Tag: Lewis

Anger, Bitterness, & an Election

  

Of all the consequences of this presidential election, the one that dismays me most is the rupture between those who have been friends and allies in a cause. It has happened in the political/cultural conservative camp in general and among conservative Christians also. The latter is the more grievous. Some are now questioning whether the breach that has been created can ever be healed. I believe it can be, but I don’t know if it will. I have been distressed… Read more »

Lewis on the Old Books

  

“Every age has its own outlook,” C. S. Lewis instructed. “It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.” Amen to that. “We all, therefore,” he continued, “need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.” Was Lewis saying that only old books are worthwhile? Was he so anti-modern that he believed nothing written in the last century could conceivably offer us wisdom? After… Read more »

My Lewis Weekend

  

I had the distinct pleasure last Friday evening of speaking to the New York C. S. Lewis Society in Manhattan. This society was the first organization in America established to study the works of Lewis and help promote them, beginning back in 1969. When I was researching my Lewis book, I had contacted the society for information to help in my research. Not only did I receive that help, I also received an invitation to talk about the book after… Read more »

Lewis, Politics, & a Dire Warning

  

In my study of C. S. Lewis while preparing my new book about his influence on Americans, I was constantly confronted with the opposite of what I had been told about him with regard to his views on politics and government. Lewis didn’t like the subject, I was told. Yet he mentioned it rather frequently in his letters to Americans. Then, as I re-read a lot of his essays, I again was surprised by how often he commented on the… Read more »

Lewis & Socialist Britain: His Critique

  

C. S. Lewis always claimed not to be interested in politics. To be sure, it was not a primary interest. Yet he often engaged in commentary and/or questions with his American correspondents over the state of American politics and government. As the 1952 presidential election approached, Lewis turned to Vera Gebbert for her opinion on what was transpiring, asking her if even Americans really understood what was happening on their political scene. He told her about another American correspondent who… Read more »

Lewis on Visiting America

  

Why write a book on C. S. Lewis’s connections with America when he never set foot on American soil? Well, connections are made in many ways, and this book stresses the impact Lewis made on individual Americans. During his lifetime, he received countless invitations to visit but he always had reasons for why he couldn’t do it. Although Lewis declined all invitations to visit America due to his personal circumstances, that did not mean he wasn’t attracted to some of… Read more »

Lewis’s Nuggets of Gold

  

Reading through C. S. Lewis’s letters to Americans during my sabbatical was a genuine pleasure. There are so many nuggets of gold in those letters that I couldn’t include them all in my new book, America Discovers C. S. Lewis. On the topic of suffering, for instance, here are a couple of gems. Writing to regular correspondent Mary Van Deusen on this topic, Lewis opines, That suffering is not always sent as a punishment is clearly established for believers by… Read more »