Facing the Nazi Menace: CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity was adapted from his series of World
War II London radio broadcasts.
We reflect on questions like:
How can Christians and Jews possibly forgive the evil Nazis?
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist who survived Auschwitz, also
ponders this question.
How can Christian soldiers kill during times of war?
How do totalitarian regimes threaten Christianity? How were
German Christians deceived into supporting Hitler?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video.
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Was CS Lewis a Closet Catholic?
CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity
Good Friday, Easter, and Trinity
Facing the Nazi Menace
Preparing the Way for Vatican II
Morality and Cardinal Virtues
Forgiveness, Envy, and Pride
Faith, Hope, and Love: Virtues
Romance, Marriage, and Divorce
Is Christianity Hard or Easy?
Summary of Mere Christianity
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Mere Christianity was compiled from a series of radio
addresses by CS Lewis explaining the tenets of
Christianity which were broadcast during the dark days of
World War II, when Londoners fled to the safety of the
underground subway tunnels while Nazi bombers
destroyed their homes above. We will reflect when he
referred often to this monumental struggle, one of the
rare political struggles that actually pitted the forces of
good and evil against each other, in Mere Christianity.

Dwych tube
station in London,
England being
used as a bomb
shelter in 1940.
Close to a
hundred tube
station were used
as air raid
shelters.

Born in Dublin in 1898 before the partition of
Ireland, CS Lewis was baptized into the Anglican
Church of Ireland, but became disenchanted with
Christianity because of his experiences at school and
serving in the trenches of World War I but regained
his Christian faith in the interwar years. Mere
Christianity refutes the misconceptions that kept
him from the faith.

One such misconception
is the modern notion
that right and wrong is
relative. But how can
morality be relative,
since Nazism is so
evidently evil? CS Lewis
proclaims, “We are
forced to believe in a real
Right and Wrong,” this is
a Law of Nature shared
by all cultures.

Soldiers and Commandment: Do Not Kill
British soldiers in trenches, Somme, 1916, Photo by Ernest Brooks / German Stormtroopers Attacking, 1917

CS Lewis served in the English army in the trenches of
World War I, which compelled him to confront the
question: How can Christian Soldiers obey the
commandment, Do not kill?

British soldiers in trenches, Somme, 1916, Photo by Ernest Brooks / German Stormtroopers Attacking, 1917
CS Lewis asserts that a “Christian soldier can kill an
enemy,” since the commandment, “Do not kill,” actually
means “Do not murder” in the original Hebrew.

CS Lewis observes: “War is a dreadful
thing, and I can respect an honest
pacifist, though I think he is entirely
mistaken. What I cannot understand is
this sort of semi-pacifism you get
nowadays which gives people the idea
that though you have to fight, you ought
to do it with a long face and as if you
were ashamed of it.”
But CS Lewis does offer this caution: “We
may kill if necessary, but we must not
hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if
necessary, but we must not enjoy it.” British troops come ashore, Gold Beach / US assault
troops approach Omaha Beach, D-Day, June 1944.

CS Lewis continues: “Even while
we kill and punish, we must try
to feel about the enemy as we
feel about ourselves: to wish
that he were not bad, to hope
that he may, in this world or
another, be cured: in fact, to
wish his good. This is what is
meant in the Bible by loving our
enemy: wishing his good, not
feeling fond of him nor saying
he is nice when he is not.”
Into the Jaws of Death, American Troops landing at Omaha
Beach, Normandy Landings at D-Day, June 1944

CS Lewis also mentions the psychological difficulty
some soldiers faced when drafted to serve in the
military, who found themselves psychologically
incapable of defeating the fear men face when they
encounter the enemy on the front lines.

The Normandy
American
Cemetery and
Memorial
overlooking
Omaha Beach

How Can You Forgive the Evil Nazis?
CS Lewis observes: “Everyone says
forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they
have something to forgive, as we had
during the war. And then, to mention the
subject at all is to be greeted with howls
of anger.” “Half of you,” his radio
audience, “want to ask me, ‘I wonder
how you’d feel about forgiving the
Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?”
We’re Running Out of Jews, Hermann Göring: Gestapo executes 2 Million Jews: Heil Hitler, by Arthur Szyk, 1943

Surprisingly, in his chapter on Morality and
Psychoanalysis, CS Lewis ponders this
question: “Can we be quite certain how we
should have behaved if we had been
saddled with the psychological problems,
and then with the bad upbringing, and
then with the power, say of Himmler? That
is why Christians are told not to judge. We
see only the results which a man’s choices
make out of his raw material. But God does
not judge him on his raw material at all,
but on what he has done with it.”
Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess view scale
model of Dachau concentration camp, by
Friedrich Franz Bauer, 1936

This question of how you can forgive the Nazis is
discussed in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For
Meaning, where Frankl shares how some Jews
survived the work camps of Auschwitz during World
War II.

Polish prisoners in Dachau toast their liberation, 1945
In the afterword, Dr Winslade says, “Frankl
felt an intense connection to Vienna,
especially to psychiatric patients who
needed his help in the postwar period. He
also believed strongly in reconciliation
rather than revenge; he once remarked, ‘I
do not forget any good deed done to me,
and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.’
Notably, Frankl renounced the idea of
collective guilt. Frankl was able to accept
that his Viennese colleagues and neighbors
may have known about or even
participated in his persecution, and he did
not condemn them for failing to join the
resistance or die heroic deaths.”

When Jews returned to their old homes, often they
found that others had moved in, and quite often they
refused to leave what they saw as their home. We do
not know what the post-war Austrian policy was in
these situations, this passage suggests that Frankl
had moved into his old house, or at least found
another in his old neighborhood.

Dr Winslade continues,
“Instead, Frankl was
deeply committed to the
idea that even a vile Nazi
criminal or a seemingly
hopeless madman has the
potential to transcend evil
or insanity by making
responsible choices.”
Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial

But Frankl notes that many who were
released from the concentration camps
were unable to forgive their tormentors.
“People with natures of a more primitive
kind could not escape the brutality that
had surrounded them in camp life. Now,
being free, they thought they could use
their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly.
The only thing that changed was that
they were now the oppressors instead of
the oppressed. They became instigators,
not objects, of willful force and injustice.
They justified their behavior by their own
terrible experiences.” Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial

Totalitarian Regimes Endanger Christianity
Nazi Corruption: German Christian Rally, 1933

Nazism is a totalitarian regime that seeks to have all
human institutions serve the needs of the state.

But CS Lewis teaches us: “The State exists
simply to promote and to protect the
ordinary happiness of human beings in this
life,” to permit them the personal liberty to
enjoy time with their families and friends,
to live a normal life. “Unless the State is
helping to increase and prolong and protect
such moments, all the laws, parliaments,
armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are
simply a waste of time. In the same way,
the Church exists for nothing else but to
draw men into Christ, to make them little
Christs. If they are not doing that, all the
cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even
the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”

Many of CS Lewis’ thoughts are confirmed in Vatican II’s decree
on Freedom of Religion, and many of his arguments echo those
made by Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, in his book,
Sources of Renewal, The Implementation of Vatican II.
What distinguishes the authoritarian fascist state from a
democracy? Authoritarians deny liberty and due process to the
individual to serve the state, while democracy protects the rights
of the individual. CS Lewis teaches us that the Christian teaching
of the immorality of the soul means we should cherish the
dignity and freedom of the individual.

CS Lewis reasons, “If individuals live
only seventy years, then a state, or a
nation, or a civilization, which may last
for a thousand years,” and here he is
referring to Hitler’s Thousand Year
Reich, “is more important than an
individual. But if Christianity is true,
then the individual is not only more
important but incomparably more
important, for he has everlasting life,
and the life of a state or a civilization,
compared with his, is only a moment.”
Nuremberg Rally 1930’s, Thousand Year Reich?

One of the primary dangers that Christians faced
when confronting totalitarian regimes in the past
century is that they seek to corrupt Christianity itself.
This happened under Stalin and his successors,
where the communists insisted on appointing
compromised church leaders to lead the Orthodox
Church. This is happening today in Communist China,
where the current dictator seeks to undermine both
the Buddhist and Catholic faith traditions in China.

And it happened in Hitler’s Germany, where the Nazis
attempted to found a state church that believed that
Jesus was not a Jew!

Nazi Corruption: German Christian Rally, 1933

Both the Protestant Confessing Churches and the
Catholic Church resisted this encroachment of the
Nazi state, although some were compromised.

Hitler greets the
Protestant
Archbishop of
Nuremberg,
Ludwig Müller,
and Benedictine
Abbott Albanus
Schachleitner at
the Reich Party
Rally of 1934.

Pope Pius XI famously smuggled in the Easter
message that was read in pulpits across Germany in
the midst of World War II, when most of the world
could not imagine how the Nazis could be driven
from the European Continent.

Conclusion Viktor Frankl tells us, “The experiences
of camp life show that man does have
a choice of action. Apathy can be
overcome; irritability can be
suppressed. Man can preserve a
vestige of spiritual freedom, of
independence of mind, even in terrible
conditions of psychic and physical
stress.” No matter how dire your
circumstances, you can hope, you can
always be kind to those around you.

How can we discover the meaning of
life? “According to Viktor Frankl’s
logotherapy, we can discover this
meaning in many different ways:
• By creating a work or doing a
deed.
• By experiencing something, such
as goodness, truth and beauty, in
nature or culture,
• Or encountering someone, by
experiencing another person in his
very uniqueness, by loving him.
• By the attitude we take toward
unavoidable suffering.”

We will conclude with CS
Lewis’ observation:
“Progress means not just
changing, but changing for
the better. If no set of moral
ideas were truer or better
than any other, there would
be no sense in preferring
civilized morality to savage
morality, or Christian
morality to Nazi morality.”

Next, we will reflect on how CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity
foreshadowed the main decrees of Vatican II, which was
convened two decades after World War II, and was a reaction to
the experiences of the Catholic Church under the various fascist
regimes, and which furthered the ecumenical movement.
We next reflect on why this book appeals to Christians of all
denominations, and whether CS Lewis was inspired by the
teachings of the early Church Fathers.

CS Lewis ponders both the Cardinal Virtues, and the Theological
Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, or Love, and other moral
issues, including romance and Christian marriage.

Next, we will reflect on whether CS Lewis was a closet Catholic,
based on his Mere Christianity, and whether CS Lewis was
inspired by the teachings of the early Church Fathers.

CS Lewis ponders whether Christianity is Hard, or Easy.
Previously, we reflected on CS Lewis’ Great Divorce, on Hell and
Heaven, and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.

https://youtu.be/wuqwy3GyO_4
https://youtu.be/O-YtC9qGWPI

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity, printed in 1952, was derived from three
volumes printed from 1942 to 1944, which were in turn adapted from a
series of BBC Broadcasts during the Nazi London Bombing Blitz. The book
has always appealed more to evangelists than to theologians, since it
seeks to simplify theology so ordinary Christians can understand it. Our
reflections will establish that he was inspired by writings of St Augustine
and the early Church Fathers, which makes sense since he was professor
of medieval studies, but since most of his listeners and readers were
Protestants, he rarely credited his sources, and sought to rephrase them
so they did not sound Catholic, and sounded more modern than classical.
IMHO, he oversimplifies sometimes, sometimes it is difficult to discern
what he is actually teaching.

Many of the topics covered in Mere Christianity are covered in his
Chronicles of Narnia allegorically. Narnia is an alternate children’s
world where the Lion Aslan plays a Christ-like character, and
where many of the animals walk and talk like their fellow
humans.
In my printed version, Mere Christianity is paired with Screwtape
Letters, which is another classic appreciated by many modern
Christians. In discussions between demons, he imagines how
they tempt Christians to be hypocrites if they cannot succeed in
having them reject Christianity outright.

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Like ancient works, CS Lewis subdivides
Mere Christianity into four separate books:
• Book 1: Right and Wrong as a Clue to the
Meaning of the Universe
• Book 2: What Christians Believe
• Book 3: Christian Behavior (includes
Cardinal Virtues and Theological Virtues)
• Book 4: Beyond Personality: Or First Steps
in the Doctrine of the Trinity (plus
whether Christianity is hard or easy)

We also reflect on another classic written during the
World War II era: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for
Meaning, which is a favorite life-changing books of
mine. He describes how he survived the horrors of
the Auschwitz work camps during the war.

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Facing the Nazi Menace: CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

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Facing the Nazi Menace: CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning