The Alex McFarland Show-15-The Most Reluctant Convert with guest Max McLean

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of Scripture. Welcome to The Alex McFarland Show. One of the most significant names in Christendom is the name of a leader, an author, a speaker, a communicator who has been dead nearly 60 years. Who am I speaking of? I'm speaking of Clive Staples Lewis, C.S. Lewis.

Now, no doubt everybody listening to this broadcast has heard C.S. Lewis. Maybe you're an aficionado and you've read many of his books and maybe you are deeply invested in the work of C.S. Lewis, or maybe C.S. Lewis is just this peripheral name that you've heard mentioned, and maybe you think to yourself, he's important.

I get it. I need to know who C.S. Lewis is.

Well, we're going to talk about C.S. Lewis today, and really we are so privileged to have with us on the program one of the preeminent voices in the world of C.S. Lewis who has kept his presence alive and really brought to life C.S. Lewis to millions of viewers. His name is Max MacLean, and he is the star of a brand new movie, The Most Reluctant Convert, which is the story of C.S.

Lewis's coming to Christianity. But I want to welcome him to the program. We're so honored to have some time to converse with Max MacLean and just learn wonderful things about the work he does. Sir, I want to say thank you very much. It is a great honor to have you on The Alex McFarland Show.

Well, thank you, Alex, very much. A little bit of background. How did you come to be influenced by C.S. Lewis and what led you to portray Lewis and to bring his legacy before new generations of viewers?

Yeah. I'm an adult convert to Christianity, converted in my 20s. After reading most of the New Testament, I was introduced to the writings of C.S. Lewis. I think I read all the New Testament at the beginning. I read Psalms, Proverbs, and much of the rest of the Old Testament. After that, I was introduced to C.S.

Lewis. The first book that really grabbed my attention was The Screwtape Letters, the very first letter actually where Screwtape is describing one of his successes. He was kind of bragging about his prowess as a tempter. He was talking about a man in a British museum who was reading something that was threatening to Screwtape. He said he saw 20 years work beginning to totter. He said, I struck instantly the part of the man that I had best under my control and said, isn't it just about time for lunch?

Of course, that moment got him out of reading the book. Screwtape's enemy, God, says to the man, isn't this more important than lunch? Screwtape responds, much too important to tackle at the end of a morning.

Why don't you come back after lunch with a fresh mind? He got him out the door, gave him a newspaper, got him on a bus, and then Screwtape says, and the battle was won. I got into this man, all this stuff just can't be true, and he's now safe in our father's house. He ends that particular letter by saying, it's funny how these humans picture us as putting things into their minds.

Our best work is done by keeping things out. That's when Lewis really grabbed my attention and gave me an idea of spiritual warfare that I just didn't have before that, the reality of an enemy of my soul who was really out to destroy me. After that, Lewis got my undivided attention.

It's funny you would bring that up because it reminds me of not only how well C.S. Lewis understood spiritual warfare and in Screwtape, he just with piercing accuracy seems to understand the way Satan and demons might think and strategize. But Lewis had an amazing understanding of human nature as well. I've been reading Lewis and following all things Lewis for twenty-five years plus.

Well, I'll put it this way, and I want your response, Max, if I can call you Max. I was speaking about a month ago at a university. I was asked to come to East Tennessee State and during the Q&A, we were talking about biblical worldview and some of the students, this one student said, I want to get into C.S. Lewis, but where do I start?

Do you have any recommendation? Of course, most college students will be familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia. One of the students or about 300 students said, I hear so much about Lewis.

Is he really that big of a deal? I said to the audience, I said, I know this is going to sound like an overstatement, but it is impossible for me to overemphasize how important C.S. Lewis is as a Christian writer and thinker. Back to your quote from Screwtape, wasn't it just uncanny how well he understood the spiritual realm and how well he understood human nature also?

Yeah, yeah. You asked what would be an introductory book other than Narnia. I mean, there's multiple questions asked there, but I don't think you can go wrong with Screwtape letters because of what you just described, his keen understanding of human nature. In fact, if those of you know Screwtape, the idea is of an elder tempter instructing a younger tempter on the art of tempting an unsuspecting human on earth.

The unsuspecting human on earth is modeled after C.S. Lewis himself, so he's writing about his own experiences with temptation. It's autobiographical. In many ways, it's a confessional.

Lewis is so transparent that you really get to the heart of things. I would definitely say that if you don't have another place to start, Screwtape letters would be a very good place to start. It's 31 letters.

Each letter probably takes 10 minutes to read. It's a great devotional, kind of a reverse devotional, but it will really make you aware of how temptation really works. We think of it as really big sins like murder and rape and all kinds of genocide. That's certainly there, but those things start small. Screwtape begins with the small things that really corrupt the soul.

Whereas, all of a sudden, it becomes so easy to just dismiss what is right and what is true and what is good. I would suggest Screwtape. That really is a good place to start. I agree. We're talking with Max McClain, who has brought C.S. Lewis to life in his one-man shows and now in the movie, The Most Reluctant Convert.

But I want to encourage you, as I've encouraged audiences for many years, read C.S. Lewis. There's so many things. The Problem of Pain, which is a great book about the problem of evil and suffering in the world.

Of course, A Grief Observed and Screwtaping, probably the one that people think about the most is mere Christianity. Look, some of it is going to be heavy lifting because Lewis is deep. Some of it is just so light and inspirational, but you will grow intellectually and most importantly, spiritually as well. Now, stay tuned. We're going to come back in just a moment and continue our conversation with Max McClain, who portrays C.S.

Lewis. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics. Living in more than 2200 churches around the world, schools and college campuses, Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith, while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert.

To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com. C.S. Lewis, one of the most important voices in the last, I would say 500 years of Christendom since the Reformation and we're talking with Max MacLean. I want to direct you to a website cslewismovie.com and the movie, the most reluctant convert is the story of C.S. Lewis and the star Max MacLean is with us. I've got to ask you, when did it first dawn on you to portray C.S. Lewis? About 20 years ago, our mission as a theater and film company is to produce stories from a Christian worldview meant to engage a diverse audience and we do it through theater and film now. If you're going to try to reach an audience and what I mean by diverse, I mean religiously diverse or intellectually diverse, it doesn't take very long to come across C.S. Lewis because he lived his whole life in a world where Christian faith was attacked and dismissed and certainly not respected and so he defended it in a brilliant way in Oxford, in Cambridge, all his adult life after he was converted at the age of 32.

The reason he could defend it is because he was prior to that a vigorous debunker of Christianity so he recognized what it was like not to believe and how the materialist worldview, the secular worldview so engulfs the brain so you can't really see anything else and to penetrate beyond that is one of the things that Lewis is particularly good at both in terms of a logician and as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century, if not the greatest. Sure, sure. So where and when did you begin to do kind of a stage? Yeah, the first stage play we did was about 20 years ago with Screwtape Letters, then we've done The Great Divorce but Screwtape was first and then Great Divorce and then the third one was Most Reluctant Convert which was a stage play which then we turned into a movie. Sure, well let's talk about the movie because in addition to yourself, I mean there is some major star power on just the crew I was reading. I mean the Most Reluctant Convert movie, you've got cinematographers, directors, producers that have worked on Doctor Who, Bridget Jones, Death on the Nile, The Lion King Broadway. This is a movie, my goodness, there is quite a production staff that came around you to make this happen.

Yeah, Norman Stone has won two BAFTAs, a couple of Emmys, he's our director. It was originally a one-person show which was very successful. We ran on colleges and universities as well as major performing arts centers around the country but it was a one-person show with one set but with the movie, we filmed it in Oxford, in and around Oxford, 18 locations in and around Oxford.

It's definitely a postcard for Oxford, a tremendous advertisement for people that are interested in that city and how Lewis sort of embodied that city. We had 15 actors, 190 extras, 270 costumes. It was a wonderful production as you say. The crew, the costume designer was from Downton Abbey, the makeup artist who really made me look like Lewis, who also just did The Death of Stalin, which is a terrific movie. We had a fantastic team, all Brits, and we were able to tell this great story in a very first-rate way. Do you feel like this film is going to be maybe the crowning achievement of your artistic career? Well, it's certainly a highlight but we just signed a deal to do two more films on Lewis. We're building the storylines now, which will cover the rest of his life because this film, The Most Reluctant Convert, begins with his death of his mother when he was nine years old.

It talks about his terrible relationship with his father that got worse after his mother died and then he experienced the butchery of trench warfare in World War I, came the conclusion that either there's no god, a god indifferent to good and evil, or worse an evil god, and then follows with the help of friends like J.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and others, how they slowly chipped away over a period of 10, 12 years to have him go from vigorous debunker of Christianity to The Most Reluctant Convert, Noel England. In the movie, The Most Reluctant Convert, and by the way, folks, the website which I urge you to look at is cslewismovie.com, cslewismovie.com. It was in theaters at the end of 21 and now mid-22, Max, so where can people find the movie? Yeah, it's distributed all over the world now through Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube. It's got a wide audience. I think it's been seen in 130 countries.

It was number four on Apple TV independent films last month and number 12 in DVD sales on Amazon, so it's certainly getting a following. That's great. Now, in the movie, were you able around Oxford or the kilns to use some props that were things actually Lewis would have interacted with? There's a couple there, but we spent time at the kilns.

I think we shot for two days at the kilns, and much of what's there are replicas because the originals have gone off to the Wade Center and the Bodleian Library, other places that are more, but it looks very much like it. Certainly interacted with physical papers that he used. One of the great experiences is his rooms at Magdalen College have been turned into kind of a lab, but we were able to get rooms that were close by that were very similar to the rooms that were his in 1930s, 1940s, and that was an experience. We also got into the Magdalen College Library.

We filmed a couple of scenes there, which dates back to 1470. It was quite an experience. Addison's Walk, the place where the Holy Spirit really got hold of Lewis, when he had that famous conversation with J.R. Tolkien, when they were talking about the power of myth and how Jesus is the myth that became fact, which was really instrumental in Lewis's conversion. Lewis had multiple conversions. He went from atheism to what he called idealism, which is a kind of a pantheism, to theism. Theism, in Lewis's mind, was almost like Moses at the burning bush.

God was a consuming fire, and that's who he repented to, repented of that, but he didn't understand the significance of Jesus until much later. That is a very powerful story. We've got to take a brief break, folks. Stay tuned. We're going to continue talking about C.S. Lewis and his life in ministry and the movie, The Most Reluctant Convert, starring Max MacLean, our guest on this edition of The Alex McFarland Show. We're back in just a moment. Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. We live in a country where we have a lot of luxuries. We have a lot of things that we can get pretty easily. How convenience and comfort can be obstacles. An article by Will Addison. If we allow those things to be a priority in our lives, we'll find it hard to do the things that really matter, like preaching the gospel. We need to be careful that it don't stop us from fulfilling the great commission, which is making disciples.

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He's been called trusted, truthful and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. We're going to resume our conversation with Max McLean, but I want to remind everybody about our viral truth campus clubs, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students. You can charter a viral truth chapter in your city. And by the way, among the things that we equip young people to talk about, apologetics, biblical worldview and yes, C.S. Lewis, when a viral truth club is chartered, we provide talking points. We coach young people to reach their friends and to talk about issues from a biblical perspective. If you'd like to know more about the viral truth clubs and that rapidly growing movement across America, just go to my own website, which is alexmcfarland.com, alexmcfarland.com. And I want to remind you that our events, publishing, broadcasting, equipping people all throughout North America, it's made possible by your prayers and financial support.

And we appreciate your interest and your support for the work that God has called us to do. Well, speaking of a great work that God has done, it's the life of C.S. Lewis, which even though he's been dead nearly 60 years, the impact of his life goes on and on. You know, Max, years ago I was interviewing a guy named Paul McCusker. You may know Paul McCusker.

I do. I've read his book. Yeah, a great book, C.S. Lewis in Wartime, the crisis that produced a classic. And Paul McCusker said every generation needs to be introduced to C.S. Lewis afresh and anew.

And for one thing, I agree with that. And I want to thank you for doing your utmost to see that Lewis is not forgotten. It's hard to think that he even could be, but he is a guy whose legacy is worth keeping alive, isn't it? Well, it's really interesting because I had an earlier interview with somebody from Europe and he said that he started reading Lewis in 1964. Lewis died in 63. And I asked him because when Lewis died, his funeral was overshadowed because he died the same day within an hour of when Kennedy was assassinated.

So everybody sort of thought that Lewis would just kind of disappear like most dead writers. But what tended to happen was his legacy was left alive mostly by key people at Wheaton College and in seminaries. And then next thing you know, within a few years, almost so many pastors around the country were quoting him pretty regularly in their sermons. And so that sort of got him to grow.

And then what's happened is that sort of snowballed. And in the 70s and in the 80s and lots and lots of books started to be written, a lot of biographies started to be written about him. And so where he is now is he sells, he'll sell more books this year than he sold last year. And next year he'll sell more books next year than he did this year.

His embers are blazing. His influence continues to grow now, but that has to be kept going. You know, I do a lot of colleges and university myself as you do. And what's interesting is that I do hear, I've never heard of C.S.

Lewis. I mean, if you're part of the homeschool movement that probably wouldn't happen. But if you're raised in public schools and just have a sort of this closed in world of secularism, which Lewis described as living your life with all the windows closed.

In that case, we do have to get a note. And then what happens is when they do experience what he knows, because he recognizes that the mind is the window to the supernatural world, that you can't make sense of anything unless what you say, what you think has meaning comports to something in reality. It's not socially constructed. That there's something rock bottom reality has to be intelligent.

There has got to be something further up, further in. And that's Lewis is what Lewis just drills that down. And that makes perfect sense to 99.9% of people. Yes, exactly.

Exactly. And you know, it's so amazing. And this is why I tell my students, you know, read Lewis. I mean, you've got, of course, the Chronicles of Narnia, which are very, very famous.

People of all ages love those. But then you've got a book like A Grief Observed that is an incredibly personal testimony of how he processed the passing of his wife, Joy Davidman. And then you've got a book like The Abolition of Man that was so prescient and predicted that if we lost belief in morality, we would descend into chaos. And ultimately, even gender would be confused and denied. And I know this is an overused word, but isn't it fair to say Lewis was absolutely prophetic in what the West would become if we lost our theistic Christian foundations?

Yes. And because he experienced it at Oxford in the 30s and 40s, which was kind of the vanguard, Oxford and Cambridge 30s and 40s, the vanguard of this level of thought, particularly what you mentioned, abolition of man, with the rise of subjectivism, that there's no absolute truth, therefore there's no moral truth. You know, everything is subjective. Everything is socially constructed. And with that in mind, you can basically do whatever you want. It's, you know, as Dostoevsky says, if God is dead, then everything is permissible.

You know, and so if you want to deny your gender, deny the reality of what's on your body, then you can do that. And what's shocking to me is how that thinking has permeated all the way to the highest levels of intellectual thought in academia and in government. And surprisingly, corporate America, business America, who's really not paying attention, is just allowing this to happen in their HR departments. So I mean, this is not what we're talking about, I know, but this is the byproduct. You know, ideas have consequences.

You know, they change reality. What you and I wish to happen is the first step to making it happen. You know, there's tremendous power in our desires and our abilities for good or evil. And it starts with right thinking.

Well, sadly, we're out of time for this visit. But I want to encourage people, one of the best ways to get into C.S. Lewis, a great introduction is this movie, The Most Reluctant Convert. I've got to ask you this as we encourage people to watch the movie. What is your prayer? Max MacLean, you have a ministry representing one of the most powerful Christian thinkers of the 20th century, who, as you said, his influence is probably greater than it ever was in his own lifetime. What is your prayer for the church in the West and the world?

That's a really good thought. Several thoughts come to mind. The first thing that went into my mind as you said that is that wonderful verse in Hebrews 13, here we have no continuing city, we await the one to come. You know, it's really, church needs to reflect that. Remember how churches used to have graveyards?

I think we should go back to having graveyards. It's a reminder of what reality is like. You know, the world is filled with, you know, that's where we end up. And if your mindset is secular, that's where we end up. The other thing is a famous Lewis line, if I have an experience, another experience in this world can satisfy. The most probable explanation I was made for another world.

So, you know, Lewis says that he mentions the people that are most productive in this life are those people who really have their attention further up, further in. Wow. Well, I want to thank you for your time today. I want to thank everybody for listening.

And again, the website cslewismovie.com. See this movie, The Most Reluctant Convert. It will impact you deeply. And then let me encourage you, and Max, I know you would concur, read Lewis.

You don't even have to pray about it. Read the books of C.S. Lewis. Thank you. I look forward to when you and I may visit again soon. Look forward to it, Alex.

Thank you. May God bless you, and thank you for listening to this edition of The Alex McFarland Show. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you.

For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404, or by calling 1-877-Yes-God-1. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.