Tag: Lewis

Lewis & the Public Square (Part 2)

  

Last Saturday, I posted a portion of the paper I’m delivering to the Academic Roundtable at the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s summer conference. Today, I’d like to offer another excerpt dealing with how Lewis viewed the Christian’s responsibility to speak to the culture and government in the public square. Lewis called on his fellow Christians to engage the culture in every possible way. Education was certainly a key component for furthering the Biblical worldview; he called it “only the most… Read more »

The Antidote for Despair

  

We live in a culture spiraling down into depths of depravity that many of us never expected to witness. We have presidential candidates who are so corrupt that neither deserves a vote. We could, if we allowed it to happen, allow ourselves to spiral down into despair. God, though, doesn’t want that to happen. We need to stay focused. My daily Scripture reading this morning brought me to 2 Corinthians 5. I’ve been reading through the Scripture in the Message… Read more »

Lewis & the Public Square (Part 1)

  

I’ve finished the first draft of my paper for the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s conference next month. The assigned topic for the Academic Roundtable is “Faith, Freedom, and the Public Square.” Participants can come at this topic in any way they choose. I chose to address the distinct difference historically between the terms “liberty of conscience” and “pluralism,” noting the first one rests on the belief that there is absolute truth to be found, while the second offers a basis… Read more »

America Discovers C. S . Lewis

  

My year-long sabbatical in 2014-2015 will soon pay off. The manuscript for my book on C. S. Lewis is now in the hands of the publisher and I’ve secured the Lewis Company’s permission to quote from Lewis sources. I’d like to give you an overview of what to expect in this book. The revised title is America Discovers C. S. Lewis: His Profound Impact. Chapter one looks at the relationship between Lewis and America. What was his attitude toward Americans… Read more »

Influencing the Course of Events: A Lewis “Scrap”

  

Combing through C. S. Lewis’s essays to find pertinent quotes for the paper I will be presenting at the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s summer conference, I came upon what might be called a little scribbling that I don’t remember ever reading before. It’s in the collected essays entitled God in the Dock and is called simply “Scraps.” These seem to be just odds-and-ends comments that Lewis saw fit to put on paper, perhaps just for fun, or for future reference… Read more »

Screwtape Proposes a Hellish Education

  

I’ve been scouring C. S. Lewis’s essays for pertinent comments for the Academic Roundtable in which I will be participating at the upcoming summer Lewis Foundation conference. This is work? Not really. More like fun. In the process of my scouring, I reread his “Screwtape Proposes a Toast,” a followup to the fabulously successful book, The Screwtape Letters, that put Lewis on the literary map for Americans. As a lifelong educator, just now completing my 27th year of teaching at… Read more »

Lewis on the Decline of Christian Faith in Society

  

I’m of the decided opinion that Christian faith is under attack in our nation. I’m also convinced that the influence of that faith in the public sphere has declined precipitously in the last seven years (I wonder what that coincides with?). Yet there is another angle of vision on this outward decline of which C. S. Lewis aptly reminds us. In one of his short essays found in God in the Dock, “The Decline of Religion,” he offers his perspective… Read more »