Reflections on God … Man … Life
C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, for many years, was kind of a mystery to me. All of my Lewis reading prior to tackling this book was centered on his apologetics and fantasy. I loved the logic of Mere Christianity and Miracles and basked in the delights of the Ransom Trilogy, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and of course, the Narnia tales. The first time I read Till We Have Faces, I came away from it disappointed. This… Read more »
Reading the letters of famous people gives researchers like me greater insight into how their minds work. What’s even better is to find letters between superb thinkers and writers that illuminate how they think and what is going on inside them. A great example of this are the letters between C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers. They are lively and fascinating. When Lewis and Sayers corresponded in 1946 about the value of one’s labors—in this case, their writing endeavors—Lewis… Read more »
I recently spoke at a C. S. Lewis conference about the significance of The Screwtape Letters. This is obviously one of the best-known works by Lewis and continues to hold a strong fascination in the minds of those who have read it. Americans have loved it ever since it was first published. In my presentation, I thought I would begin with what ostensibly could be called a “catchy” title. Catchy, yes, but also quite accurate. I did provide a general… Read more »
I’ve often commented that the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College is nearly a second home for me. Surrounded by all things C. S. Lewis (his writings, his personal library, books and dissertations about him), I have found the Wade to be an invaluable resource for my research and writing. It was at the Wade in 2014 where my research confirmed that a niche in Lewis scholarship could be found for a historian who focuses on American history. Thus,… Read more »
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 »
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 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 »