Tag: Lewis

The “Extras” in Out of the Silent Planet

I have just this week completed teaching Out of the Silent Planet to a dedicated small group in person at my church while a larger number watch on Zoom, and a much larger number than the first two groups watch the video later. It’s a privilege that I don’t take for granted. Now that I have finished that book and will enter into Perelandra next, I would like to take a few moments to note that one of the benefits… Read more »

Grateful for Opportunities to Be Productive

This is a very interesting and productive time in my life. Normally, that isn’t the case for someone who has passed the 70 mark, but I don’t know when I’ve felt more in tune with what the Lord has me doing. And a lot of that centers around C. S. Lewis. At the university where I taught full-time for thirteen years and now serve as an adjunct professor, I’m teaching my Lewis course to twenty-one students. Most of these students,… Read more »

The Very Historically Grounded C.S. Lewis

In my quest to write a book about C. S. Lewis’s views on history, I’ve laid out potential chapters for the proposed book. The very first chapter, I believe, needs to establish Lewis’s credentials as someone whose views on history should be taken seriously. Some, I know, would say that since he primarily taught English literature that this might be a hill too steep to climb. Yet, as a historian myself, I know quite well that history and literature are… Read more »

The Challenge of Rethinking

When I was 25, I pretty much knew everything. If you didn’t think so, all you had to do was ask me. Theology, for instance, was all figured out. No need to revisit that. Yet, in the years that followed, I came to the realization that I had a lot to learn. Let me offer a few examples of the rethinking I have had to do. As a young and budding historian, beginning my studies toward a doctorate, I came… Read more »

Pagans vs. Modern Man

I’m currently working on a video series for my church (which will eventually go worldwide via YouTube) on world religions. As I survey the various belief systems—and end with the Christian faith, of course—I hope the audience will excuse me for quoting C. S. Lewis continually throughout the series. He just has so many relevant comments that I find it hard to omit some of them. For instance, the first religious system I examine is paganism. Lewis’s views on that… Read more »

Unchanging, Yet Changed

What does the title of this blog post mean? It sounds kind of contradictory, doesn’t it? Yet it expresses what is happening in my thinking and reflections on God, man, the church, our society, and the political ramifications that flow from our beliefs about all of those. If you have been a regular reader of my blog over the years, you probably already know some of the thought processes I’ve been experiencing, especially in the last six or seven years…. Read more »

Gratitude

This week I received the happy news that the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College has awarded me the Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant for 2022. As explained on the Wade’s website, “In 1982, the Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant was established by Wheaton College’s class of 1939 in honor of their former professor and faculty class sponsor. This endowed award is presented annually by the Board of the Marion E. Wade Center to a scholar engaged in a… Read more »