One of my favorite scenes from C. S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle, is where the forces of good in Narnia are fighting the Calormene forces of evil. However in this last battle there is a third army that is quite unanticipated to the reader and that is the dwarf army who are only on their own side. As the scene unfolds the Dwarf army are equal opportunity killers. Whenever they sense that either the good Narnians or the evil Calormenes are getting the upper hand they unleash a fuselage of arrows into the ranks of the advantaged force. With each fuselage Lewis has the Dwarves, who having been deceived by a false Aslan and thus refuse to believe in the true Aslan, reciting, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.” Lewis later uses the Dwarves to illustrate his vision of purgatory.
The reason I’ve always been drawn to this particular section because the situation Lewis imagines, with a few emendations, is so easy to imagine metaphorically in our current situation. Imagine, if, instead of the two forces fighting being clear good against unalterable evil what you have are two forces that are each evil of a different stripe fighting one another. And imagine instead of the Dwarves being selfish boneheads, they were, in our new scenario, God’s armed Heavenly host. In such a altered scenario you could easily find yourself chanting with the Dwarves, as they unleashed fuselage after fuselage into the ranks of both wicked armies, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.”
In many respects this is the situation that we find ourselves in the contemporary Church and also in the larger culture. Two opposing movements set themselves against each other and then those two opposing movements are presented to us as being, depending which side you’re on, as clear good vs. unalterable evil. Then we are told that we must choose which side we are going to be on. More often then not though, I feel like one of Lewis’ belligerent Dwarves who replies, while stringing his bow w/ whatever arrows that can be found laying around, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.
Take for example the whole Federal Vision vs. the Escondido Hermeneutic. For years it has been suggested that one side is clear good while the other side is unalterable evil. For years we’ve been told, “You have to choose one side or the other.” Yeah, well, all I can say in response is, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.” Or take the whole Postmodern Emergent theology vs. Enlightenment driven theology. Once again, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.”
Consider in our larger cultural context as it applies to the realm of politics. What it all tends to get reduced down to is having to choose between the Republicans vs. the Democrats. You guessed it. While somebody is passing me the arrows I’m already chanting, “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.”
Look, in the end I refuse to be convinced by false dichotomies. I would rather be launching arrows into both sides of a false dichotomy then be forced to plight my trough to any false option. I would rather be surrounded by a faithful small tribal band of other fellow warrior Dwarves who won’t be fooled again and who know the chant well that “The Dwarves are for the Dwarves.”
Was Lewis’s point not that the Dwarves’ cynicism had blinded them from seeing the truth?
Certainly this is the rallying cry of our generation: “I won’t be fooled again. The Dwarves are for the Dwarves!”
Think of all we’ll miss out on, because we gave up too soon.
Kyle,
Yes, I that clearly is Lewis’ point. However, our generation, in my estimation, needs to be far more cynical than it has, to date, been.
Lewis, of course, was trying to create a third category of people who do not exist. Jesus said, “he does not with me gather, scatters.” Jesus divided people into either evil Calormens or righteous horses. There is no third party dwarfs.
That is why I altered Lewis’ scenario, ever so slightly..