Upstream

Why did C. S. Lewis describe bad teaching methods—out of a grammar text, no less—as “the abolition of man?” Wasn’t he being a tad dramatic? Not if you understand Lewis’ biblically-and-theologically-informed view of what it means to be human, and how evil dehumanizes us. Let me explain.

Scripture speaks of the penalty for sins in various ways. Sometimes, it describes it as “outer darkness” where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Other times it pictures a pit of burning sulfur, or a lake of fire, suggesting fathomless pain, anguish, and disintegration. Paul speaks of the penalty of evil as God “giving over” those who suppress knowledge of Him and worship the creation, instead. Such people receive in themselves “the due penalty” of their wickedness. But from Genesis to Revelation, the dominant word used to describe God’s judgment on sin is death.

Death isn’t hard to define. On a physical level, we know it. It’s cessation of life and decay—a reduction of order or dissolution of being. An animal that dies returns, with the help of bacteria, scavengers, and entropy, to its constituent elements. So do we. But beyond the physical, much the same may be true. The Bible speaks of a spiritual death, and right from the beginning treats it as the chief problem of mankind.

Adam and Eve, though threatened with death for disobedience, didn’t go into cardiac arrest the moment they stole the fruit. A literal translation of the Hebrew curse is instructive: “Dying ye shall die.” Theologians through the centuries have read this as a suggestion that though our first parents’ bodies would certainly die in due course, they suffered or began to suffer an even more serious, internal death the moment they declared their independence from God.

The New Testament picks up the theme of spiritual death. In Ephesians 2, Paul describes fallen man as “dead in trespasses and sins” even while we’re still breathing. In Revelation, John calls eternal damnation “the second death.” And the New Jerusalem is heavenly precisely because it is a place where “death is no more.”

Most importantly, Scripture tells us that the wages of sin (death, both physical and spiritual) were dealt with for Christians in the death of Christ. In Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 15, and the second chapters of Galatians, Colossians, 2 Timothy, and Hebrews, we read that those united with Christ died with Him. And Christian writers in the centuries afterward got the message.

In “On The Incarnation,” Athanasius writes: “…thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under the penalty of corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father—doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone…”

What does all of this have to do with The Abolition of Man and evil? Well, as Andrew Lazo and I discussed this week on Upstream, Lewis argued that educating a child out of his belief in value judgments was the first step in a process that, if followed to its conclusion, would abolish the child’s humanity and lead him to damnation.

Lewis depicts the end of that process in at least two places in his fiction. One is in “The Great Divorce,” where damned souls occasionally take a tour bus to the outskirts of Heaven. There, the redeemed meet them and plead with these lost sinners to repent and accept God’s help.

The thing the main character—himself one of the damned—first notices is that Heaven is an unbearably solid place. The light is too bright, the colors too strong, and the surroundings too real for the ghostly, near-transparent souls who ride the bus up from Hell and Purgatory. Even the grass hurts their feet, and lifting a fallen leaf takes all their strength. And when the condemned are offered a chance at Heaven, nearly all of them refuse. The part of them that could accept or even understand that offer has long since withered away and faded from reality. They are barely human, anymore.

Lewis’ second depiction of man’s abolition is more chilling. In the second of his “Space Trilogy,” the main character confronts an interplanetary traveler possessed by the Devil. This “Un-Man” is nothing like what the hero expects a soul totally dominated by evil to be. Rather than smooth Mephistopheles or Milton’s tragic Satan, or even a corrupt politician, Elwin Ransom meets a cross between an imbecile, a monkey, and a very nasty child.

“Up till that moment,” writes Lewis, “whenever he had thought of Hell, he had pictured the lost souls as being still human; now, as the frightful abyss which parts ghosthood from manhood yawned before him, pity was almost swallowed up in horror—in the unconquerable revulsion of the life within him from positive and self-consuming Death. If the remains of Weston were, at such moments, speaking through the lips of the Un-man, then Weston was not now a man at all. The forces which had begun, perhaps years ago, to eat away his humanity had now completed

their work. The intoxicated will which had been slowly poisoning the intelligence and the affections had now at last poisoned itself and the whole psychic organism had fallen to pieces. Only a ghost was left—an everlasting unrest, a crumbling, a ruin, an odour of decay.”

Lewis wasn’t the first to describe evil this way, or recognize its corrosive effects on image-bearers. Augustine wrote in His “Confessions” that “God alone is truly real. Everything else is neither wholly real nor wholly unreal,” and that if we do not remain in Him, neither will we remain in ourselves.

This was the basis of his understanding of evil. In his “Enchiridion,” Augustine denies that evil has any substance or existence of its own, “for if it were a substance, it would be good.” Instead, he teaches that evil is a “privation of good,” comparing it with wounds in the body, and noting how when wounds are healed, they cease to exist.

“Evils, therefore, have their source in the good, and unless they are parasitic on something good, they are not anything at all.” But this also means that “corruption cannot consume the good without consuming the thing itself.”

And here we grasp a little more firmly why Lewis writes with such moral urgency in “The Abolition of Man.” In this short book, he confronts a way of teaching value judgments that undermines students’ ability to comprehend the true, the good, and the beautiful. This attack on objective morality and meaning, launched by fashionable and educated minds in his day, was the beginning of a process that would turn men and women into “trousered apes,” enslaved to their passions (or worse, to devils), and unable to know right from wrong or even to care.

His warning may be more meaningful today than it was eighty years ago, bombarded as we are by efforts to redefine or undefine human nature. As we re-read “Abolition,” we should share his alarm about the trajectory of culture, science, politics, and education, and let it motivate us to fight the decay. But as Lewis himself reminds us, evil has no being, and no strength it does not steal from goodness, and as long as men with chests stand guard, Un-man can never have the last word.

Shane welcomes C. S. Lewis guru Andrew Lazo to explore the countless themes from “The Abolition of Man” that Lewis scatters through Narnia, the Space Trilogy, and numerous other books.

To receive The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis, and After Humanity, by Michael Ward, as well as a video series explaining each chapter in Abolition of Man and access to a live Q&A session with Michael Ward, visit www.breakpoint.org/wardstudy

When I welcomed Dr. James Cantor to the program, we talked a great deal about science—about what it can tell us of gender dysphoria in minors, and what it can’t tell us. We discussed the wisdom of performing medical or surgical alterations on children, and whether science supports such radical interventions as a means of restoring mental health.

About this, we agreed: Medical science simply does not, at present, support the claim that gender transition is a necessary or effective treatment for dysphoria. There is just no good evidence to suggest that altering a young body through hormones or operations leads to a happier life. And therefore, those who insist on rushing ahead with so-called “treatment” that will leave a minor patient maimed, sterile, or traumatized for life are committing not only medical, but scientific malpractice.

Still, one thing Dr. Cantor and I might disagree on is this: whether science can ever demonstrate that we have a moral imperative to conduct or not conduct such transitions. You see, even if a study were to emerge demonstrating that little boys who transitioned to life as girls or little girls who transitioned to life as boys were happier and had better mental health, we would be no closer to knowing whether it is, in fact, possible to change a person’s sex, much less whether doing this to a child is morally right. Scientific studies can offer answers on outcomes and physiology. But they cannot tell us what it means to be male, female, or even human.

This is vital, because the claims of the transgender movement are not, in the final analysis, scientific, medical, or even psychological claims. They are claims about metaphysics. The dictionary defines “metaphysics” as “the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.” In other words, it’s about describing the way things really are. The metaphysical pretensions of the transgender movement are obvious in the painstaking efforts to redefine “man” and “woman.” Consider an answer San Francisco-based medical website Healthline offered to the question, “Can Men Get Pregnant?”: “Yes,” they declared. “It’s possible for men to become pregnant and give birth to children of their own. In fact, it’s probably a lot more common than you might think. In order to explain, we’ll need to break down some common misconceptions about how we understand the term ‘man.’” Healthline then proceeds to divorce the definition of “man” from biology, making it into a matter of purely subjective identification such that even a person with a uterus and ovaries, who can get pregnant, qualifies as a man.

Notice what has happened, here. In one fell swoop, the transgender movement has taken the primary question of this cultural debate completely out of the realm of science. By every measurable and quantifiable physical trait, a person may be a member of one sex. But if, despite all of this, he identifies as the other sex, then that is what he really is, according to the transgender movement.

We don’t normally do things this way. I’m not the first to point out that in all other cases where a patient’s body objectively contradicts their psychology, we treat them as mentally ill and compassionately care for them accordingly. When an anorexic patient enters the hospital severely malnourished but convinced that her body is morbidly obese, we do not indulge this dangerous fantasy by putting her on a diet. Yet if the very same patient walks into many medical establishments today and says that she identifies as a man, she can begin the process of having her healthy breasts removed. This is true even if the patient is a child. As WORLD Magazine reported earlier this year, this scenario is actually unfolding in California, where girls as young as thirteen have been given double mastectomies.

Why, if we seek to align all other forms of body dysphoria by treating the mind, do we respond to gender dysphoria by “treating” the body? The simple answer is that we no longer have a shared, metaphysical definition of “male,” “female,” or even “human being.” The whole debate comes back to this question: Is there such a thing as human nature? Are humans real as more than LEGO sets of atoms and organs, to be rearranged at our pleasure? And is sex more than just a matter of malleable plumbing? Are we male and female at our deepest level, and do these categories tell us anything about our purpose in the universe?

Christianity’s answer—and the answer of virtually all philosophers before very recently—was a resounding “yes.” Yet today, an ideology that says otherwise is rapidly seizing control of the sciences, the academy, and our medical establishment. This coup is based not on empirical evidence, but on the raw willpower of an unproveable metaphysical assertion. And these revolutionaries demand—often on pain of firing and professional censure—that scientists and doctors shut up and go along with it.

Yet this ideology contains the seeds of its own undoing. Aside from the fact that experimenting on the bodies of children is publicly revolting, the transgender movement lacks a real answer to why we have a moral duty to support any of its claims or meet any of its demands. After all, if there is no such thing as objective human nature, or male and female, then it makes little sense to speak of an obligation to help people “align” their bodies with their feelings. Why do feelings reign supreme, and why should I care? Is it part of the human purpose to feel “natural” in our bodies, and to help others do so? What is happiness, and why is it important? Says who?

In a time when the most fundamental facts about ourselves are up for grabs, such questions have to be asked. Yes, it is vital to hear the voices of courageous critics like Dr. James Cantor and Dr. Allan Josephson, the former University of Louisville psychiatrist benefitting in court from Dr. Cantor’s expert testimony. Gender transition, especially in minors, is junk science, and the lack of evidence to support its extravagant claims is glaring. But in the final analysis, we must realize that what’s really driving the transgender craze isn’t bad science, or any kind of science at all. It’s bad philosophy—a set of metaphysical claims that are defining human being out of existence. And if we hope to restore sanity to our institutions and save young patients from horrific psychological and physical abuse, we must confront those claims head-on, above all seeking to understand how we were created before allowing anyone to re-create us.

Shane welcomes clinical psychologist James Cantor, expert witness in a key lawsuit by Alliance Defending Freedom, to explain how gender activism distorts science and hurts patients, especially children.

What is feminism, and what does it say about women? Well, that’s a tricky question, because there seem to be as many definitions of feminism as there are people who call themselves feminists. For some it is simply the belief that men and women are of equal value and should have equal rights.

But more often I find that cultural artefacts described as “feminist” portray women not so much as equal to men, but equivalent to men. The difference may sound trivial, but the results of equivalence-feminism are impossible to ignore.

Consider the endless stream of action movies filled with women I like to describe as 95-pound kung fu masters. These petite pugilists, more physically suited for underwear modeling than combat, are shown effortlessly throwing around men twice their weight or more. Were this only the case with female characters supposedly endowed with superhuman strength, like Wonder Woman, we could overlook it. Magic and imagination are fun. But this is true even in films and TV shows starring women who play, well, ordinary women. Confronted with a hallway full of large and well-trained bad guys, size-two action heroines routinely kick, punch, and grapple their way to victory, all without spoiling their hair. Sometimes they even shrug off punches that in real life would devastate a woman.

We don’t have to guess what happens when the physical differences between men and women are ignored. Recall a couple of years ago when transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox fractured his female opponent’s eye socket and left her with a concussion. While recovering from her injuries, Tamikka Brents told the press, “I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night…I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right.” She added that she’d be happy to honor Fox’s identification as a woman in any other profession, but that “when it comes to a combat sport I think it just isn’t fair.”

Physical strength isn’t the only way women are today expected to be the equivalent of men. We constantly hear the claim that a gender pay-gap plagues the corporate world. “Women only make 74 cents for every dollar men make,” goes the catchy factoid. To a public saturated in entertainment that portrays women as naturally ambitious and assertive leaders, managers, and bosses, this sounds outrageous. “Equal pay for equal work!” we are tempted to chant along with activists. But is it that simple? Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson famously got into it with British journalist Cathy Newman over this question. Citing the average pay difference between men and women, Newman seemed certain that the issue was settled. Women, even in today’s historically egalitarian society, are still the victims of measurable discrimination!

Peterson pointed out that there are other likely explanations for the “gender pay gap,” among them women’s own career choices. As many others have shown, women on average gravitate toward more social, intuitive work that tend to be less lucrative and require fewer years of education. We can look at the sex disparity among CEOs, doctors, hedge fund managers, and astrophysicists and conclude that these fields are rife with sexism. Or we could conclude that women themselves tend to prefer other vocations, and self-sort when given the freedom to do so. As Peterson observes, a casual survey of Scandinavian countries—which are among the most egalitarian on earth—shows that they are also some of the most gender-segregated in the developed world when it comes to career choices,

temperament, and interests. Women are supposed to be equivalent to men at work, but millions seem not to have gotten the memo.

Even so, there’s a third and more consequential area in which women are expected to behave exactly like men. We see it alongside the warrior woman tropes when we go to a movie or turn on our televisions. Entertainers would have us believe that women are sexual carnivores, insatiable in their search for casual encounters and utterly without fear of consequences. The women we see jump into bed with strangers act like the most promiscuous of men, and seem untroubled or even proud of their conquests. They certainly never suffer physical consequences.

Believing these portrayals, as well as those in darker sorts of media, many young women try to play the part. With the help of contraception, abortion, and oceans of antidepressants, they mimic the least scrupulous of men, ignoring not only the emotional devastation they incur, but the very design of their own bodies, which cry out against such treatment.

Of all the claims our culture makes about women, none cuts so violently against physical reality as this one. To say that a woman’s investment in sex surpasses that of a man is an understatement worthy of scorn. A woman’s entire biology—her joints, her immune system, her cardiovascular function, her brain, her breasts, and her primary reproductive anatomy—are all designed for children. Yet we encourage women to treat features of their bodies fitted for nurture as nothing more than toys for amusement and titillation—and disposable toys, at that. Trussed up on prescriptions that ensure none of this anatomy functions as intended, women are then stuffed into man-shaped roles, directed toward masculine modes of achievement, told to imitate the worst of male habits, and assured that the golden age of female rights has at last dawned, and they are free.

In all three of these areas where equivalence has replaced equality, women have not so much claimed their rightful place beside men as they have tried to become men. And in all three cases, female nature—especially the female body—has been treated as a liability, a barrier blocking the path to liberation and holding women back from realizing their true potential.

If a few years ago a conservative had ventured to claim that our culture is abolishing women, she would have been laughed out of the room. It’s tough to laugh now that the ACLU is literally editing quotes by the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg to remove all references to “women” or female pronouns, as they did last month on Twitter. “Abolition” scarcely seems too strong a description of one British medical journal’s recent cover story on menstruation, which replaced all references to women with the term “bodies with vaginas.” As Carl Trueman and alexander DeSanctis argued recently at Public Discourse, our determination to make women interchangeable with men—especially in the area of sex and reproduction—raises the question of whether our culture considers women as women to be properly human. After all, if a woman must declare war on every distinguishing feature of her body and mind in order to claim equality with men, what is the point of being a woman?

Toward the end of my discussion this week with poet and critic Jane Scharl on Upstream, I asked for her definition of feminism. She replied that, to the extent the word means women must be equivalent to men, she rejects it. I was pleased to hear it, but not that surprised. Over the course of our conversation,

Jane had painted a moving and masterful picture of God’s plan and purpose for women. Her picture was anything but stereotypical, drawn more from medieval piety that from 1950s sitcoms.

At its most basic level, Jane’s vision of female equality accords with the historic witness of Christianity, which sees women not only as real, but as indispensable. The first thing the Bible identifies as defective about the world, after all, is a lack of women. And the rest of the story, right up to the Revelation of John, depends on the assumption that female nature brings something into the world that male nature is utterly incapable of providing. In other words, Christianity makes a ground-level assumption that men and women are equal, but not equivalent. And if Jane is right, some of the Christian story’s greatest beauty emerges out of that difference.

I hope you’ll listen to our full discussion, and let it challenge your assumptions. But even more, I hope you’ll begin paying closer attention to the portrayals of and assumptions about women from those who claim the title of “feminist.” The difference between “equality” and “equivalence” may sound trivial, but in a time when the title “woman” itself is losing all meaning, it’s clear that the distinction between two words—or two sexes—can make all the difference

Poet and critic Jane Scharl joins Shane at the Anselm Society’s “Imagination Redeemed” conference to explain how our gendered bodies equip us for sainthood and help us slay dragons.

In their new book, “Treading Boldly Through a Pornographic World,” Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss tell the stories of parents who suddenly noticed changes in the behavior of their teenage sons. These young men were inexplicably losing interest in hobbies, relationships, sports, and other activities that once excited and motivated them. They became reclusive, dismissive—shadows of their former selves. In such cases, the parents soon discovered what was going on: their sons had stumbled across and become addicted to online pornography, and this nuclear blast of sexual stimulation had made everything else in life seem dull by comparison.  

Men a few years older than these boys are reporting another side-effect of compulsive pornography use: they’re losing interest in sex, itself, or even losing the ability to perform. Writing at The Guardian in 2019, Amy Fleming documented a troubling shift in the demand for erectile dysfunction medications like Viagra. For many years, the core market for these drugs was “older men in poor health.” But according to recent studies and surveys, up to a third of young, healthy men now report experiencing sexual dysfunction.  

One educator told the Guardian that “until 2002, the incidence of men under 40 with erectile dysfunction was around 2-3%. Since 2008, when free-streaming, high-definition porn became so readily available, it has steadily risen.” One sex therapist quoted in a Rolling Stone article on porn-induced sexual dysfunction said the same: “I have absolutely seen a pretty drastic increase in ED rates among young men, especially in the last two, three years. My average client base is starting to get younger and younger.”  

It’s a phenomenon with only emerging scientific support. But the anecdotal evidence is sobering. Online forums and websites have sprung up filled with testimonies from men who say addiction to pornography caused them to lose their interest in real sex. Some of these communities function as support groups for members who want to kick the habit. Scrolling through their stories is eye-opening. They confirm how pornography use robbed them not only of healthy sexual function, but of their zest for life: “Porn just makes everything else seem a whole lot less exciting,” said one user. “You start to realize you’re not as passionate about doing the things you love,” said another.” A third wrote hauntingly: “You become numb to most things in life and depending on how bad your addiction, [you’re] reduced to constant porn watching to feel good. It’s a sad way of living.”  

We have a pretty good idea of how and why porn blunts all other enjoyable experiences in life. As Gary Wilson explains in his book, “Your Brain on Porn,” the human brain responds to the torrent of dopamine pornography triggers by reducing its overall number of dopamine receptors. This is why, like drug addicts, pornography users find they must search out ever more extreme and shocking material in order to achieve the same “high.” But because those same receptors are involved in all pleasurable experiences in life, sexual or otherwise, porn users often find that their desire for all other activities and experiences flatlines, as well. 

All of this makes sense when you consider that pornography isn’t a natural stimulus. It’s not something our brains or bodies were designed to handle. Our natural responses, fine-tuned for real human contact and ordered toward emotional bonding and reproduction, become overloaded and fried by the concentrated neural narcotic we call pornography.  

Thankfully, our brains are pliable and adaptable, and even though bad habits alter our neural circuitry, good habits can restore it. The same forums are filled with triumphant posts by users who’ve conquered pornography addictions. The recurring themes in their stories are a delight to read. They report greater energy, a renewed interest in their work and hobbies, stronger friendships, and healthier relationships with the opposite sex. Some experience a kind of euphoria when they discover for the first time in years that they are able to enjoy ordinary life again, to look people in the eyes without embarrassment, and to no longer be counting down the hours till their next fix.  

Wilson calls this “rebooting,” and says it takes anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the person: “By avoiding artificial sexual stimulation you are shutting down and restarting the brain, restoring it to its original factory settings.”  

One ecstatic user in a forum I browsed while writing this went so far as to declare: “If a man is able to control his sexual urges, he’s already fixed 90% of his problems in life.” He may have overstated the matter a little bit, but you can hear his elation at finally being able to experience life and freedom again.  

These stats and stories confirm something Josh Glaser and Daniel Weiss argue in their book and in our recent conversation on Upstream: that saying “no” to pornography doesn’t mean denying ourselves sexual knowledge or satisfaction. It doesn’t mean becoming repressed prudes or keeping ourselves or our kids in the dark about the full range of embodied experience. It means opening ourselves again to real sexual fulfillment and thriving relationships, and even restoring our God-given ability to take delight in ordinary life.  

The overwhelming message of those who have escaped or are trying to escape the grip of lust—even those who profess no faith in Christ—is that porn doesn’t make anyone happy. Bondage to this toxic habit isn’t liberating—it’s slavery. And even those who don’t share God’s glorious vision for sex as described in Scripture can’t help but celebrate when they breathe the clean air of freedom.  

How much more can Christians—who understand the full beauty of the one-flesh union and the mutual self-giving for which our minds and bodies were crafted—celebrate and pursue that freedom? And how much better equipped are we to instill that passion for life into our kids? I hope this week’s conversation helps you catch that vision, and inspires you to boldly lead your family toward true love in a world full of counterfeits.  

Daniel Weiss and Joshua Glaser join Shane to talk about their book, “Treading Boldly Through a Pornographic World,” in which they argue that a strong relationship between parents and teens is the secret to navigating a culture of sexual lies.  

Facebook is, well, Facebook. There’s a certain element of absurdity to it and that’s just part of the package. Logging in to this establishment and expecting the best of the human mind is like walking into a Burger King and expecting filet mignon on fine china. Nothing wrong with Burger King if that’s what you’re after. But there’s a definite ripe diaper tucked in the ball pit of this free-for-all discursive play area. I’m talking about the “laugh react”—one of six other animated emojis users can affix to any post or comment in place of the traditional thumbs-up “like.”

Eulogizing the “laugh react,” one blogger wrote that “this must be the [emoji] that is the least likely to be used for what it was intended,” and estimated that “not even one percent of the people who use it are actually laughing when they click on it.”

Instead, this button has become the opiate of frustrated mockers, used mainly to signal that they find someone else’s opinion so ridiculous as to be unworthy of an articulate response. “Scornful laughter,” they are saying, “is all you deserve.”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with laughter if something is genuinely ridiculous—even laughter at other people’s expense. When former vice president Dan Quayle misspelled “potato” with an e in front of a room full of elementary schoolers, it was truly ridiculous, and the nation was right to laugh. The mirth that followed on late-night comedy shows was as much with Quayle as at him. And honest members of both parties knew that everybody has bad days, and if cameras followed all of us around 24/7, they would inevitably capture similar gaffes. We may even feel a visceral sympathy (“cringe”) when watching such moments, knowing all too well how it feels to find our fallibility dangling out and to be shown up by kids.

But I’m persuaded the kind of laughter signified by the Facebook emoji is typically something quite different. There’s usually no sympathy involved, nor is there any of the kind of back-slapping consolation we offer each other naturally after public bloopers. The animation of a laughing face is itself a kind of formality or fiction. No one is actually laughing, except in the most perfunctory and aspirated way—the kind of noise a surprised goat would make.

Real laughter serves a purpose. It brings joy or at least genuine pleasure. It brightens the mood and brings people together. It lightens the burden of life and reminds us that we are, after all, just humans. But the kind of weaponized mockery most people first experience in a locker room or cafeteria, but which nowadays has found fertile soil in social media, does none of these things. And though the facial contortions it produces may resemble a smile, they could hardly have less in common with one.

C. S. Lewis referred to this attitude as “flippancy.” Among the causes of human laughter he describes in “The Screwtape Letters,” including joy, fun, and the joke proper, flippancy is the cause that most interests the devils.

“In the first place,” writes Screwtape, “[Flippancy] is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it;

but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it.”

If prologued, concludes the senior tempter, “the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy [God] that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy. It deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it.”

In this type of laughter or un-laughter we can hear the scoffer of Psalm 1, who from his seat hurls flippancy at the blessed man for not walking in the counsel of the wicked, or standing in the way of sinners. We can hear the bitter snort of Sarah, who greeted the news of her coming pregnancy with scorn and unbelief. We may even be able to hear the jeers of the Sanhedrin as they order their blindfolded prisoner to prophesy who struck Him.

Laughter is certain a gift from God. There are few things that add richness to life like it. What else can make a crowd come to life on a Friday night or illuminate a sitting room like a good joke? What else can keep fans coming back to a TV show again and again, long after they’ve memorized the best lines? Even bawdy humor, notes Screwtape, contributes little to the cause of Hell, especially if the point is the laughter and not the lust. And when good people laugh at the expense of others, they tend quickly to moderate their mirth and remind each other of grace. Recall Ebenezer Scrooge’s nephew comparing his uncle to vermin in a private game of “Yes and No” before wishing him a merry Christmas whether he wants it or not. The line is fine, but it is there. And when you’ve crossed deeply into flippancy, you’ll be the first one to know it. As Lewis notes, it doesn’t feel good, and it’s very lonely.

I hope this week’s conversation on Upstream with Babylon Bee editor-in-chief Kyle Mann helped illuminate godly forms of humor. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite things about the Bee as a satire site is how often its sting is aimed back at Christians. It’s healthy to laugh at ourselves. It reminds us that we’re only human, and has a way of keeping that deadliest sin of spiritual pride at bay. Neither Kyle nor I think the Bee has been totally successful in every story at using humor for good, nor at avoiding flippancy. But I do believe their work has sanctified our collective laughter a bit, and sweetened the bitter regions of social media. At the very least, their clever headlines are chance to reclaim that laugh react for, you know, actual laughter.

The Babylon Bee: It’s a go-to source for us beleaguered believers who need a chuckle. Or two or three.

Shane Morris welcomes the Bee’s Editor-in-Chief, Kyle Mann, as they discuss the role satire can play in telling the truth to a culture that no longer believes in truth.

What are the Bee’s boundaries? At what point can satire go too far? And how do you write satire in an age where truth really stranger than fiction?