From a CRC-Voices post

As I read it, most evangelicals have simply assumed that at death or the second coming we are “translated”, morally perfected. I never heard much said about it.

The older I get the more I appreciate my need to struggle with sin and corruption in my life. There are patterns, ways, attitudes, biases, etc. in me that are dogged, sometimes in a Romans 7 sort of way. Since we don’t believe in perfectability (unlike some protestants) how are these habits, patterns, etc. dealt with? I don’t mean the penalty for them, but the habits themselves. Are they instantly taken away from me upon death or resurrection? I don’t know.

Purgatory dealt with some of the penalties needed to be handled in the RC schema of sins and also the habits.

CS Lewis in The Great Divorce and to a degree in The Last Battle clearly sees post-death process in terms of sin. The passage in The Great Divorce for example where the pilgrim is released from the sin on his shoulder.

The Wikipedia article demonstrates that this issue has long been a subject of discussion and study in the church as well as in Judaism, Islam and Mormonism. Religions with reincarnation have this issue built into their schema.

Lewis has been a trail blazer for many evangelicals. Tim Keller quotes more from Lewis in his first book than from any other author. Bell is clearly following Lewis. I remember my history prof at CTS saying “at some point after you get out of seminary you should make an attempt to go deep into an important theologian like “Augustine, Luther, Calvin or CS Lewis.” That’s quote the company to keep.

The article that Dave posted that was retracted basically was asking the question (from a rather hard lined Reformed perspective) whether Lewis is kind of a trojan horse for heretical theology.

If you look in my review of Rob Bell’s book pt 2 in the section under Sickness Unto Death you’ll see that Lewis and Keller follow Kierkegaard in some of this thinking. Ideas have legs.

Here’s a link to a wonderful piece by JI Packer on Lewis called “Still Surprised by Lewis”.