Photograph by 14GTR (Wikimedia Commons)
On Friday, November 22, 1963, three lives ended inside hours of one another: John F. Kennedy, thirty fifth President of the USA; Aldous Huxley, famous English novelist and critic; and a person recognized by his associates merely as “Jack.” Nevertheless it was this third and ultimate life that has arguably formed probably the most lives and who, within the phrases of The Instances, “in his personal lifetime turned a legend.”
As we transfer from November to December, I can’t assist however be reminded of Lewis. Not solely did he die in November, however it was additionally the month of his start (November 29, 1898). But whereas many nonetheless know his title, they could not know a lot of the person.
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Eire. Following World Conflict I, the place Lewis fought in France and was wounded in 1917, he went to College Faculty, Oxford, the place he achieved a uncommon Double First in Classics, an extra First in English, and the Chancellor’s Prize for lecturers. He was quickly supplied a educating place at Magdalen Faculty, Oxford, the place he was a fellow and tutor from 1925-1954, after which later on the College of Cambridge as professor of Medieval and Renaissance English (1954-1963).
In 1931, Lewis got here out of atheism into the Christian religion, aided considerably by his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of The Lord of the Rings. The mental questions that plagued him throughout his religious journey – why God permits ache and struggling, how Christianity may be the one and solely approach to God, the existence of miracles – turned the very questions he helped others navigate with such talent as a Christian.
His first work, The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Purpose and Romanticism, got here out in 1933. Then got here a torrent of works, ultimately reaching 40 titles, the overwhelming majority making an attempt to place ahead Christianity in a really non-Christian world. Among the many extra extensively recognized are The Screwtape Letters, a trilogy of science fiction novels (when the style was hardly recognized), and the Chronicles of Narnia (a sequence of seven youngsters’s books which are extensively heralded as classics of fantasy literature).
Lewis’ ardour was thoughtfully translating the Christian religion right into a language that anybody may perceive. He was pushed to have individuals know what Christianity was about. It was a sequence of radio addresses, given over the BBC through the Second World Conflict however later printed in three separate components, the place his conversational model, wit, mind, and tough appeal revealed Christianity to thousands and thousands.
The primary invitation was for 4, 15-minute talks. The response was so overwhelming that they gave him a fifth 15-minute section to reply listeners’ questions. A second spherical of talks was requested and given. The readability of thought, his potential to assemble a variety of data and make it plain, led one listener to comment that they “have been magnificent, unforgettable. No one, earlier than or since, has made such an ‘impression’ in straight talks of this sort.” The BBC requested for a 3rd spherical of talks, this time stretching out for eight consecutive weeks. Lewis consented, however made it clear it could be his final.
His objective all through was easy: “I used to be… writing to expound… ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it’s and was what it was lengthy earlier than I used to be born.” Ultimately gathered in a single work titled Mere Christianity, the work continues to make Christianity recognized to thousands and thousands.
The problem of Lewis’ life is present in reply to the query, “What would C.S. Lewis do immediately?” Richard John Neuhaus performed with this concept in his essay, C.S. Lewis within the Public Sq.. “I quite hope that he would proceed to do what he did so very effectively; that he would persistently, persuasively and winsomely make his arguments, participating individuals one after the other with the questions,” Neuhaus wrote.
Within the Previous Testomony, God-followers have been referred to as to like God with all their coronary heart, soul and energy. Jesus added “thoughts” to the record, as if ensuring that when people gave their lives to God, they might not miss out on the totality of conversion, maybe feeling that the mind could be one of many extra simply missed dynamics to yield to the Divine.
On this gentle, we are able to echo an commentary made by Walter Hooper, a longtime good friend and private secretary to Lewis, who as soon as commented that Lewis struck him “as probably the most completely transformed man” he had ever met.
James Emery White
Sources
James Emery White, Severe Instances (InterVarsity Press), order from Amazon.
Roger Lancelyn Inexperienced and Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Biography.
Richard John Neuhaus, “C.S. Lewis within the Public Sq.,” Historic and Trendy Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy within the twenty first Century – Essays in Honor of Thomas C. Oden, edited by Kenneth Tanner and Christopher A. Corridor.
Walter Hooper in Preface to C.S. Lewis, God within the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. by Walter Hooper.
