THERE HAVE ONLY BEEN A FEW figures in American Christianity who have occupied the role of secular Christians. By that, I mean someone who is a public person not connected to a religious organization, church, or group as a pastor, spokesman, or as an otherwise employed professional Christian. This public person must be someone who stands outside the religious world—the Christian sub-culture—and articulates Christianity to both non-believers and believers. Both C. S. Lewis and Johnny Cash have fulfilled that role for American Christianity.
C. S. Lewis has fit the role since the latter half of the twentieth century. He was a university professor, serving first at Oxford, then at Cambridge, a scholar of sixteenth-century literature who rose to the top of his profession. Johnny Cash also rose to the top of his profession as an entertainer, singing songs that became hit recordings, heard on radio, television, and in live concerts.
Lewis was well-known and respected amongst his peers, but his fame in the world-at-large was such that he could walk the streets in relative obscurity and eat a meal in a restaurant without being constantly asked for an autograph. Johnny Cash’s fame was such that he could not walk the streets in relative obscurity, and if he ventured out in public he was usually besieged by autograph seekers. While Lewis was a public figure during his life, he was not a celebrity; Johnny Cash was both a public figure and a celebrity.
On the surface, the two men could not be more different—one a British University professor, the other an American country music singer. Lewis grew up in Northern Ireland, Cash grew up in northeast Arkansas. Lewis spent his professional life in the academic world of universities; Cash went through the School of Hard Knocks and spent his professional life in the world of show business.
There are a few superficial similarities: both served in the Armed Forces—Lewis with the British Army in World War I and Cash with the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War. Both met and married women who became part of their professional as well as personal lives and are essential to understanding them; Joy Davidson for Lewis and June Carter for Johnny Cash.
What binds these two together is their Christian faith and, beyond that, their writings about their faith. Ironically, one of Lewis’s most famous books, Mere Christianity, and the songs of Johnny Cash both achieved their initial fame when they were heard on the radio.
Johnny Cash and C. S. Lewis lived in two different worlds—the music business and academe—which are, literally, worlds apart. There are different sets of rules that govern each world. For country music it is the fight for fortune and fame through hit recordings and the creation of stars. In academe it is the fight for promotion and tenure through teaching and the publication of academic articles. Success is defined in country music in terms of celebrity with the public at large; in academe success tends to be defined by the respect from those within your profession. This leads to an inherent contradiction; if academics achieve public celebrity in the world at large they are likely to receive the scorn of their peers who deem such worldly success a betrayal of academic rigor, discipline, and principles. There might also be a hint of jealousy involved, as well.
There is an inherent snobbishness amongst academics. Most simply don’t believe the world-at-large is capable of understanding their research and writings because, frankly, academics feel they’re smarter than people in the general populace who are not academics.
This was a dilemma that C. S. Lewis faced. Yes, he was a respected scholar within the worlds of Oxford and Cambridge, but many of his books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and others, were popular with the general reading public. This tended to lower Lewis in the eyes of his academic rivals.
There is a contrary view residing within the world of country music, which is, basically, the music of the white working class. These are folks who have traditionally considered themselves “poor but proud,” lacking in “book learning,” but filled with “common sense.” This leads to anti-intellectualism within the world of country music, a brazen stand against the notion of education in favor of intuition and instinct guiding a person’s life.
In short, just as many in the academic world tend to look down their noses at country music, many of those in country music tend to distrust those in the academic world, feeling that academics don’t really live on the same planet as the working-class folks. Also, the working-class is often confronted with what seems to be hare-brained ideas emanating from professors employed by institutions of higher education.
And yet the worlds of academe and country music each have a certain appeal for one another. Many in the academic world seem to find country music exotic and a source of interesting study; those in country music see the academic world as one of prestige and respect and hold it somewhat in awe.
American Christianity has its own set of rules and contradictions. At the dawn of the twenty-first century it seems that American Christianity is divided into two large camps: the fundamentalists, who by and large attend independent or non-denominational churches, and the established churches of mainstream denominations such as the Methodists, Episcopalians, and Catholics. There are countless contradictions and exceptions to that statement; for example, the Southern Baptists tend to be fundamentalists within a denomination, while the Catholic versus Protestant division, which is certainly still alive, has been blurred by the fact that there are fundamentalists within the Catholic Church.
In general, American Christianity holds the common beliefs of Jesus as the son of God, the Holy Spirit as the voice or messenger of God, and the Bible as the word of God. Having said that, these common beliefs ignite countless arguments concerning intensity of belief, interpretation of faith, and the role of religion in everyday life. Those arguments will not be pursued here. However, it is generally accepted that the fundamentalists, as they are generally referred to (or, in some cases, right-wing fundamentalists) are quite intense in their faith and fairly narrow in their beliefs.
What makes this particularly relevant in this article is that both C. S. Lewis, who was an Anglican (or Episcopal in American terms) and attended a mainstream church with a liturgy, and Johnny Cash, have been embraced by fundamentalists. Although Cash, who was a Baptist (although he attended several different fundamentalist churches), has generally not been embraced as warmly as Lewis.
In fundamentalist churches, religious emotionalism tends to be valued more than intellectual heft in presenting the faith. There is even a strong strain of anti-intellectualism in fundamentalist churches, with the opposition to the teaching of evolution a prime example. The emotionalism of Protestant fundamentalism also manifests itself in the music played in churches.
While the Anglican Church sings old hymns—often difficult to hum—the American independent churches tend to use contemporary music, rock, pop, and country, to get their message across. C. S. Lewis never really liked music in church. For Johnny Cash, music was a key to his religion. As he noted in his autobiography, Man in Black, “To me, songs were the telephone to heaven, and I tied up the line quite a bit” (28).
C. S. Lewis was, in many ways, a typical British academic. He wore tweed coats and smoked a pipe. His great pleasures were intellectual—where truth is pursued in probing questions, not in pre-selected definitive answers—and he found his great comforts to be reading books or having a pint of ale in a pub with friends. Throughout most of his life, his conversations with friends were on academic subjects—mythology, literature, philosophy—and they all enjoyed mental games. Ironically, in some ways, Lewis was the antithesis of the American Protestant fundamentalists who now embrace him.
Johnny Cash was a typical country artist, but with an un-typical career. He wrote and recorded songs, hoping each would be played on the radio. He toured, performing in a variety of venues for audiences, and life on the road was a normal way of life. Cash dressed in stage clothes and his great comforts were musical—jamming with friends and swapping songs. His conversations were often about music and the music business. Although he seemed to do everything possible to destroy his career, at the time of his death he was voted the Greatest Country Music Artist in the history of the genre by CMT (Country Music Television). As for his religion, although his lifestyle during his early career led him away from the church, the basic Bible-belt beliefs of fundamentalist faith never left him.
Although it looks like the worlds of Johnny Cash and C. S. Lewis are worlds apart, upon closer examination there are numerous similarities between the two, primarily their Christian faith, which was expressed in autobiographies that documented their spiritual journeys, creative works (songs and fiction) that center on their faith, and a public life where they exhibited their Christianity to all the world.
The book by C. S. Lewis which became Mere Christianity, a definitive work on Christianity from Lewis’s perspective, began as three separate sets of lectures: the first “The Case for Christianity,” broadcast over the BBC in 1943; the second “Christian Behaviour,” broadcast in 1943; and then “Beyond Personality,” broadcast in 1945. In the preface to his book, Lewis writes, “I was not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion,’ but to expound mere Christianity” (7).
Neither Lewis nor Cash trained as theologians, and yet millions heard or read theology from each of them. In his autobiography, Man in Black, Cash writes, “Telling others is part of our faith all right, but the way we live it speaks louder than we can say it. The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all” (33). He adds, about his life, “I was working toward what I was put in this world to do: entertain people; be something worthwhile to them; be an example; be a good influence; stand strong; don’t compromise” (244).
C. S. Lewis confronted his Christian faith and presented it to the world in letters, conversations, articles, and books, attempting to explain his faith to a mostly unbelieving world. In a world of intellectuals, the faith of Lewis baffled those who felt they had no need for Christianity or any other religion. In the population at large, many people also rationalized an I’m okay, you’re okay type of personal belief, which dimmed the appeal of Christianity.
In Mere Christianity Lewis confronted this attitude, noting:
Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor (38–39).
Cash echoed this sentiment, stating about his early musical career, which was filled with drugs and the perks of stardom—easy sex and worshipful fans:
To repent and reform all the way to righteousness requires a man to first recognize and admit he has been all wrong. To make such a change as I needed, and to be able to say, “I’m going to be right from now on,” I was also required to say, “I’ve been all wrong up to now.” And I didn’t care to admit that (109).
Johnny Cash hit bottom because of his addiction to drugs; his personal life was in shambles and his professional life was in trouble. Ultimately, Cash pulled himself out of this abyss and gained valuable insight when he did. Cash states:
The hard times, the torture and misery I put myself through made me know pain and gave me tolerance and compassion for other people’s problems and understanding of their many differences and shortcomings. But the greatest lesson I learned was—God is love (19).
Lewis also had compassion for those who fell short of the demands of life, stating, “A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble—because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time” (64). Cash echoed this sentiment in his autobiography, stating:
God is love and God is forgiving. He’ll forgive you seventy times seven and seventy times that. He is long-suffering, patient, compassionate, and He understands even before you try to explain your weaknesses and shortcomings to Him. When you stand with Him, you must renew the stand daily; you must daily be on guard. The hounds of hell are not going to stop snapping at your heels. The devil and his demons aren’t going to give up on you as long as they can find a vulnerable spot once in awhile (179).
Lewis could have been profiling the life of Johnny Cash when he wrote, “The better stuff a creature is made of—the cleverer and stronger and freer it is—then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong” (53). Lewis added:
Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of a “hole” (59).
Cash himself states:
The truth falls hard and heavy: If you’re going to be a Christian, you’re going to change. You’re going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to. You can’t compromise some things. You have to draw the line daily—the line between what you were and what you’re trying to be now—or you lose even their respect (21).
C. S. Lewis believed strongly that a Christian should be a member of a church, that an essential element of the Christian life was fellowship with other believers. Not only does this help the believer strengthen and sustain his own faith, this fellowship serves as a beacon of light, a magnet of the faith for non-believers outside the faith. “Men are mirrors, or ‘carriers’ of Christ to other men,” writes Lewis.
Sometimes unconscious carriers. This “good infection” can be carried by those who have not got it themselves. People who were not Christians themselves helped me to Christianity. But usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important (163).
This view is affirmed by Cash, who stopped going to church when his life became one of making numerous personal appearances, traveling constantly, and living full-time in the world of show business. In his autobiography, Cash confesses:
My policy of aloneness and severed fellowship from other committed Christians would weaken me spiritually. Not that missing church necessarily meant missing God. It was just that Jesus never meant for us to try and make it on your own. There is something so important in worshiping together with other believers. And missing it would leave me vulnerable and easy prey for all the temptations and destructive vices that the backstage of the entertainment world has to offer (87).
Comparing songs to books is, in a sense, like comparing apples and oranges. A song has to capture what it is going to say in about three minutes; a book has much more room to make its point. A song is heard; a book is read. Having said that, let’s compare the beliefs Cash expressed in some of the songs he wrote—his primary outlet—with what Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity.
In his book, Lewis addresses the hypocrisy in Christians as well as the failure of Christians to live a fully Christian life, stating, “[W]e have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people,” and, “[A] great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again” (20, 45).
There is a segment of American Christianity that promotes a housebroken Jesus, a kind-hearted, smiling, easygoing Savior who is everybody’s best friend, or at least the best friend of anyone who calls on Him. But there is another side to God and Jesus, as anyone who has witnessed a violent storm or a human terror can attest. In Mere Christianity Lewis writes, “God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies” (38).
Cash addressed this topic in several songs toward the end of his life. He painted a vocal picture of a God who makes harsh decisions about the actions of believers and non-believers alike. This version of Cash’s God doled out justice and blame in deliberate doses.
In the end, for both Lewis and Cash, Christianity is a forward-looking religion, a religion that looks toward better days in earthly lives as well as the life after a life on Earth. In his book Lewis states, “Hope . . . means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do” (118). Cash also took this thoughtful approach to Christianity in his writing, presenting a glorious Heaven open to all.
C. S. Lewis sums up Christianity this way: “We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed” (58). Cash held similar beliefs, singing of the redemptive powers of Christ’s death.
Few men live past their time; few names and lives are remembered through the ages. Two of those rare beings are Johnny Cash and C. S. Lewis. In terms of a great life lived, filled with words and deeds which impact millions of people as well as an impact that lasts past their time on earth, it is more important that God believes in a person rather than if that person believes in God. By that I mean there are only a few chosen for this role while most are not; some are called for a life above and beyond what most mortals live. Johnny Cash and C. S. Lewis were two humans who were so called.
The message is clear: God certainly believed in both C. S. Lewis and Johnny Cash.
DON CUSIC is the author of fourteen books, including Johnny Cash: The Songs. As an author, teacher, historian, musician, songwriter, and executive, Cusic has been actively involved in the music business since 1973. He is currently professor of music business at Belmont University in Nashville. In addition to the book on Cash, Cusic is the author of the biography Eddy Arnold: I’ll Hold You In My Heart; an encyclopedia of cowboys, Cowboys and the Wild West: An A–Z Guide from the Chisholm Trail to the Silver Screen; The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel and Christian Music; The Cowboy Way: The Amazing True Adventures of Riders in the Sky; Music in the Market, Poet of the Common Man: Merle Haggard Lyrics; Willie Nelson: Lyrics 1959–1994; and Hank Williams: The Complete Lyrics.
Cash, Johnny. Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975.
Cusic, Don. Johnny Cash: The Songs. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004.
Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1943, 1945, 1952, 1960, 1978.