[applause] thanks, pete. Joe laconte, a hob hobbitt, a wardrobe. We have have been delighted to partner. I practice that. [laughs] this is the latest and on going series as pete mentioned to talk about politics and policy. We are so graceful to explore this often combustible mix of safe morality yet prof provocative form. Were really excited to have you here tonight. Also delighted to have each of you tonight. Some of you might not know, we actually had a shutdown registration. We have a full house. If you have friends who wanted to come and couldnt, we will be recording tonight the conversation and will be posting the video to our site. Where you are welcome to add your comments as well as you can check out our Facebook Page and twitter for video and comments as well. For those who arent familiar, we will provide a space and resources for the discussion of context of faith. We do this by providing readings and publications which draw upon the classic work from literature to connect the timeless wisdom of humanities to connect leading thinkers with thinking leaders and engaging those questions of life, and ultimately coming to better know the author of the answers. We also hold forms around the world to enable and equip leaders with those questions to live with those issue that is confront us. And so this year, which marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most pivotal moments in history, world war i or the great war as it was called, but extraordinary of people and uncertainty which altered the political and Cultural Landscape of the west. Over the course of the next few years after the start of the great war the sense of optimism and growing faith in technology that had characterized had seem to be the trade and lost. By the end of the great war, there were 16 million dead worldwide. Over 10 million soldiers and 6 mill civilians and, of course, the number of the wounded were far greater. The advances in science and technology that had offered so much promise for a healthier, wealthier better life, for so many more has been instead use today kill more efficiently and destroy more completely, and the extense of the carnage of a slaughter prompted a widespread and bitter questioning of Traditional Authority in belize including faith and the notion of divine goodness or justice. A century later we face new uncertainty, new threats and new tragedies but we craple with many questions. Is there a good god that can be trusted . Fare and despair, how do we disearn the good and redeem them . Our speaker tonight offer a case study of the life, work and friendship of two extraordinary writers. Both men served as soldiers in the western front, survived and use it had experience of that conflict to ignite their imagination of the true, the good and the beautiful. Out of utter december bring new life and new vigor into tradition of heroism sacrifice and divine grace. Its a remarkable and gripping story. Its hard to imagine someone who have put the story more e joe is a professor in new york city. , hes also been a senior at for policy center as well as the heritage foundation, and last but certainly not least has served as as distinguished fellow, writer and commentator, he has written for the washington post, new republic as well as International Credits where he is a regular contributor. Finally his four books include searchers, quest for faith and valley of doubt, the light god, liebt. As well as the end of illusion religious gather hit hitlers storm. Joe, welcome. [applause] thank you. I know you came here to talk about the First World War. Really im hear to go announce my campaign for president of the united states. [laughs] [applause] theres room for one more. Come on. I can do as good as you, panel. I have a campaign slogan. I picked it up when i was in naples. I lost my passport. A candidate, slogan all over naples. Here is the slogan. I will do nothing but i will do it very well. [laughs] thats my winning slogan. All right. But thank you so much. You know, theres no organization id rather be part of. Theres no organization here in washington, really any place doing the renewal work thats so vital and a friend of many, many years, many quality that is you have that have been such a gift to me that come to mind, loyalty and again weather he is a man without guile. Terrific to be here. I am astonished by the turnout. Thank you so much for coming. Its a testimony of token of lewis. I cant help to think of my life. My mom, my siblings, parents. My my ma mate rna t grandfather. Nice timing grandpa. Thank you. [laughs] my grand we will give you this option. Fight for us and we will make you a u. S. Citizen. Not our choice. Ninetyfirst Division Charley company. I dont know how much suffering he saw. He must have seen a good deal of it. It was part of the final assault that brought the germans to their knees. I wonder what might they say. I think theyd Say Something like this. What have you done, catastrophe, mama mya. Lets get into it. The last soldier to die was an american. He was killed at 10 59 a. M. November 11, one minute before it went into effect. He was 23 years old. He charged the gun. German soldiers aware try today waive them off. But gunter kept coming. Almost as he fell the gunfire died away. Well, despite parties and parade a brutal and appalling silence fell over much of the world. It was the stillness of souls bewildered by the carnage of most destructive war the world had ever seen. The tragedy of modern world civilization, the main reason why the 20th century turned into a disastrous epic. Injuries were to the structure of Human Society which century will not have face and prove fatal to the present civilization. Well, they called it the war to make it safe, the war to end wars, to usher in the kingdom of heaven. Before it was all over, nearly every family in europe was grieving the loss of a Family Member or carrying for a counted seld soldier. It you shalled ushered towards the values and ideals. It brought the end of innocence and faith. And yet for two extraordinary authors and friends, the great war deepened their spiritual quest. Both were thrown into the mechanized slaughter of the western front and experienced what would shape imagination. One of the most influential books. Now ranked among the classics. Think about it, a war, a war would never have been written. Battles are won by slaughter and man there were ten million soldiers dead, on average 6,046 men killed every day of the war, every day of a war that lasted 1,000 1,066 days. Many days and nights under fire on the western front. He fought in the battle of the down. Hes reflecting on this experience. Like tolkein, lewis lost most of his klose friends in the this conflict. By the mid18920s anyway arrived at Oxford University and they meet for the first time in 1926. And a bond of friendship is established that will transform their lives and their careers. Toll kin plays a crucial role in lewis coterrorist atheism to christianity, and lewis persuades toll tolkein to complete the landlord of the rings. It is hard to think of a more consequential friendship in the 20th century. Try to appreciate how out of step these authors were with their times. Both men write these epic tales awash in themes of war, sacrifice, valor, friendship, credit mythic worlds the backdrop of global conflict for the crucible for more to all and spiritual growth. These are not in the kind of stories people are writing in the post war years. Many veterans compose anti, fiercely antiwar novels. Memoirs, poetry. A large cohort offed countied men and women been moral cynics. They near at the idea of heroism or virtue. In the years after the conflict the cruelty and the senselessness of war, of any war, for any reason, become the dominant motifs of a generation. Think of the works or robert graves. Ernest hemingway, farewell to arms. All quiet on the western front. The watch word is disillusionment. A fierce cynicism about liberal democracy, christianity, and the achievements of western civilization. The shellshocked veterans thousands of them wandering the streets of europe in the post war years. The shellshock veteran becomes a walking metaphor for most or at least much of post war europe. Remember the main character in all quiet on the western front who expects to return to civilian life, weary, broken, burnt out, and without hope. This mood is acute, yes, among the writers, the artists, the public intellectuals, but it affects ordinary middle class europeans as well. Listen to a story in richards book the twilight years, dismay was a mainstream concern, he says. For the generation living after the end of the First World War, the prospect of imminent crisis, a new dark age, he says, became a habitual way of looking at the world. Although as catholic faith remains intact, j. R. R. Tolkein bee moans the collapse of all my world that began with his deployment to the western front. Well, trench fever takes tolkein out of the war. He was demobilized from the in 1919. Moves back to oxford with with wife and son. And his early academic success cannot ease the heartache of war. He experiences a time of sorrow and mental suffering. The loss of so many friends to the war produces in the word of his children, a lifelong sadness. C. S. Lewis went into the war as an athiest and came out an athiest, an athiest in a foxhole. He wrote a war poem with these lines for all our hopes and endless ruined live, let us curse god most high. Thats lewis in 1917, 1918. Wounded in combat in april 1918. Lewis send to a hospital in bristol where he writes to his father i could sid down and cry over the whole business. Nearly all my friend are gone. He returns to oxford, january 1919. To resume his studies in the classics. A few years later he records in his diary a conversation with a guy named the doc, and the doc is the kunkel of a fellow soldier who him was a war veteran. Kind of a shellshocked war veteran, this guy, the doc. They go for a walk. And this is what lewis wrote. We fell to talking of death all the other horrors hanging over one. The doc says if you top to think you couldnt endure this world for an hour. I left him and walked him. Means war thinkers and writes are unwilling to endure the world in its current form in a kind of spiritual vertigo takes hold. A frantic search four solutions the human predicament. Socialism, sciencism. These are attempts to solve or explain away the horrors that seemed to be hanging over the human race. So by the 1920s these ideas are gaining ground, rapidly in europe and in the united states. Listen to a story a profound sense of spiritual crisis was the hallmark of that decade, the 1920s. Affected rural laborers, large land owns, industrialists, factory workers, shop clerks, urban intellectuals. Well, having said all that, whats the point . These facts make the literary aims of j. R. R. Tolkein and c. S. Lewis all the more remarkable because they reject the moral agnosticism. Critics accuse them of nostalgia and medieval escapism themself authors, yes, wrapped their tales in fantasy and in myths, but do this in order to convey hard truths about the human condition, its darkness and futility as well as its virtues and it noblity. And lewis explain man builted against the universe, have we seen him at all until we see like he is a hero in a fairy tale. Tolkein and lewis are attract tote myth and romance not because they seek to escape the world because to them the real world has a mythic and heroic quality. Its the setting for what great conflicts and great quests. It creates scenes of remorseless violence and suffering as well as deep compassion and valor and sacrifice. Lets try to unpack their vision a bit, friends. First, try to unpact the bottle of water. First, tolkein and lewis are utterly realistic about the corrupting influence of power. They are utterly realistic about the corrupting influence of power. The desire for power. The desire to dominate others, often disguised by appeals to religion or to morals is a recuring them in their works. Virtually no character in their stories is immune to the temptation. And lewis prince caspian. A soldier in the fight turns traitor when the greatlyon fails to come to their aide when they call him. He makes the appalling suggestion his comrades enlist the help of the white witch. He says we want power and we want a power that will be on our side. In tolkeins trilogy we learn the wizard, originally committed to helping middle earth, has fallen under the sway of the arraign of power. Produce demands a temporary crime price with s roe an, the dark lord. He said we can keep our thoughtness outer hearts deploying evils done and approving the high and ultimate purpose. Sounds like washington, dc, doesnt it . Well, here the effect of the great war is manifest, isnt it . Despite an appeal to lofty moral principles none of the combatant nations resisted using the most horrific weapons available against the enemy. Mortars, machine guns, tanks, poison gas, flameflower, starve vacation, listen to winston churchill. When it was all over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients the civilized scientific Christian States have been able to deny themselves and these were of doubtful utility. I wick i wish i could write like that. And remember the social aftermath of the war. Communism, fastism, naziism, eugenics. These are the ideologies that arise in the exhaustion of the democracies of europe install the name of advancing the human race, all began by promising liberation from oppression, or became instruments of totalitarian control. Tolkein and lewis are acutely aware of these ideologies and react against them in their writing. They have no illusions about the cor rose crosssive influence of power. Its an age of heroism in the age of moral cynicism. The heroism is not a single act of bravery. The heros the product of a wellformed character. Character. Think about it. The hero emerges because of a series of choices to put the welfare of other people ahead of his or her own desires. The industrialized slaughter of the First World War the slaughter of the war damaged the very idea of choice of moral agency, of free will. After all, millions of men had been flung into the heartless machinery of a conflict that robbed them of their humanity. They were mutilated. Bombed. Bayoneted, gassed, incinerated, obliterated without mercy. The utter helplessness of the individual soldier on when front is a recuring theme of post war literature and the spirit of fat tallism begins to extend to society at large. Here are some book titles from the 1920s and 1930s. 1920, the end of the world. 1921, social decay and degeneration. 1923, the decay of capitalist civilization. 1926, the twilight of the white race. 1927. The decline of the west. 27. Will Service Crash . 19 will civilization crash . 1928. The day after tomorrow 1931, the problem of deck decadence. Exam to locontes, the dance of death. Bring your black shroud. Enough about me. Tolkein and lewis reject this mental outlook, this fatalism, and they insist that every person is caught up in a great moral contest and that our choices in this contest matter and they matter supremely. Remember the seen in the chronicles of naar narnia, when helped by the talking horses they race across the desert to warn narnia of the approaching army and before reaching their goal theyre attacked by by a lion. Shasta has a choice to make. Stop, must go back. Must help. Chas staff slimmed his feet out of the stirrups, flipped his legs over the left side, hesitate for one hideous, hundredth of a second and jumped. It hurt horribly but before he knew, he was staggering back to help aravis. Scenes like this would have been familiar to many combatants in the great war, the image of the soldier, throwing himself into harms way to rescue that fallen comrade. Think of the scene in lord of the rings when the hope hobbits gather before her and she delivers a warning, your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail. To the ruin of all. What are they to do . Each of them is faced with the appalling clarity of the choice laid before them. To continue in the quest, into certain danger and deprivation, or to take the safe and the easy way, and to turn back. Listen to tolkein. All of them it seemed had fared alike. Each felt he was offered a choice, a choice between a shadow full of fear that lay ahead and something that he greatly desired. Clear before his mind it lay, and to get it, he had only to turn aside from the road and leave the quest and the war against saron to others. So his bedrock belief in the responsibility to resist evil, the responsibility to resist evil, gives the writings of tolkein and lewis their dignity and their power. The reason their story is so fantastic cal in style, seem to speak into are you present reality. The war against evil is the moral landscape of our mortal lives, isnt it . Whatever format evil takes in our world, we are called to resist it. By seining on our responsibility to confront evil. Tolkein and lewis retrieve the medieval concept of the heroic quest. Think of the death of arthur, and reinvent this quest for the modern mind inch an era that exalts cynicism and irony, tolkein and lewis seem to reclaim the older tradition of the epic hero. Now, why . Why . Why do these to authors ignoring most powerful trends in their culture, embark on this task . Well, part of the answer, i think, is it lies in the battle feeds of france. It was there battlefields of france. Is there was assuage soldiers they encountered the virtues in the officers, the privates, the medics, on the western front. I i i wait there is, according to tolkein, the inspiration or his most beloved character occurred. Where did he get hissy for the hobbit . After the became a professor at oxford, he is sitting and grading student papers. Any teachers in the audience . How many of you like grading papers . Thank you very much. He is beside himself with these papers. I finds a blank sheet of paper and scrawls the words on the paper in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Just wrote those wordsment didnt know why. And later on reflecting he says, venally eventually i thought i better find out what hobbits are like. We now know what hire like, from tolkeins own account, the character of the hobbit is a reflection of the order soldier, steadfast in his duties while suffering in the dreary hole in the ground, the front line trench. Many of the members of the British Force were citizen soldiers and even during the most intensive campaigns along the western front, the british army showed a remarkable resilience, according to one historian, relative to other armies. They didnt break and run. Depend suffer a breakdown in morale or mutiny. The change in character that comes over sam in the lord of the rings is not unlike the transformation that toll win must have witnessed among this fellow soldiers. Even as hope died in sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sams plain hobbit face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither disspared no weariness nor endless miles could subdue. One of the most beloved heroic figures in modern literature is based on tolkeins firsthand knowledge of the virtues of the men in the trenches in the great war. Listen to tolkein on this. I have always been impressed we are here, surviving, because of the indominatable courage of quite small people against impossible odds. My sam gamje is indeed a reflection of the english soldier, of the privates i knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself. Well, the same could be said of any number of characters in lewis stories. Often its the humblest or the smallest the mouse. Who displays the greatest valor on the battlefield. As soldiers tolkein and lewis lived among these small people. Witness their courage under fire. Joked with them, mourned with them and watched them die, as veterans of the most destructive war the world has ever seen, they cannot this where is its emphasizing they cannot glorify its violence or its anguish, but neither, they accept the fatalism, and the zillion cynicism that has back to the it cant be the final word, not for them. And so we have this concept of heroism, reinvigorated and reinterpreted for the modern mind. Tolkein and lewis uphold the importance of friendship, friendship in our common struggle against evil. The heroic quest is not a solitaire endeavor. The story of steve ven Ambrose Reese meaned us of the truth with band of brothers. The story of the men of e company, americas 101st 101st airborne during the second world war. Within the company amade the best friends they would if have and this fact about the experience of combat was as relevant for the soldiers who went off to fight in 1914 as it was for those in 1939 or 1941. For tolkein and lewis, their personal knowledge of the fellowship of men under fire, it must rank as another defining experience for their literary lives. Lewis first established friendships like this with his brother, also a soldier in the British Expeditionary force, whom he called his dearest and closest friend, who understood the anxieties of combat, and a guy named lawrence johnson, lawrence johnson, who fought alongside lewis on the western front and shared his love for literature, and lewis clear dared chat the guy, johnson, quote, would have been a life long friend if he had not been killed. Hes moving toureds theism, and he wad endless arguments on that and every other topic whenever we were out of the line. Get the picture . A lull in the bombing and theyre arguing theology. The theme of friendship pulses through each of the narnia stories, doesnt it . Like a force of nature. It might even be said that friendship replaces romance as the preeminent expression of love in lewis stories. It flourishes among the children, twin the children and the noble narniaans and all who serve and love and obedience. Listen to lewis turning to to the experience of war to explain what distinguished the love month friends from all other earthly loves. Youll not find a warrior, the poet, the christian, by staring into his eyesayou were his mistress but to fight had blizzard him, read with him, argue with, he, pray with him. Its the ceremony for tolkein who is devoted to his inner circle of friends, his band of brothers. In 1916, they held anywhere open war meeting in london. Called it the council of london, expecting to be sent into the theater of war at any moment. And at that meeting they shared their deepest hopes and dreams for the future. Tolkein reflecting later says, this is where his sense of vocation was quick ended with the men in that room on the day. Is it a co distance dense that the concept of friendship amid the suffering of war is one of the great themes of lord of the rings. Frodo, gandalf, the gray. Called the fellowship of the ring. When frodo arrives, before setting out into the old forest, he is determine to leave on his own. Doesnt want to expose his companions to the perils that lie ahead, and yet merry and pipin and sam are wise to his ways. They insist on coming with him. Frodo protests. Merry is unflappable. You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin, to the bitter end, and you can trust us to keep any secret of yours closer than you keep it yourself, but you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone and to go off without a word; were your friends, frodo, we know a good deal about the ring. Were herefully afraid but were coming with you. Were following you like hounds. Theres a question for us. Do we have a few friends . Following us like hounds . Well, the bond of friendship between sam and fred dough is one of the fred dough is one of the moral tripe ump try triumphs of the word. Remember at the end over questions, they weak from thirst, exhaustion, nearly overwhelmed by the deslace of the landscape, the lack of another living thing. The black skies, ash and slag and burned stone and the smell of death. It is a scene not unlike what tolkein experienced at the battle. They staggered toward the goal. Frodo weaken be the great burden of the ring begins to crawl. Listen to tolkein. Sam went in his heart but no tears came to his dry eyes. Say dade id carry him if it broke pri back and i will. Come, mr. Frodo, i cant carry it for youve but i can carry you and it as well. So come on, me frodo. Sham will be you a ride. Just tell him where to go and hell go. I suspect, ladies and gentlemen, that only individuals who knew friendship of this kind, who experienced it in the field of combat, could write passages of such grit and courage and noblity. After the war, tolkein and lose with sought to recapture Something Like the intense comradeship that sustained them during the cries years of 1914 and 1918. So at oxford the launch the inklings, those who dabble in ink. The group of friends and fill low scholars who meet weekly to read and discuss their work and have a pint or two or three. Well, tolkein helps lieu twice find a publisher for his first Science Fiction novel in 1938. Most importantly it was tolkeins conversation with lewis on the night of september 19th, 1931, they talked until 2 00 in the morning. About the nature of myths and about christianity as a true myth. It was this conversation that lewis himself described as the immediate human cause of his conversion to christianity. Well, for his part, lewis becomes for tolkein his great advocate for pursuing his hobbitry. As tolkein described it, lewis gift was his sheer encouragement over many years to keep on. Listen to tolkein. He, lou is was for long my only audience. Only from him did i get the idea my stuff do coo be more than a private hobby. But for his eggerness i should never have brought lord of the rings to a conclusion. Well, when lewis learns that lord lord landlord has been accepted lord of the rings has been accepted for publication, he writes a letter about the pleasure of having the back to read and then the reveals the importance of the book to their lives with these lines so much of your whole life, so much of our joint life, so much of the war, so much that seemed to be slipping away, into the past, is now in a sort made permanent. Do you catch what he is saying . In this trilogy, tolkein has captured something of the essence of their life together a mysterious way. Heres a glimpse of what friendship can look like when it reaches for high purpose and is watered by the streams of sacrifice and loyalty and love. All of this, ladies and gentlemen, is part of their achievement but i think they accomplished something else. We cannot overstate how profoundly sub versesive, sub versesive, and countercultural the works of tolkein and lewis were in their own day and remain so in our own. The soldier of the First World War lived through end day days of stench, water, and death. It shook the very foundations of civilized life. Listen to church hill. All the horrors of the ages were brought together and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. T. S. Eliot, saul the post world war as a wasteland of human weariness. I think were in rats alley, he wrote, where the dead men lost their bones. After returning home from the war, tolkein and lewis might easily have joined the ranks of the rootless and the disbelieving. Instead, instead, they faced the problem of war and suffering with realism. Realism but not resignation. For them, there is no shortcut to the land of peace. No primrose path to mansions of the blessed. First come tears and suffering in mordor, hart has and violence at stable hill, and horror and death at dalgata. Their stories insist we do live in a moral universe. War is the sim of the ruin and wreckage of human life but can inspire noble sacrifice for humane purposes. War would sometimes be necessary, they concluded, to preserve human freedom. Remember the lords the captain of gondor in lord of the rings. War must be, her says, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all, but i do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the war for his glory. I love only that which they defend. These giants of literature created mythic and heroic figures who nevertheless make a claim upon our concrete and ordinary lives, dont they . They challenge us to join with them in their struggles against the dark forces of the world, and it is a desperate struggle, ladies and gentlemen, isnt it . And this leads us to the most surprising element of their achievement. In the worlds created by toll kin and lewis, the struggle against evil is only possible because theres a source of grace and goodness outside of ourselves. We can only struggle against evil because theres a source of grace and goodness outside of ourselves. For all the accusations of medieval escapism, tolkein and lewis come closure to capturing the tragedy of the human condition that any postmad concern cynic. By the end of the book, frodo has given up the thought of ultimate success or even survival. Hope failed. And in comes, he tells sam, we have only a little time to wait now. We are lost in ruin and downfall and theres no escape. At the climax of his journey, the fires of mount doom, despite all of his courage and strength, frodo failed in his quest. He failed. He chooses not to destroy the ring but instead succumbs to its power and places it once again on his finger. I do not choose now to do what i came to. Do the ring is mine. Tolkein explained that theme this way. One must face the fact the power of evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures however good they may be. Heres where tolkein and lewis depart most radically from the spirit of the age. Think before our mod detales of virtue and heroism, the super cop, super spies, a protagonist who always saves the day by his or her natural intelligence, strength of will good, looks, fire power. Right . Its america, second amendment, baby, right . I believe in the second amendment. Dont panic out there. Lets ask a modern hero, right . The moral vision in the works of tolkein and lewis is fundamentally different. The hero cannot let me underscore the hero cannot by his own efforts prevail in the struggle against evil. The forces arrayed against him as well as the weakness within him make victory impossible. The tragic nature of this quest begins to dawn on him to oppress him, until the moment when a final failure seems inevitable, and now the michiganic dimension of their stories reaches its zenith. Like the best fairy tales they provide to the consolation of the happy ending, what toll kin called the sudden joyous turn toward rescue and redemption. Its the reversal of a catastrophe but tolkein called the you catastrophe, a de desizesive act of agrees to restore what has been lost and setting thises right. Frodos defeat is overturned i bay power stronger than our weakness, tolkein identifies the power as, quote, that one everpresent person who has never absent and never named, and so it is of gollum, given by his list to dominate. Bites awful frodos finger which bears the ring, only to fall into the ring of fire. The ring i destroyed but not by frodo but by grace in lewis childrens stories the crowning moment of grace occurs in the last battle as the king, the children, and a faithful remnant of narniaans fight the way to the stable, the last battle of the last king of unanimousa, spoiler alert. We are led to believe that inside the stable is certain death. The stronghold of an allpowerful evil, i feel in my bones, says pagen, we shall all pass through the dark door by morning. I can think of a hundred deaths i would rather have died. As the company is forced inside the doors, all hope seems lost. And here again comes the joyous turn. The great lion has innovated the stable, cast ode the demon and turn the stable into a portal to the country, the children watch as narnia is destroyed and a new world nearly more beautiful than their hearts can bear, is called into being. Listen to lewis. As the old narnia, that assaulted the narnia that have been mattered have been drawn through door and the character of lucy, lucy captures the simple powerfullism of the stable in the goss bell accounts, the birthplace of the messiah, the lion of the tribe of judah, of jesus, in bethlehem. In our world, too, lucy says, stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world. The epic tales of rescue and sacrifice are strangely familiar to us, because we have heard them or rumors of them before. For these two giants of literature there was only one truth, one singular event, that could end the long war against evil, and undo the tragedy of the human condition and bring lasting peace. The return of the king. The return of the king inch narnia the king is the greatlyon, only the lion knows the way to the blessed realm that lies beyond the sea. The light ahead was growing strong are, writes lewis. Lucy saw that a great series of many colored cliffs lit up in front of them like a Giant Staircase and then she forget Everything Else because the lion was coming. Leaping from cliff to cliff. Like a living of power and beauty. This king comes in power, and in beauty, as the voice of conscience and the source of consolation of the lion and the lamb, here is the union of tenderness and severity as lewis put it, of terror and comfort intertwined. In tolkeins story the king is aragorn, the chief hero of the lord of the rings. Heir to gondor, he life i devoidded to war against saron but his true stature is known only after sarons defeat when he finally assumes his throne. Listen to tolkein. When aragon arose, all that beheld him gatessed in silence. It seemed he was revealed to them now for the first time, tall as the sea kinks old, he stood above all that were near. Ancient of days, he seemed, and yet in the flower hoffmanhood, wisdom on his brow and strength and healing in his hands and a light was about him and then it was cried, behold the king. Here is a vision of human life that is at once terrifying and sublime. A world, our world, in which every soul is caught up in an epic struggle against evil. A story of sacrifice and courage and clashing armies. The return of the king. This is the day, ladies and gentlemen, when every heart will be laid bear, the day when we will know, we will know, with inexpressible joy or unspeakable zero whether we have chosen lying or darkings in. Its no these mythic tale offered here rhythm and sacrifice and redemption that we find a clue to the meaning of our earthly journey. Is everything sad going to come untrue . Asks sam. For the creators of narnia and middle eater, middle earth, this is the belief that god and goodness are the ultimate realities and the shadow of sin and suffering will finally and forever be lifted from our lives. The great war will be won. This king, who brings strength and healing in his hand, will make everything sad come untrue. Thank you for listening. [applause] thank you, thank you. Thank you. I think we have a little time how much time for q a. Ten15 minutes of q a. If you can structure your question to borrow from my friend, structure youre question in the form of a question. That would be lovely. First of all, damn you, joe loconte. How did you get in here . You get a question in one second. Your words made me cry. And i dont like you that well. That you could make me cry. When Charles Colson died, everybody at the funeral got a lapel pin. It said, remain at your posts. Do your duty. I remember that. How would you think that tolkein and lewis would tell us today, what is our post, what is our duty . Terrific question, john, thank you for that. You know, they felt their own particular sense of calling and vocation was in writing and literature. Right . That is the genre, the field that they wanted to be successful in. Thats part of the reason they devoted themselves to meet together to help each other become the best at their craft. You can imagine imagine those settings with these great writers, sitting around for a few hours critiqueing each others work. Tolkein said he read every chapter, virtually every chapter, of the lord of the rings outloud to c. S. Lewis, because he lewis has a gift for criticism, constructive, brilliant criticism when he heard things read outload. Coal continue now that and wanted that. So their commitment to the craft was so crucial so they met for 16 years more or less, every week, every thursday, also i think on tuesdays in lewiss rooms through the second world war, these guys are meeting because theyre so devoted to helping each other become the best at their craft. Thats the initial thing. We have to make commitment to that as we understand our own individual caution to say before god, want to be a person of integrity and excellence in this craft because i know at the end of the day thats going to have ripple effects. That could never have anticipated the influence their writings have but they were devoted to excellence, integrity. Thank you, john. Scratching the surface. Over here. Please tell me your name. Thank you for coming to talk to us, i enjoyed your speech. Id like to read a quote from a fellow englishmen to those guys, perhaps a generation or so earlier. I wondered if you could talk to us about what they may think about this quote war is an ugly thing but not the uglyist of things. The greatest state o moral and patriot rick feeling which thinks michigan without war is nothing wore, the person who has nothing for which he willing to fight, nothing which is more important that this oregon personal safety its miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than themselves. Thank you for the quote. A great question. There was in the post war years in then 1920s this one of the benefits of trying to teach American Foreign policy and hoyt. I save constantly, thank god the students come in as blank slates. They dont know what i dont know. Angels of mercy protect us. But you do figure out something about those post war years the reaction against the First World War was a mood of pacifism and withdrawal and unwillingness to face unpleasant realities. Neither tolkein or lewis weapon into the war as holy warriors. There barrett flick First World War from the rhetoric from the ministers, not the guys in the trenches. They decide not come out of the as pacifists but were sobered by that. Lewis wrote in 1941, 1942 the second war is on hitch says we know from the experience of the last 20 years, meaning from 1918 to 1938 that an angry and fearful pacifism is one of the roads that leads to war. He is reflecting on the decade of appease independent the 1930s they allowed fascism to rise unchallenge it. Part of their response ewar is just about the worst thing that can happen to human beings and yet there are some things that are even worse and you see this what i love about the heroic figures theyre reluctant warriors so often. Filled with selfdoubt and struggle, and theyre not try when they win, theyre surprised the won the battle. Theyre stunned they won. So theres a realism, i think, about come bat and war that they experienced that they infuse into their stories, but also theyre not going to give up on the idea of a just war, war for decent and humane and noble purposes. They wont give up on it. A necessary tonic. Maybe somebody over here in the shadow cabinet over there. You guys on the breecher seat believer bleacher seats and i felt for you. Youre part of the shadow cabinet, john go ahead. Thank you. I would say one that your talk was full of hope and very inspiring and i appreciate that. And with humor. We obviously take this talk in light of contemporary the society of the world were living in today, and would you have are you obviously talking in washington, dc what would you say are some insights you had in researching this book that might be helpful for some of our National Readers . Thats a great question, john, thank you for that. What stands out to me about these men, one of the great things about working on the book you get into the writings, the journals, the letters of these men which they never intended to publish, and your admiration for them grows and deepens. Part of what this guys were able to do which is so manifest in their stories is avoid the two extremes that became to popular in their day. They avoided the extreme attitude of militarism, uteenannism, on the one hand. We can change the world ration make it in our own image, whether through war or ideology, they avoid utopianism and also avoided cynicism and navigated between the two emotional, psychological extremes, and did that through their lives and writings, and i sometimes wonder with could use a little bit more of that at all canes of all kind of levels. Doesnt mere their stories arent filled with gripping tales of good versus evil. Those elements are there. But theres an awareness about the tragedy of the human condition and it comes out of their christian understanding of the human person, the tragedy of the human condition, and yet with the grace of god, Amazing Things can happen, with the grace of god but with the cooperation of the individual. Individual wills matter. So they avoid the cynicism, avoid fatalism, place a supreme emphasis on individual decisionmaking, dont they . Individual decisionmaking throughout the stories shocking to me for almost from the first page to the last page of both works, people have choices to make, whether theyre whether its an animal or human you have choices to make for good or for evil. That is just a scene throughout. I think this awareness of this fundamental dignity of the individual, new orleans of the individual choices, other another hugely important thing. Thats worth recalling. Yes . How about that young lady in the back. Tell me your name. My name is emily. I really liked your comment about how friendship is emphasized more than romance in narnia and in lord of the rings as well, and i was wondering if you could talk about why our culture today seems to value romance more than friendship . Wow. Terrific question, which is way above my pay grade. And experience. Its a terrific question. Let me see if i can scratch the surface of that one. Why has friendship taken this sort of back seat to romance . Look, heres one possible answer itch dont know how helpful. When i think that be friendships these men formed they were friendships about not for their own sake but friendships for the sake of a great cause, great and noble cause. And thats where the frontships are forged. And i it seems to me one of the dangers we have in our culture, we he this idea of friendship its Holding Hands and sharing precious promises and no great cause to attach ourselves to. No crucible of conflict. No challenge to which we have defend indicate ourselves in friendship dedicated ourselves in friendship, and if you dont believe there are great causes worth being part of, great moral truths to attach yourself to, that is going weaken friendship, undermine friendship. Its the life in great moral truth great challenges. A force of evil in the world. Thats what an mates the friendships in both tales. Take away the moral landscape, the idea of good and evil and great transcendent truthsworth fighting and dying for. Theres no sevenships. That interiors point to friendship, right . Whats the friendship about . That part of the reason, so if thats part of the problem. The weakening of belief in these great truth, animating truths, the weakening of friendship or what is going fill the vacuum most easily is romance. So easy. So tempting. And there is it, a partial answer. Thank you for the question. I cant do it justice. Who else. Right here. Yes, sir. Tell me your name. Ryan. Yes, ryan. My question is, you briefly alluded to the world war ii in their writings, but how much of an effect and in what way did it have on their outlook on the world and their writings themselves. World war ii . Uhhuh. Terrific question. Tolkein they assumed when the lord of the rings came out in the 1950s it was an al gore, a warning again atomic power. The ring was a great allegorical symbol. And toll kin says in a tolkein says in a letter, of course its not about atomic power. Its about power. And the desire to dominate. Thats what the says the books are about. Thats what he says the books are about. The desire for power. The desire to dominate hospital. Did the in the chronicles of narnia you have the whole children fleeing london, the whole setting. Tolkein acknowledges and says he began writing builts and pieces of this epic trilogy while he was in a dugout. In canteens, underfire, bits and pieces and fragments he is writing in 1916, 1917. Beginning to forge this mythology that he wants to give to his beloved england, this new mythology. Because i focused on the First World War, was filtering my study through that. At the end of the day, they both have a lot to say. If you go into their writings about during that period, theyre so often harkening back to the First World War, and what it meant tolkein writes a letter to his son, christopher, serving in the Royal Air Force and his son is anxious about the war, what is going on, and tolkein writes and says, i know what its like to feel like youre the toad, youre in dangerous place but he says, remember that youre inside a very great story. Trying to encourage his son. And he also says in that letter it was during that time when he was in that place in the First World War he began to use his writing as a way to somehow express in a constructive way the struggle and the grief and she sorrow he was experiencing, to give a constructive outlet. Im not get agent your question, but getting at your question but the 1940 war then 19394041 war, in a sense is a confirmation in many ways of the narrative power of their stories. I think its part of the reason is a rejuvenation of tolkein and lewis after the war years. Their story of the human tragedy, the tragedy of the human condition, now playing itself out again in the second world war. Two more questions. Okay. This gentleman over here and then well come back over here. Tell us your name . Him nick, here with values capitalism conference minimum question is, how you would think lewis and to kin would answer the question of how to know the world and still love it . They obviously knew the pains and evils of the world in a very specific way, having gone through world war i. So, they they obviously produced books to be for the good of the world and true and goodness of the world. Your thoughts. Thats a terrific question. Im thinking here of lewis, and what so whattize his journey to faith and his life and he had been through a lot, just like tolkein. Lost his mother at a young age, First World War. Carrying for an elderly woman, all kinds of struggle and hardship but the experience of joy that lewis learned to make part of his life, the ability, the capacity to stop and appreciate beauty, physical beauty or moral beauty. He developed that capacity. And i think thats a learned trait. I think we have to decide were going to stop and appreciate. So, for example, while he is still an agnostic but moving towards theism, and ill try to quotas closely as i can. He is on a train, injured in three places, a mortars goes off, take him out of the war elm he is on a train to recover at a hospital in england and crossing through this beautiful english countryside and writes in a letter to his friend, after lives at the hospital, you cant imagine how beautiful that train ride was, the sight of the sea, which i have missed for so long, and the sight of the poppies, the gold in the fields. And then he says, im beginning to think there is some source of beauty beyond this Natural World but i dont know what it is. And it begins to capture him. The experience of joy and beauty. So i think developing that capacity, developing that spiritual muscle, if you will, is probably a crucial part of the answer. We all have it. But i dont think its going to happen naturally and theres so much that drowns it out and discourages us from exercising that muscle. Does that help . Yeah. We had somebody over here. My name is mark charles. I just moved here from the and a half sew res have navajo nation. I am a huge fan of c. S. Lewis. Was not ware of his experience with the war, and of how he was using his books to make people aware of the horrors of the war and write about it in his or bring the themes and help the audience wrestle with the themes. As native american, living in the united states, one of the things that we suffer at that time we wrestle with is our history that has been marginalized and dehumanized and so how do we how do you think trying to think how to best phrase this question tolkein and lewis brought a dialogue regarding the horrors of war to their audiences. As a nation, we tend to celebrate our exceptionalism and yet we dont know how to talk about the fact that 30 lines below the statement, all men are cateed equal, refers to natives as merciless indian savages. What can we done today help our society deal with it own horrors. Thank you for that. One thing i do in my western civilization class that i teach at the kings college. Some students here who endured hi rantings. Thank you for coming, came back for more punishment. I start the class wiz film clip from the good, the bad and the ugly. That great spaghetti western. The point there is to introduce my students to the idea that western civilization and the american expression of it has a good and the bad and the ugly. And what were going to try to do in the class that, we should do in our own respective spheres, we should go into this path with our eyes open and avoid the extremes of cynicism and utopianism, and seems to me that is another acquired sort of discipline, mental discipline, but suggests a character issue as well at the end of the day, the ability to navigate between the two. When you think about lewis and tolkein and their writings, is dont thing theyre glow glorifying war or trying to glorify their countries role in war. When you think about the characters and their stories, almost all of them are prone to great temptation and a fall. Theyre all vulnerable. To the lure of the lust for power. No one is immune to that. Then on the other hand, theres almost no creature who is beyond redemption. So even a gollum. Remember about the creature who may have a part to play yet in all this. Frodo wants to get this career temperature are tour and kill him. And gandolf says, no, mercy. Flow dough frodo this wicked creature could be redeemed. So thats perspective of realism but not cynicism, not utopianism, and not fatalism as we evaluate our history and come to grips if grips with it. At the end of the day. Thank you so much. [applause] Janice Nimura recounts the story of five win who come to the united states. Daughters of the samurai. Also here tonight Marie Mutsuki mockett. I just want to tell you a little bit about the two ladies. Janice graduated in tokyo,