Escape From Puritania

Escape From Puritania | Joseph Pearce | An Excerpt from C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church

I dreamed of a boy who was born in the land of Puritania and his name was John. – The Pilgrim's Regress [1]

The opening sentence of The Pilgrim's Regress, C. S. Lewis's first attempt at autobiography, serves as an appropriate place at which to commence our quest to understand Lewis's complicated and often problematic relationship with the Catholic Church. The boy of whom Lewis was dreaming was in fact himself. In the preface to the third edition of The Pilgrim's Regress, Lewis described John's 'Regress' as 'my journey', [2] indicating unequivocally that he was the Pilgrim at the centre of the autobiographical allegory. It is also significant that Lewis chose the medium of allegory as the means by which to write his autobiography, since the juxtaposition of allegory and autobiography signifies that there is an underlying meaning to life.

Our goal, therefore, will be to follow Lewis in the manner by which he meant to lead us. We shall endeavour to understand the meaning of his life by trying to understand his life as a pilgrimage in search of the meaning of life itself This was his intention in writing The Pilgrim's Regress and also his intention in writing his other autobiographical works, Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed. We shall take him as he meant to be taken and shall follow in his footsteps, and mind-steps, as he traveled in search of the Truth.

Lewis's journey begins in Puritania, a place that has two levels of meaning. On the allegorical or metaphysical level–the level of Truth–it represents Puritanism; on the physical level–or the level of Fact–it represents Lewis's childhood in the Puritanical atmosphere of Protestant Belfast.

It would be a grave mistake to ignore the importance of Lewis's place of birth on the subsequent shaping of his mind, heart and life. It would also be a mistake to ignore the extent to which the poisonous twins of pride and prejudice exert a vice-like grip on those brought up in the sectarian shadow of Ulster in general, and Belfast in particular. For those who have never been to Belfast, and who have never savoured the bitterness that descends like an omnipresent fog over its warweary and war-worried inhabitants, no words will convey the power that all-pervasive prejudice wields on both sides of the religious divide. [3]

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Comments

[Irishman]

Why the invented term "Puritania" rather than, say, Northern Irish Protestant fundamentalism?

[Carl E. Olson]

As Pearce discusses, the term "Puritania" comes from Lewis, from The Pilgrim's Regress. It has the bonus of being both more poetic and pithy than "Northern Irish Protestant fundamentalism."