Reflections on God … Man … Life
This week marks the one-year anniversary for going to the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College to share about our book, Many Times & Many Places: C. S Lewis & the Value of History. We are grateful for the invitation we received from David and Crystal Downing, who were then the co-directors of the Center. Not only did we have the privilege of sharing with an audience in the Bakke Auditorium, but we also went to the Downings’ home… Read more »
While researching my latest C. S. Lewis book, Many Times & Many Places: C. S. Lewis & the Value of History, I had the opportunity to take advantage of the Wade Center’s collection of books that Lewis himself owned and read. So, in the process of working on the book that was published in 2023, I also realized that the research I was doing for it would make for a good journal article. I’m more than pleased that the Wade… Read more »
Rev. T. R. Milford, rector of Oxford’s University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, wanted an authority to speak on the importance of continued education in a national crisis. That crisis was the Second World War, which Britain entered in September 1939 after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Why was this topic on the rector’s mind? Some would undoubtedly question—and perhaps some already were questioning—why a university such as Oxford should continue to prioritize academics at a time when all… Read more »
I mentioned in a previous post my research into the educational philosophies of C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers and the quest to determine how closely they may have aligned. There are many facets of education to consider when doing such research. One quite evident agreement between these two friends/colleagues is the significance of studying history. This is naturally interesting to me, as I have been a historian and professor of history for more than thirty years. If you… 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 »
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 »
Not long ago, I dreamed of writing a book highlighting C. S. Lewis’s views on history. At the time, I thought this would be a solo endeavor. Then I found out that a former student of mine was exploring the idea at the same time. The result was a cooperative venture that is now a reality. Further, the Wade Center—repository of all things Lewis—awarded me the Clyde Kilby Research Grant for 2022 that made another trip to the Center to… Read more »