It is something quick to insert to try and drive a desired point home.
As church leaders (whether pastors, elders, or lay-leaders) we should be careful dropping these pithy statements, leaving them, and walking away. Those in our congregations who are still drinking “spiritual milk,” will often find these platitudes initially helpful…but eventually confusing. “What is the it in this sentence referring to?” their inner-monologue may wonder. We all have ministry memories where those who listen to our sermons or lessons don’t follow-up that inner-monologue with a question…and stew on their uncertainty.This quote, as admitted above, is not a bad quote. But let’s take a moment to unpack it better!
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