Lewis lived in a time and place in desperate need of hope. He offered that hope by articulating the truths of the Christian worldview. Lewis did not bring novelty to the people of Britain during the war. He simply brought the truth and communicated it in a way that could be understood and applied. 

In the tumultuous era of World War II, amidst the chaos and uncertainty, Clive Staples Lewis offered a voice of reason and faith to a nation under constant threat. The BBC asked Lewis to give a series of radio broadcasts in response to the pressing need for moral guidance and spiritual reassurance. From 1941-1944, Lewis gave a total of 25 of these radio addresses, the last of which aired 80 years ago this month. These talks were later compiled into the bestselling and beloved book, Mere Christianity. 
The reach of Lewis expanded beyond his radio broadcasts. He is perhaps most well-known for the fictional children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia, published between 1950-1956. These delightful stories depict the Christian story of the world. In fact, among the most consistent themes in all of Lewis’s writings is the truth and relevance of Christianity for all people and all times. 
Lewis recognized that the truths of Christianity held the key to the moral dilemmas and existential questions of his time. In his broadcasts, Lewis presented Christianity not just as a set of dogmas or rituals but as a worldview that could withstand scrutiny. With typical clarity, he articulated the timeless truths of the Christian faith in a way that appealed to both believers and skeptics. His approach was marked by clear writing, logic, and a deep understanding of human nature. He had a way of making complex subjects simple without being simplistic, perhaps seen best in his ability to confront logical fallacies with good humor and common sense. 
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Theologically emotional abuse and physical abuse share the common, deep seriousness of abusing a person made in God’s image. Can we (biblically) draw a distinct line between the inner and outer man? Do human beings relate to God one way spiritually speaking and another way physically? No. A moral distinction between physical abuse as “bad” and emotional abuse as “not as bad” does not hold water with our own Reformed anthropology of body and soul.

Theological Traditions
In a world where three or four-year-old cell phones are relegated to the dustbin, it’s easy to forget we stand in a long stream of inherited theological traditions. Some of these traditions are specific, such as how the church uses words like “Trinity” and “one God in three persons” to describe Yahweh. That language has guided the church for a long time, and it’s a good and useful thing. Other traditions, such as particular styles of musical worship, are more elastic.
As counselors, we never approach a given problem as a blank slate. Our own experiences and past case history influence interpretation. But we don’t come to our formulation of doctrine as a blank slate either. We’ve been persuaded by the way we were taught Scripture and how it was presented. This can be a good thing—it’s how the church maintains a constant, faithful witness to the gospel. And it can be a bad thing, as in the atrocities committed in the name of faulty, sometimes culturally rather than biblically formed theology.
Body and Soul, Reasoning and Willing
Let’s turn our discussion about theological traditions to the issue of emotional abuse. Ask yourself this question: “When I hear the term ‘emotional abuse,’ does it sound more serious, less serious, or equal in seriousness to physical abuse?” Unfortunately, we in the contemporary church—and in biblical counseling—have overwhelmingly answered this question as “less serious.” The purpose of this article is to ask the question, “Why?”
Body and Soul
Most Christians are familiar with the concept of the human person being comprised of body and soul. The Second Helvetic Confession, penned in the early 1560s, explains this doctrine well:
We also affirm that man consists of two different substances in one person: an immortal soul which, when separate from the body, neither sleeps nor dies, and a mortal body which will nevertheless be raised up from the dead at the last judgment, in order that then the whole man, either in life or in death, abide forever.[1]
Every person is made of two “substances.” Our body is a “thing” occupying time and space; likewise, our soul is a “thing” occupying time and space. Although we cannot see or touch a soul, it is as much a created entity as the marrow, blood, and organs that comprise a physical body. Both the body and soul are essential to who we are. In other words, body and soul are “us.”
The Soul Has Different Functions
In addition to the human composition of body and soul, theologians recognize the soul has different “powers,” “functions,” or “faculties.”
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If our desire in mission is to bring glory to God, what we do and how we do it must be God-glorifying. Mission as listening has lots of useful things to teach us–but God is not glorified if we only listen and never proclaim the gospel. Similarly, mission as growth has lots of useful things to teach us–but God is not glorified if we make growth an ultimate thing, or if we pursue growth in ungodly ways. People who are engaging in mission in a way that glorifies God will be growing in godliness. Let me be clear what I mean by this. I’m saying that the way we proclaim the gospel should simultaneously grow us more like Christ. The way we do mission should grow our characters in godliness.

My wife Rachel and I recently visited some CMS missionaries in South-East Asia. We met the pastor of their church–a wonderful, godly man who had just returned from a mission trip himself. He had been working in western Kenya, helping equip churches to address some very practical issues.
So, we were visiting Australian missionaries in South-East Asia–who go to a church where their pastor is involved in mission in sub-Saharan Africa. That kind of thing is entirely normal in 21st century mission and shouldn’t surprise us at all. Mission has been ‘from everywhere to everywhere’ for at least half a century.
As we talked with the CMS missionaries we were visiting, we found that they loved their church and their pastor. We also discovered that some other missionaries in the area tended to avoid local churches. They preferred to operate separately because they felt local churches slowed them down. Their goal was rapid gospel growth.
This experience in South-East Asia illustrates two significant themes of 21st century mission: listening to the voice of churches in places like South-East Asia or Kenya; and the desire to see rapid growth.
Mission as Listening
‘World Christianity’ is the in vogue term for the majority of the world’s Christians – that is, those in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It’s a movement seeking to give voice to theologians and missiologists in non-Western, or at least non-Anglo, contexts.
Consider the frustration of Chilean theologian Gonzalo Arroyo who, when commenting on American theology professors, asked: “Why is it that when you speak of my theology you call it ‘Latin American Theology’, but when you speak of your theology you call it ‘theology’”? A significant proponent of world Christianity was Andrew Walls, a British missiologist who undertook an important re-examination of mission history. His research enables us to tell a more complete, more accurate story of 19th and 20th century Protestant mission. Walls shows that the massive growth of Christianity in the past 200 years has typically followed a pattern: Western missionaries arrived and their ministry usually resulted in a very small number of local people becoming Christians. The explosive growth of a church typically came through the ministries of those local Christians, not the missionaries.
It was the evangelism of people like Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Nigerian Anglican bishop, that led to great gospel growth. And yet, in 19th and early 20th century writings, the focus tended to be only on white missionaries. History ignored the contribution of world Christians.
All this has led to great interest in recovering a more accurate sense of our history. We are wonderfully recovering the stories of great saints like Apolo Kivebulaya, Angelina Noble, Samuel Crowther, Betsey Stockton and Pandita Ramabai, and learning from the missiologists and theologians of world Christianity.
In the 21st century, we have the joy of worshipping the Lord Jesus alongside brothers and sisters from many cultures and countries. We have the rich privilege of reading the Bible with different cultural perspectives. There are many wonderful things about world Christianity.
But there are also areas for concern. While it is wonderful to record history accurately, it doesn’t help if we simply repeat past mistakes. Just as it wasn’t wise to airbrush out non-Anglo people, it is not wise today to airbrush out Anglo mission work and give the impression that growth has come entirely from the national church.
A great theme within world Christianity has been the appeal to listen. To listen to the theologies and missiologies being written in the Global South. We absolutely need to do that. But in the hands of some this has been taken a step further, saying that Anglo Western churches should listen and also stop speaking. Some missiologists urge the West to take the road of humility and silence. Humility–yes, absolutely. Silence–surely not. To say that Western mission should be silent is clearly not a road we want to travel.
In a similar vein, the world Christianity narrative sometimes argues that mission is not about sending. We’re told that sending is a neo-colonial narrative. But mission in the New Testament cannot be separated from the concept of sending.
Mission as Growth
Of course, if we are gospel people, we long to see others come to know the Lord Jesus. The vision of CMS is a world that knows Jesus. That vision has an expectation of growth and transformation built into it. We want to reach gospel-poor peoples for Christ. Again, that imagines growth.
But there is a bigger story here. In contemporary missiology, we can trace ‘mission as growth’ back to American missionary and missiologist, Donald McGavran. He argued that while many things were included under the umbrella of mission, one thing was more fundamental and important than everything else: the growth of the church. He developed a whole set of strategies based on sociological argument and observation.
For example, McGavran argued that mission should focus on people or people groups who are responsive to the gospel, and not focus on those who are not. We can trace a clear line of thought from the Church Growth Movement in the 1970s and ’80s, to church-planting movements in the ’90s and 2000s, to disciple-making movements today.
A definition of the latter says, ‘Disciple making movements spread the gospel by making disciples who learn to obey the word of God and quickly make other disciples, who then repeat the process’.
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