George MacDonald

I often get asked by people familiar with my religious tradition--the Churches of Christ--how I became the person I am, theologically speaking. The answer is simple: In college I stumbled upon the works of George MacDonald.

I'm currently rereading MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons. Given that I'd like to post quotes from Unspoken Sermons in the coming weeks I thought I would introduce MacDonald to those of you who might be unfamiliar with his work.

I came to MacDonald the way many people come to him: Through C.S. Lewis. I had read a lot of Lewis' work, fiction and non-fiction, in college. Lewis was, essentially, the first time I was exposed to theology. A fond memory from college was being a sophomore invited to a C.S. Lewis reading group hosted by my favorite philosophy professor. Having read most of Lewis' work in that group I asked my professor about similar writers and thinkers. He gave me G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, still one of my favorite books. Later, having read most of Chesterton's work (including Father Brown) I asked for more. He pointed me to George MacDonald.

Due to my familiarity with C.S. Lewis I was vaguely aware of MacDonald. In the book The Great Divorce George MacDonald is the heavenly guide for the narrator of the story. Further, if you know anything about C.S. Lewis' spiritual biography you know that his encounter with MacDonald's faerie story Phantastes was a critical moment in his life. It was the moment when Lewis claimed that his imagination, at the age of sixteen, became "baptized." Lewis would come to consider George MacDonald to be his spiritual "master." In fact, Lewis edited and published an anthology of MacDonald's work.

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish writer and minister. During his time MacDonald was mostly known for his Gothic novels. MacDonald was a good friend and mentor to Lewis Carroll. MacDonald's children so loved Carroll's Alice stories it gave Carroll the confidence to get the work published. MacDonald was also friends with many other literary luminaries, American and British, from Walt Whitman to John Ruskin to Mark Twain to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There is a photo of the "great writers of the day" that includes George MacDonald along with Tennyson, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Trollope, Ruskin, Lewes, and Thackeray. In short, MacDonald was very well known in literary circles and the general public during his day.

Unfortunately, MacDonald's fiction works have not held up over time. Of the writers included in that photograph MacDonald is likely the least well known amongst contemporary English majors. There are a couple of different reasons for this. One of MacDonald's specialties was the faerie story, Phantastes (of C.S. Lewis fame), Lilith, The Princess and the Goblin and At the Back of the North Wind are considered to be his best work in this genre. But these faerie stories haven't held up with modern readers as well as, let's say, the novels of Charles Dickens. Plus, I tried to read Phantastes and, honestly, I couldn't see what in the world C.S. Lewis saw in the book. It's a pretty bizarre story. I also couldn't make heads or tails of Lilith. That said, however, At the Back of the North Wind was one of the most profound books I have ever read. All my work in relation to death and Christian faith traces back to At the Back of the North Wind (more on that, I hope, in a future post).

Having failed to make sense of Phantastes I was intent on finding something else MacDonald had written. Something that wasn't a faerie story. Right around this time Bethany House was republishing many of MacDonald's Gothic novels. These were edited by Michael R. Phillips. To "help" the modern reader Phillips condensed the novels and translated the Scottish dialect of many of the characters (which, in the original, is pretty impenetrable). This series is now out of print but you can still buy them used at Amazon.

These novels are, to be honest, not the greatest as lasting literature. Which is the other reason MacDonald hasn't lasting literary fame. But I read novel after novel. Despite the odd plots, I was riveted. And it was a life changing experience.

Why did these novels from the dustbin of literary history so affect me? Two reasons. First was MacDonald's view of sin and grace and the refining and inescapable love of God. Many of MacDonald's protagonists make horrible mistakes. And their salvation is this slow journey though the purifying love of God. Sin is "forgiven" in MacDonald's novels when the character embraces the harsh consequences of sin and moves through that painful fire. Salvation isn't a simple "forgiveness," avoiding God's consequences for sin. In fact, the worst thing possible, the real hell, is NOT suffering the consequences sin. Salvation, in short, is about character formation. And this formation must, absolutely must, involve removing sin from our hearts and minds. God, I learned from MacDonald, wants us to be clean. Not pseudo-clean, not bait and switch clean, not imputed righteousness clean, not "God sees Jesus and not me" clean, but really, truly clean. You and I, finally, coming into the love of God and becoming the people we were created to be. And you have to go through the purifying fires of hell to get there. God wants to save us from sin. Not the consequences of sin.

The second thing that affected me about MacDonald's novels were his protagonists. Despite MacDonald's religious slant his protagonists were, conspicuously, devoid of religiosity. And yet, these characters were rooted in faith. What shows through most clearly is their virtue, not their piety. Most of the time the characters are lower class, but the way they carry themselves is almost regal. There is something inside them that just glows from the inside out. Moral integrity is their defining feature. And kindness. And courage. And a simple, easy unpretentiousness, feeling at home in one's skin and with anyone in the world, king or tramp. And that's how I define Christ-likeness to this day: Moral integrity, kindness, courage, lack of overt religiosity, simple manners, unpretentiousness, at ease with rich and poor. In short, I saw a vision of Christ in MacDonald's characters. The plot lines were goofy, but I loved the Christ-likeness of the characters. They showed me ways to be like Jesus in my day to day interactions with others. I wanted to be like the characters in the stories.

A bit of theology creeps into MacDonald's novels. But you might read a whole novel and only get this one little gem, a few lines about God's love. Eventually, I found out that MacDonald published some straight theological work, his Unspoken Sermons being the most important. These sermons give you the theological worldview that informs MacDonald's novels and fantasy work. Unspoken Sermons changed my life. Completely turned me upside down. In Sermons a view of God opened up before me and I've never let it go. Sermons guides every theological impulse I have. All in all, everything you hear me say about God on this blog is really just my take on George MacDonald. Like C.S. Lewis, I consider him my "master." But for me the conversion wasn't with Phantastes. That's one odd book. No, for me it was Unspoken Sermons. And I'll be posting quotes from the sermons in the weeks to come.