Sneaking Past Watchful Dragons
From an interview with Dustin Kensrue:
“It would be hard for me to say who’s influenced the way I write, but as far as the way I think, C. S. Lewis is pretty huge in shaping me. I think I responded to a lot of his work because my brain is so analytical. I like that Lewis’s logic was clean and sharp, and that he wanted to think about faith and communicate it in a clear way, but also in an interesting and creative way.
Lewis also speaks to my philosophy of what I’m doing with my art. He has this metaphor of sneaking past a watchful dragon, something he was doing in Narnia. We live in a culture that has some understanding of what the gospel is, but such a small amount there’s this kind of inoculation against it. Lewis talked about that as if there’s a dragon watching for that message to come through, but before it can come past our brains and impact our hearts, it’s like something in our brain is attacking it. Lewis had this idea of sneaking past that, so the dragon wouldn’t know what the thing was, and it could come and impact the heart and then be dealt with in the brain. That way, someone could experience what the gospel is without trying to deny it first.
It’s like that with the story of Aslan. You read the books, you see the gospel being worked out, and it impacts you, and then you can be like, Okay, is this true, this amazing story? Rather than just writing it off if it were presented in a more straightforward way. I’m trying to do that in my writing.
I’m in a band with nonbelievers, and I’m operating in a totally secular environment, but I’m trying to be real and honest at the same time. I think there’s a line you try to walk to be most impactful. Jesus tells us to be shrewd as serpents. I think of Paul going into Athens, and the way he looks at the culture and thoughtfully and creatively presents the gospel in a way that they can hear it.”
