Is C.S. Lewis’ ‘Space Trilogy’ a Good Example of ‘Christian Speculative Fiction’?

C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy is often viewed as one of the earliest and best examples of what “Christian speculative fiction” could look like. It’s only reasonable for Christian authors to want to reclaim their literary heritage. But is this a fair comparison?

In one sense, it is. The inclusion of biblical imagery and ideas is the most obvious. Although the Space Trilogy is not the most spiritually explicit of Lewis’ fiction — that would probably go to The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, or Narnia — there is nevertheless plenty of overt “Christian” ideas to be found in the Trilogy. In fact, one of Lewis’ motivations for writing the Trilogy was in response to what he perceived the lack of “Christian realism and Christian hope” in then-contemporary sci-fi and fantasy.  In The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings, Philip and Carol Zaleski note that Lewis’ intention in writing Out of the Silent Planet, first book in the trilogy, was indeed to counter the secularism of his time and infuse a genre he loved with “spiritual adventures.”

The model for Out of the Silent Planet (1938) was a childhood favorite of Lewis’s: H.G. Wells ‘ s anti-imperialist First Men in the Moon (1901)… Lewis took his scaffolding from this tale, borrowing from more than a few details of setting and plot, but the edifice he built upon it was altogether different; for he had conceived, by reading David Lindsay ‘ s A Voyage to Arcturus, that the planetary romance could be a vehicle for profound ‘spiritual adventures.’ He thought he could use this form to counter the materialistic picture of the universe that dominated popular science writing.

… [Lewis] had been dismayed to discover that, for some of his own students, such Utopian fantasies [from contemporary science fiction authors] had supplanted both Christian realism and Christian hope. Lewis hoped, in this novel, to present an appealing imaginative alternative. “I like the whole interplanetary idea as mythology,” he told Roger Lancelyn Green, “and simply wished to conquer for my own (Christian) p[oin]t of view what has always hitherto been used by the other side.” (pgg. 253-254)

This desire to “counter” a specific trend or worldview with a biblical message, and employ a specific genre or medium to do so, is central to the motivations of many Christian authors today. Whether romance, historical, or suspense, most Christian fiction exists as an “alternative” to “secular” stories, their ideas and morals. While the particulars may be different, they all share Lewis’ desire to “conquer for [their] own” a point of view that “has always hitherto been used by the other side.” In this way, The Space Trilogy fits easily within the stated goals of many Christian fiction authors. In fact, the final book of the trilogy, That Hideous Strength, addresses head-on specific intellectual and scientific issues of Lewis’ era.

“…Lewis unfolds a broadly satirical supernatural tale that packs in the multitudinous moral and social concerns he had addressed in The Abolition of Man and in his controversial essays of the postwar years: the miseducation of young minds; the evils of eugenics, vivisection, social engineering, ‘humane’ rehabilitation of misfits, and police-state propaganda; the encroachment on the humanities of the fetish for ‘research’…” (pg. 326).

Owen Barfield (one of the Inklings) observed that in That Hideous Strength “somehow what [Lewis] said about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” Point being, the novel is more a rebuttal against “the multitudinous moral and social concerns” of his time than it was an escapist tale.

In these senses, it’s easy to include the Space Trilogy under the umbrella of Christian fiction. Not only do we encounter an author with a specifically biblical worldview incorporated into their fiction, but he shares the same goal of many contemporary Christian novelists — to infuse the genres he loves with “spiritual adventures.”

On the other hand, there are many reasons why the Space Trilogy is an extremely uncomfortable fit within today’s brand of Christian fiction.

One reason is the obvious differences between today’s cultural, religious, and publishing climate and that of Lewis’ day. Even though there were decidedly secular ideas (and authors who sought to further them) being embraced in 1930’s Europe, the animosity to religious ideas was not nearly as prolific as it is today. Unlike Lewis, Christian authors now publish in what has rightly been called a post-Christian culture. The complaint that religious content is often met with skepticism, if not antipathy, from general market publishers has some legitimacy. Part of the apologetic for why Christian fiction even exists — the legitimacy of this argument notwithstanding — is that mainstream publishers have grown hostile to the traditional “Christian message.” The Christian publishing industry exists as a reaction to the post-Christianizing of culture.

Furthermore, the publishing market of Lewis’ era was not nearly as partitioned as it is today. The “general market” and the “Christian market” did not exist to the degree they do now. Perhaps this is why Lewis’ books often received attention in “mainstream” literary circles. For example, in reviewing Perelandra, The Saturday Review of Literature raved about the book saying, “C.S. Lewis has gone down again into his bottomless well of imagination for a captivating myth.” Today’s Christian fiction rarely breaks into and receives such attention from mainstream critics and reviewers. Which is one reason it is often (disparagingly) referred to as a ghetto.

Another thing that would definitely work against the Trilogy’s inclusion into today’s Christian fiction would be the genre’s theological and moral strictures. Yes, Lewis’ faith is clearly on display throughout the Trilogy. However, he also integrated pagan mythological concepts into the story. For example, the Oyarsa, Perelandra‘s ruling Intelligence,  is “comparable to an archangel or to the planetary archon of Hellenistic and Gnostic lore.” After discovering a reference to “Oyarses” in texts of a lecture by Christian Platonist Bernard Silvestris, Lewis decided to incorporate the concept of a “ruling essence” who “shapes things in the lower world after the pattern of the higher world.” The Zaleskis note,

“There was room for pagan gods in Lewis’s Christian cosmos, provided they appeared as angels or ‘middle spirits,’ archetypes or allegorical figures” (pg. 257).

Making room for “pagan gods” in today’s Christian market would indeed be tricky. At times, especially in the last book of the Trilogy, Lewis even tinkers with more esoteric theological concepts, possibly influenced by Charles Williams (fellow Inkling) who embraced unorthodox views of ritual magic and sex. Compounding this is the inclusion of Merlin in That Hideous Strength who personifies Arthurian elements of the story. Merlin appears as the seventy-ninth successor in history to King Arthur, now a servant to Ransom (the protagonist throughout the Trilogy) and, more importantly, as a wielder of old school magic. The theme of magic is notoriously prickly for many Christian readers and, if the book were published today, would indeed be subject to battery of scrutiny from reviewers and armchair theologians.

But perhaps the biggest strike against Lewis would be the Venusian Green Lady of Perelandra. She is meant to represent the female half of an unfallen, innocent couple. While this type of speculation would indeed push the boundaries of contemporary Christian fiction, it is the fact that the centerpiece to the story, the Green Lady of Perelandra, whom Lewis conceived as a cross between “a Pagan goddess” and “the Blessed Virgin,” appears naked alongside the protag for the course of the book. In many ways, the idea that a “Christian” character would, for weeks and months, interact with a beautiful naked woman would most likely deeply offend today’s mainstream Christian fiction readers.

The climactic scene of Perelandra is a “kitchen sink” of esoterica as Ransom joins Venus and Mars, bowing before the young King and Queen, before joining in “The Great Dance,” a virtual orgy of light, sound, animals, angels, and all Creation. Here he learns the new Adam and Eve are to be the beginning of a new mankind and will one day go to earth and redeem his planet. Needless to say, the high concepts evoked by Lewis are not only seldom found in much contemporary Christian speculative fiction, they push the doctrinal boundaries that many enforce upon the genre.

Which is why author and journalist Taylor Dinerman, writing for The Space Review, suggests that the contents of the Space Trilogy are an uncomfortable fit within the traditional “Christian morality tale.”

A story that begins with the hero committing an act of criminal trespass and ends with a multi-species festival of sexuality is not, at least superficially, a work that can be described as a Christian morality tale. It is also hard to reconcile orthodox Judeo-Christian monotheistic doctrine with the idea that the classic pagan gods like Venus and Mars were in some way angels of the Lord. Yet C.S. Lewis, best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, managed to bring it off, he even mixed in a bit of the Arthurian matter of Britain and a reference to his friend JRR Tolkein’s mythic fiction.

It’s understandable that Christians would want to include Lewis in the ranks of Christian speculative fiction. Listing Tolkien and Lewis as part of our literary heritage brings instant cred, right? But is it a legit comparison? In one sense, the Space Trilogy is a good example of a Christian author using the medium of speculative fiction to counter secular ideas and reclaim a genre from “the other side.” However, on another count, both the mainstream culture and Christian culture has changed. While the former has become more hostile to religious themes, the latter has reacted by forming its own sub-culture, partitioned from mainstream readers and thought. And with part of that sub-culture defined by narrow theological and speculative fictional boundaries, it’s hard to see how certain elements of Ransom’s adventures would be uncritically accepted among many evangelical readers. All in all, I can’t help but see the Space Trilogy as an extremely uncomfortable fit within today’s Christian fiction.