In the first book C.S. Lewis wrote which was published in 1933, “The Pilgrim’s Regress,” a young man named John sets out to find an elusive island that he has glimpsed in a vision.

John begins his quest for the island, but soon finds himself on a journey of self-discovery, encountering various characters who represent different philosophical and spiritual worldviews.

One of John’s first encounters is with an artist named Mr. Savage, who believes that beauty is the most important thing in life, and that art is a way to escape from the harsh realities of the world. To Lewis this is an exuberant view of art as beauty encouraging one to live life to the fullest.

Next, John meets an artist named Mr. Wisdom, who believes that art should reflect the eternal, unchanging truths of the universe, God directed, and the artist’s role is to convey these God truths to the viewer of the art. It is a view of life to strive toward the majesty of life, often found in God, in its fullness.

Later, John encounters an artist named Mr. Neo-Classical who illustrates the tension between the previous two artistic movements. Mr. Neo-Classical believes art should combine elements of both the exuberant life and unchanging universals of truth, and the artist should strive to achieve a balance between reason in truth and emotion by inspiration. A view of life where the striving is the goal of life.

Finally, John meets an artist named Mr. Mammon, who represents the modernist movement. Mr. Mammon believes that art should be focused on material gain, and that the artist’s primary goal should be to make money and achieve fame. This last encounter devolves into artists vying with one another to be more unique to the others, turning themselves progressively more grotesque. An empty view of life where being self is the meaning of life.

Through these encounters, Lewis explores the various tensions and contradictions within the world of art and raises questions about the progress of society connected to truth and the meaning for life. The 2022 movie, Babylon, staring Brad Pitt also examines the progress of society through the expression of art in Hollywood movies from 1926 to 1952, the silent film era to the beginning of the power of the Hollywood studios.

“Bablyon” opens with Manuel, a young Mexican, taking to Hollywood an elephant to the mansion of a famous silent film actor. He delivers the elephant but is barred from entering an out of control party with lot of actors and beautiful people. People are having open unbridled sex and mainly drinking alcohol. It is John Gilbert’s house, the silent film star. Outside are Manuel and a young Clara hanging around trying to join the party to be “discovered” but stopped by guards. Clara and Manuel through fate manage to get in and jump right in to the mix. Life unbridled and full of hope.

Next, through a series of events both Manuel and Clara get to work in the silent films. Clara as a bit actress that mesmerizes the old guard and Manuel as a person who can fix or solve anything the old guard needs done. The segment ends with a movie production being saved with John and an actress expressing the fullness of love and life with a spectacular movie backdrop of God’s creation in a sunset. A picture of full and majestic life.

Later, Manuel and Clara both become important people in Hollywood. Manuel as a director in making movies featuring a Black musician and “ethnic” films. Clara becomes famous in her own right as a young actress. The story is about them seeing the changes from silent pictures to “talkies” and the wider demographic of the audiences. John struggles and loses prestige as his talking dialogue is flat. Clara develops a drug and gambling problem. Manuel compromises his own ethnicity in order to keep in the spotlight. Life is a struggle to remain.

Finally, Babylon, exposes the ultimate outcome of all such stories. Clara because of her drug habit ends up living in squalor with no work. Manuel tries to save her life from a gambling debt she owes to mobsters by paying her debt. His prop man friend gets the cash for him, prop money, which Manuel does not know is fake. The mobster is a grotesque little man that insists Manuel accompany him to the best “artists” party in Hollywood. It turns out to be a subterranean ugliness, a kind of hell, with the finale of the party being an “artist” being cheered for eating a live rat. Manuel’s money is discovered as a prop fake. He barely gets away and flees to Mexico. There are no boundaries in the final phase except self and self for the adoration of the crowd.

The conclusion of the movie has Manuel returning to Hollywood years later in the 1950s with a wife and child. John Gilbert commits suicide because he realizes he has become irrelevant as an actor. A newspaper clipping says Clara died of a drug overdose when she was 34. John is shown going to a movie theatre and sees a full color, big stage, studio production. Money is now the measure of success, “how big was the box office?”

Lewis in another of his books, The Screwtape Letters, has a demon, Screwtape, writing letters to direct and encourage Wormwood, his protégé. In one “letter” the demon instructs Wormwood to use the complacency and apathy of Christians as a tool for their downfall. Screwtape suggests that by encouraging Christians to become less engaged with their faith and more focused on material concerns, Wormwood can slowly erode their commitment to the Church and to God. Screwtape describes this as a “slippery slope,” where each small step towards apathy and disengagement leads to a further loss of faith.

In another chapter, The Abolition of Man, Lewis points out the danger of a society that seeks to eliminate objective values, such as truth, goodness, and beauty, and replace them with subjective feelings and preferences. Later Lewis turns this chapter into a complete book, arguing that such a society ultimately leads to the destruction of human dignity and the loss of freedom. Without objective values, individuals become mere objects to be manipulated and controlled by those in power.

Culture is reflected in its art. Today, we are living in the fourth and last stage of culture as identified by Lewis and the movie Babylon. Commonly known and understood by many as woke, it has led to a North America where there are no boundaries. As Judges 17:6 says, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” A common phrase is “everyone has their own opinion, you have your own truth.”

The good thing is all the types of woke-ism end because they lose direction ending in either change to a better morality or tragedy for all those it touches. To get there we may have to go through a lot of chaos. Christians helped by their silence the proliferation of loose sexuality, the mutilation of children in the cause of false freedom, the destruction of the family, the perversion of justice by the powerful, science that is not science any longer etc.

When was the last time you were in a prayer meeting and it wasn’t about someone’s health problems, money problems, safe travel, getting a job etc but was about what Jesus came to do, save those that are lost without a shepherd?