Category: Christians & Culture

Commentary, from a Biblical perspective, on current events that are primarily cultural. There may be some overlap with politics and government, but the emphasis is on broader societal developments apart from politics, which also includes analysis of specific individuals.

The Clean Sea Breeze of the Centuries

Some of C. S. Lewis’s essays found in collections today were not written as “stand-alone” pieces but rather connected to other works. One prime example is “On the Reading of Old Books,” which first appeared as an introduction to—well—an old book. In this case, it was (as noted on the left) St. Athanasius’s The Incarnation of the Word of God, which testifies to that early Christian Father’s fidelity to what we now call the Nicene Creed. Athanasius was exiled from… Read more »

Life in the Lord & Lewis

The first half of 2024 is going to be a banner time for spreading the Good News through the lens of C. S. Lewis. So many opportunities have opened for me to do so that I want to share them one by one. At Southeastern University, I will be teaching my Lewis course once again. Students will be exposed to the scope of Lewis’s writings—apologetic, fiction, and the more personal ones. They will begin with his autobiography, Surprised by Joy,… Read more »

The Decade of New Focus

The end of another year looms. This time of year, as we look forward to Christmas and a new year that will probably be quite similar to the current one (that’s both good and bad), I have a tendency to reflect. That’s not a bad idea, of course, given the subtitle of this blog. My reflection will be a pondering on how God has given me a new focus over the past decade. And that new focus centers on this… Read more »

Kindred Spirits in Romania

Doors open, and when the Lord is the One who opens the door, we should enter in to what He has for us. That’s how I looked upon the opportunity to go to Romania and participate in the C. S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits Conference this past week. The theme of the conference was “The Re-Enchanted Academic,” and I was pleased to offer a presentation in the very first panel. That’s me—second from the right, in preparation for the presentation…. Read more »

On the Edge of a Precipice

Out of all of C. S. Lewis’s superb essays, two stand out to me. As with many others, I am enthralled by his war-time sermon (turned into an essay) “The Weight of Glory.” It is Lewis at his highest peak of wordsmithing. The other one that has always captured my attention is “Learning in War-time,” which, like “The Weight of Glory,” was a war-time sermon that became an essay. The question raised in the sermon/essay is whether, during a time… Read more »

Lewis’s “Great Myth”

I have spent countless hours combing through C. S. Lewis’s essays in preparation for a course on those essays that I will teach beginning in January. I’m not complaining about the time I have spent: just the opposite. I can hardly imagine how time can be better spent. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been sharing key thoughts from some of those essays. Here’s another one I want to focus on today. My study of other writers that Lewis… Read more »

Where Lewis & Eliot Agree

In his early Christian days, C. S. Lewis disagreed rather strongly with the poetry of T. S. Eliot. He was particularly unimpressed and dismayed by Eliot’s The Waste Land. Over time, however, a mutual respect developed when they labored together on the Revised Psalter of the Church of England. I’ve recently been reading an interesting book of excerpts from various writers that Lewis admired, or at least respected. The book is titled From the Library of C. S. Lewis: Selections… Read more »