In 1917, a young British man, who would one day become a world famous writer, found himself serving with the Somerset Light Infantry in the Great War in France. He hit the front lines on his nineteenth birthday.
He was an eyewitness to the brutal trench warfare that characterized World War I. During his time in France he contracted trench fever; he was hit by shrapnel in the left hand, left leg, and under the left arm; and he lost many close friends and schoolmates. He even accidentally captured a group of German soldiers.
Between the two World Wars this young man, C.S. Lewis, became a tutor at University College and was later elected a Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. But more importantly, he was converted to Jesus Christ.
On the evening of October 22, 1939, Oxford undergraduates packed into the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin hoping for words of comfort and encouragement. Recently, war had been declared on Germany, and an ominous cloud of unrest and fear covered Oxford. It was hoped that Lewis, an ex-soldier and committed Christian, could help put the crisis into perspective.
As the sun withdrew and the stained glass windows grew dark inside St. Mary’s, Lewis climbed the stairs to the elevated pulpit and said,
UNIVERSITY is a society for the pursuit of learning. As students, you will be expected to make yourselves, or to start making yourselves . . . into Philosophers, scientists, scholars, critics, or historians. And at first sight this seems to be an odd thing to do during a great war. What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? Or, even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we--indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?He continued,
I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life." Life has never been normal.Do you remember where you were on September 11, 2001? I remember receiving a call from my mother on that terrible day. She just wanted to talk. Like so many members of so many families throughout our nation, she just wanted to hear the voice of a family member. I told her that I had just finished reading Lewis’s address, now entitled “Learning in War-time,” and I was deeply moved. September 11 brought home to us all the precariousness and uncertainty of life.
Not long ago, I was sitting where you are sitting. I remember our first visit to Chamberlain-Hunt Academy, meeting administers and teachers, touring the campus. What do I remember most about that first visit? Testosterone! Men training men.
My son, Harrison, was a cadet at Chamberlain-Hunt Academy for years. These were not always easy years. I remember Harrison’s words: “Okay Dad, I’ve learned a lot at Chamberlain-Hunt. I’m ready to come home.” And that was after just three days! As I said, he was here for years. Cindy and I remember the letters, report cards, conversations with teachers and administrators, the athletic activities, and the opportunities to come visit.
I also remember the day, later, when Harrison said to me, “Dad, I don’t know where I’d be without Chamberlain-Hunt.” To this day, when Harrison needs to make an important decision, one of the first people he calls is Colonel Blanton.
Harrison now serves in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team stationed in Vicenza, Italy. He loves jumping out of airplanes and helicopters only to be surrounded by bad people. He obviously takes after his mother! Cindy and I witnessed Harrison’s final jump and attended his graduation at Fort Benning, Georgia. We walked with him through military security at the Atlanta airport. We waved goodbye as he boarded the flight for Italy.
Recently, the Ruling Elders at out church laid hands upon, and prayed for, a young man who was going off to boot camp with the Marine Corps. We prayed for the family. We waved goodbye—again.
In “Learning in War-time,” Lewis stressed the importance of 1 Cor. 10:31 (NASB): “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” He emphasized three points of application: (1) remember the past, (2) live faithfully in the present, and (3) trust God with the future.
First, remember the past:
Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the educated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.Second, live faithfully in the present:
Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.Third, trust God with the future:
Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why the cancer at sixty or the paralysis at seventy-five do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration.
We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.I’ll leave you with this: General Omar Nelson Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed an Armistice Day Luncheon of the Boston Chamber of Commerce on November 10, 1948. His words were profound and prophetic.
Here is an excerpt:
We have too many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.Chamberlain-Hunt Academy is far from perfect. But the men who lead this institution don’t equivocate about their calling and commitment. They seek to mold men of strength, character, and integrity—in very uncertain times.
May God continue to use this place in the service of Jesus Christ, our nation, and our world!
