What H. G. Wells and C. S. Lewis Wrote That Has Influenced My Biblical Thinking

The following three statements have greatly influenced my biblical thinking. H. G. Wells wrote the first two statements and C. S. Lewis wrote the third.

“Jesus was too great for his disciples. And in view of what he plainly said, is it any wonder that all who were rich and prosperous felt a horror of strange things, a swimming of their world at his teaching?  Perhaps the priests and rulers understood him better than his followers. He was dragging out all the little private reservations they had made from social service into the light of a universal religious life.  He was like a terrible moral huntsman, digging people out of the snug burrows in which they had lived hitherto. In the white blaze of his kingdom there was to be no property, no privilege, no pride, and no precedence, no motive and reward but love. Is it any wonder that people were dazzled and blinded, and cried out against him? Even His disciples cried out when he would not spare them that light. Is it any wonder that the priests realized that between this man and themselves there was no choice but that he, or their priestcraft, should perish? Is it any wonder that the Roman soldiers, confronted and amazed by something soaring over their comprehension and threatening all their disciplines, should take refuge in wild laughter, and crown him with thorns, and robe him in purple, and make a mock Caesar of him?  For to take him seriously was to enter into a strange and alarming life, to abandon habits, to control instincts and impulses, and to embrace an incredible happiness. Is it any wonder that to this day this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” (Wells, The Outline of History, Vol. 1, pp. 425-6)

“The doctrine of the Kingdom God, which was the main teaching of Jesus, and which plays so small a part in the Christian creeds, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever stirred and changed human thought.” (Wells, The Outline of History, Vol. 2, p. 8)

“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch is claimed by God—and counterclaimed by Satan.” (Lewis, "Christianity and Culture," Christian Reflections, p. 33)

Yes, Jesus mission was and is much, much bigger than most people understand!

Harry Wendt