Tag: Lewis

What Prayer Really Accomplishes

  

All those essays by C. S. Lewis contain nuggets that can be missed when we focus only on his more famous works. For instance, in “The Efficacy of Prayer,” written in 1959, he provides many thoughtful insights: Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. That’s a good starting place for any prayer: recognize who you really are in comparison to the One to whom you are praying…. Read more »

The Lewis & Chambers Blessing

  

Two of the courses I’m teaching this semester are particularly gratifying: one is on C. S. Lewis and the other on Whittaker Chambers. I’ve taught on Chambers for many years; this is only the second time I’ve offered the Lewis course. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I’ve written books lately on both men. The added blessing is to be given the opportunity to then take what I’ve researched and written about and offer… Read more »

Critiquing Critiques: A Lewis Insight (Part 3)

  

When C. S. Lewis was completing his degrees at Oxford in the 1920s, he was being bombarded at that time with all the new ideas floating around the intellectual world. One of these was Freudianism. As with most young people, at first he was somewhat taken in by such new thought, but he later dismissed it as a false theory of psychology. All one has to do is read his The Pilgrim’s Regress to get his wonderfully scathing diagnosis of… Read more »

On Being a “Word” Guy

  

I’m a “word” guy, and becoming more so after writing two books in the past two years. I’m always looking for just the right way to say things, and I appreciate writers whose originality with words makes one rethink, or think more deeply, about life. That’s why I’m attracted to the wordsmithing of people like Whittaker Chambers and C. S. Lewis. It’s not just what they say—which is truth-hitting-you-where-it-helps/hurts-most—but the way they say it. Most of us have a hard… Read more »

Podcast of My Lewis Book

  

It’s here, the podcast I recorded with William O’Flaherty about my book on C. S. Lewis. In it, I provide background on why and how I wrote it, along with some explanation of the various chapters within. The podcast is only half an hour, well worth your time. I hope you find it both enlightening and entertaining, and that if you haven’t yet purchased the book, perhaps this will pique your interest enough to do so. Let me know what… Read more »

Critiquing Critiques: A Lewis Insight (Part 2)

  

In my last C. S. Lewis post, I drew from one of his lesser-known essays entitled “On Criticism.” I find that it contains a number of great insights into how reviewers of books can fall into errors. The first error Lewis pointed out is that some reviewers simply don’t do the work necessary: they don’t read carefully and miss the mark on the actual facts contained in a book. A second error, according to Lewis, is when a reviewer attempts… Read more »

Critiquing Critiques: A Lewis Insight (Part 1)

  

Finding something by C. S. Lewis that I’ve never read previously is always a joy (and I believe I’m talking about “joy” in the true Lewisian sense). One of his essays, “On Criticism,” has a series of pearls that I will share over the next few Saturdays. Every author needs to receive constructive criticism. Lewis welcomed it to improve his writing, and since he wrote so much, he was subjected to a vast number of critiques. While he appreciated good… Read more »