To paraphrase Lewis: Aim for the particulars of a specific confessional tradition and get the universals of mere Christendom thrown in. [71], Media coverage of Lewis's death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day (approximately 55 minutes following Lewis's collapse), as did the death of English writer Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. [11] In September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he remained until the following June. [2] Lewis's faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim. His brother, Warren, was three years older. distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, His mother's writings had featured the Jews in an unsympathetic manner, particularly on "shohet" (ritual slaughterer). Lewis developed his thinking, he became more and more of a High Churchman. George Sayer knew Lewis for 29 years, and he had sought to shed light on the relationship during the period of 14 years prior to Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. Seems rather Roman Catholic for an Anglican. Lewis is the greatest Anglican apologist of the 20th century. It's easier to join than the other Catholic Churches (Orthodox and Roman)." which he translated poetically as follows: (This is a highly poetic, rather than a literal translation. Although she was twenty-six years older than Jack, she was still a handsome woman, and he was certainly infatuated with her. “I want to suggest that one significant reason for Lewis’s widespread positive reception in the U.S. involves simple ignorance on the part of American audiences of what it means to be a layman of the Church of England.”. The friendship with Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father did not visit him. He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain. By Pastor Brian Carpenter C.S. Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898. [23], Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism towards the English. In short, in C.S. You must make your choice. During his army training, Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918). Ransom appears in the story but it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. [50], After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Lewises took child evacuees from London and other cities into The Kilns. Lewis might have written about a broad Christian orthodoxy, but the spiritual experience that enabled him to do so was much narrower. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-establishment Tynan retained a lifelong admiration for him. You must belong to a specific tradition, a specific church body. Lewis very much into Anglicanism, or did he just need a church to worship at after his personal conversion, and decide "Eh might as well be Anglican. Lewis. He routinely introduced her as his mother, referred to her as such in letters, and developed a deeply affectionate friendship with her. But by binding yourself to a confessional tradition, you open yourself up to the entire possibilities of the merely Christian tradition. In 2008, The Times ranked him eleventh on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". He believed in Baptismal Regeneration and spoke of Confirmation in a sacramental way, rather than as a mere public affirmation of faith. Lewis… [91], The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. However, as C.S. He did not intend to. Andrew Walker & Patrick James (eds.) Some of his best works are: I read he believed in a kind of purgatory. In a much-cited passage from Mere Christianity, Lewis challenged the view that Jesus was a great moral teacher but not God. After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns, though he was too ill to return to work. If you set out to tell a story about Everything, you’ll get nothing. [20] Lewis was surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, and wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish – if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish. Lewis According to For All the Saints: A Calendar of Commemorations (Second Edition), edited by Heather Josselyn-Cranson, November 22 is the day we remember C.S. Lewis' fame / Joy Davidman was a noted poet, a feisty Communist and a free spirit", "Dear Mr. Lewis: The Narnia Author and His Young Readers", "LDS Scholars Salute Author C.S. They were HVV Dyson ... and JRR Tolkien. Douglas Gresham is a Christian like Lewis and his mother,[67] while David Gresham turned to his mother's ancestral faith, becoming Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs. "[30], Lewis entered Oxford in the 1917 summer term, studying at University College, and shortly after, he joined the Officers' Training Corps at the university as his "most promising route into the army". Joy was the only woman whom he had met ... who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio, and cinema. With respect to … I just found out that C.S. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends. But if you, for instance, tell a story about an ordinary family in an ordinary Texas town, you might end up with an incredible story of love and loyalty and duty, of courage during times of trouble, and of fidelity to people and to place, that speaks in universally accessible language. (These critics conveniently fail to note that his family never seemed to possess any strong anti-Catholic sentiments to begin with, given that their servants were Catholic and Lewis’s parents were not terribly committed to the more radical brands of Irish protestantism.) Lewis was born in Ireland in 1898. Lewis as an Anglican In July 1958, Joy Lewis wrote to her former husband Bill Gresham, who had heard a rumour that C.S. This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. In 1954, Lewis accepted the newly founded chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he finished his career. Modern children's literature has been more or less influenced by Lewis's series, such as Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. He believed in Baptismal Regeneration and spoke of Confirmation in a sacramental way, rather than as a mere public affirmation of faith. He maintained a strong attachment to the city of Oxford, keeping a home there and returning on weekends until his death in 1963. But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. Lewis sanctified a kind of Anglican gentleman writer, a kind which included Ian Fleming, as well as Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling, both of whom also wrote spy novels. "[16], From boyhood, Lewis had immersed himself in Norse and Greek mythology, and later in Irish mythology and literature. Live-action film adaptations have been made of three of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). He is known for his work on medieval literature and for his Christian apologetics and fiction, especially The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis Fact Sheet! It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit. For proof, look no further than Lewis himself. That Hideous Strength is in fact set in the environs of "Edgestow" university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two. The trilogy blends traditional science fiction elements with explorati… ArdenB May 3, 2008, 4:34am #1. His brother, Warren, was three years older. Kathryn Lindskoog, an independent Lewis scholar, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis. But it seems very odd, if they were lovers, that he would call her "mother". "[106], Lewis wrote an autobiography titled Surprised by Joy, which places special emphasis on his own conversion. [34] In a later letter, Lewis cited that his experience of the horror of war, along with the loss of his mother and his unhappiness in school, were the bases of his pessimism and atheism. She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, novelist William L. Gresham, and came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas. C. S. Lewis and the Gender Debates, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen finds in Lewis's work "a hierarchical and essentialist view of class and gender" corresponding to an upbringing during the Edwardian era. C. S. Lewis was born on this date in 1898, and forty-one years after his death, one thing has become startlingly clear: This Oxford don was not only a keen apologist but also a true prophet for our postmodern age. [42] Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:[43]. FACT OF THE DAY: Christian Apologetics was a talk Lewis gave sometime around Easter 1945 to an Anglican church group; now found in God in the Dock. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. Studying with Kirkpatrick ("The Great Knock", as Lewis afterward called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology and sharpened his debate and reasoning skills. [61] Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK. On 15 July that year, he fell ill and was admitted to the hospital; he suffered a heart attack at 5:00 pm the next day and lapsed into a coma, unexpectedly waking the following day at 2:00 pm. Lewis has certainly received a warm embrace by almost all sections of Christendom, … Owen Barfield, who knew Jack well in the 1920s, once said that he thought the likelihood was "fifty-fifty". With all this religious genetic baggage, it is surprising that C. S. Lewis’s own father and mother were rather nominal Anglicans. Lewis spoke well of Mrs. Moore throughout his life, saying to his friend George Sayer, "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too." I’m kind of shocked. His mother died when he was nine, and at age fifteen he became an atheist. I have never helped to organize youth, and while young myself I successfully avoided being organized. Flowers were laid by Walter Hooper, trustee and literary advisor to the Lewis Estate. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. [111] It has been widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature, but largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. "[21][22] Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school. "[19], In 1921, Lewis met Yeats twice, since Yeats had moved to Oxford. British Christian apologist, writer, and medievalist. If we did – if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. [104] Victor Reppert also disputes Sayer, listing some of Lewis's post-1948 apologetic publications, including the second and revised edition of his Miracles in 1960, in which Lewis addressed Anscombe's criticism. After all, there is no doubt, ami, that the Irish are the only people: with all their faults, I would not gladly live or die among another folk. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. The Protestant Catholic distinction is no longer a heavily political distinction in … The third novel, That Hideous Strength, develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values, embodied in Arthurian legend. Clive Staples Lewis – known always as ‘Jack’ to his friends – was born in Northern Ireland in 1898 and grew up in a house overflowing with books. He was then sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House, which Lewis calls "Chartres" in his autobiography. And I still have my paperback copy of "Mere Christianity" which I think was purchased at the school bookstore in 1977. [101] He has been called "The Apostle to the Skeptics" due to his approach to religious belief as a sceptic, and his following conversion. I only say that because as a Roman Catholic in Catholic grade school and high school, we heard a lot about CS Lewis. In December 1917, Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Janie and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world". [13], On his 19th birthday (29 November 1917) he arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France, where he experienced trench warfare for the first time. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in 1962 and he returned that April. Examining Mythology in 'The Chronicles of Narnia' by C.S. Both readings, of course, miss the most basic fact of all about Lewis the Christian: CS Lewis was a conservative Anglican churchman. Was C.S. It will be so broad and ambitious that it ends up signifying nothing. It’s a key point to remember for American evangelicals who specialize in a more cafeteria-style approach to theology, sampling a bit of Lewis here, a bit of Luther there, and a bit of Carson over there. Lewis vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape". [77] His book "A Preface to Paradise Lost"[80] is still cited as a criticism of that work. Lewis and his Anglicanism Was C.S. [15], Lewis experienced a certain cultural shock on first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England," Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy. In the introduction to the 1997 edition of his biography of Lewis he wrote: I have had to alter my opinion of Lewis's relationship with Mrs. Moore. [135] However, he has also modestly praised The Chronicles of Narnia for being a "more serious" work of literature in comparison with Tolkien's "trivial" The Lord of the Rings. (Hilliard 2005) Pullman is an atheist and is known to be sharply critical of C. S. Lewis's work,[134] accusing Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism, and emotional sadism in his books.