Month: September 2017

Chad Walsh Meets C. S. Lewis

  

In last Saturday’s C. S. Lewis post, I related how Chad Walsh, an English professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin, turned from atheism to Christianity and how Lewis’s writings, particularly Perelandra, played a prominent role in his conversion. This led Walsh to want to know more about his new favorite author. He wrote an article about him in The Atlantic Monthly but sought to make the thesis of that article into a book, explaining in greater detail how Lewis’s writings… Read more »

A Tale of Magnificence & Depravity Well Told

  

When I was on my “Irma Vacation” a couple of weeks ago, I stopped by a Barnes and Noble to browse the history books. Often, when I’m in a bookstore, I feel a little rushed. This time, with nothing but time on my hands, I did some genuine browsing. I came across Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. I had been tempted to buy it before; after all,… Read more »

Awash in Foolishness

  

My response to the whole NFL national anthem controversy is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, I have a visceral reaction: who are these spoiled brats making more money in one year than either I or anyone reading this blog will make in a lifetime? What do they really have to protest? What’s “wrong” with the words of this anthem? I’m an American historian who deeply appreciates the Founding of this nation—its Biblical framework of thinking and its overall goals…. Read more »

Chad Walsh’s Baptized Imagination

  

One of C. S. Lewis’s earliest American friendships was with Chad Walsh, a professor of English at Beloit College in Wisconsin. Like Lewis, Walsh traveled the road from atheism to Christianity, and Lewis helped him on that journey. “In my case there was no childhood faith,” Walsh wrote in an account of how he eventually found the Christian path. If I ever believed in God as a small child, no memory of the time remains with me. I regarded myself… Read more »

Clearing Away the False Image

  

From the start of the Trump presidency, I committed myself to be a fair and balanced commentator. Regular readers of this blog know I wrote consistently during the primary season that Trump should not be the Republican nominee; those regular readers also know I could not bring myself to vote for him in the general election (no, I didn’t vote for the person he donated to for many years either). I have tried to be honest about his accomplishments (the… Read more »

As Far As the East Is From the West

  

Those of us who call ourselves disciples of Christ sometimes need more humility. We need to be reminded again and again that the position we have in the Kingdom of God is not something we have earned. Rather, we have been extended an undeserved mercy. All too often, we forget that He brought us out of the pit, out of utter spiritual darkness. That truth should create within us an enduring gratitude. In my own experience, I can say that… Read more »

Did Lewis Dislike Americans?

  

I’ve come across people who believe that C. S. Lewis really didn’t like America or Americans. Dealing with that issue was one of the goals of my book, so I made sure I covered it in the very first chapter. It begins with this snippet from Lewis’s early life: On the very first page of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, author Alan Jacobs tells the story of a precocious “Jack” Lewis, probably no more than… Read more »