Dry and choking places: Why we live in a disenchanted world

[Michie]

In C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, the character Mark has a profound moral experience through which he becomes awakened to transcendence. In the wake of this, he looks at his entire life with fresh perspective: “[Mark] looked back on his life not with shame, but with a kind of disgust at its dreariness … He was aware, without even having to think of it, that it was he himself — nothing else in the whole universe — that had chosen the dust and broken bottles, the heap of old tin cans, the dry and choking places.”

In Lewis’s book, Mark and his wife personify modernity. His beliefs and attitudes represent many modern, secular people — in Lewis’s context as well as our own, a few generations later.

Mark’s experience of life as the “dry and choking places” provides us with an insightful window into modern people. Even if they aren’t consciously aware, people all around us are starving for transcendence and meaning. They live in the dry and choking places. Thus, many of our non-Christian friends and family members and coworkers experience spiritual need in terms of dreariness more than guilt (as Mark did). What does this mean for how we do evangelism and apologetics?

Disenchantment

Continued below.

Dry and Choking Places: Disenchantment and Modern Life

By Gavin Ortlund

worldviewbulletin.substack.com

 

[David Lamb]

In C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, the character Mark has a profound moral experience through which he becomes awakened to transcendence. In the wake of this, he looks at his entire life with fresh perspective: “[Mark] looked back on his life not with shame, but with a kind of disgust at its dreariness … He was aware, without even having to think of it, that it was he himself — nothing else in the whole universe — that had chosen the dust and broken bottles, the heap of old tin cans, the dry and choking places.”

In Lewis’s book, Mark and his wife personify modernity. His beliefs and attitudes represent many modern, secular people — in Lewis’s context as well as our own, a few generations later.

Mark’s experience of life as the “dry and choking places” provides us with an insightful window into modern people. Even if they aren’t consciously aware, people all around us are starving for transcendence and meaning. They live in the dry and choking places. Thus, many of our non-Christian friends and family members and coworkers experience spiritual need in terms of dreariness more than guilt (as Mark did). What does this mean for how we do evangelism and apologetics?

Disenchantment

Continued below.

Dry and Choking Places: Disenchantment and Modern Life

By Gavin Ortlund

worldviewbulletin.substack.com

Yes, Mark and his wife follow different paths, don't they? Mark goes to the scientific base where Wither, "the Head", and Lord Feverstone hold sway. Jane ends up going to Mother Dimble on the "godly" side. I always enjoy reading that book, and the other two in the trilogy.