Reflections on God … Man … Life
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 »
That Hideous Strength is a complex book. It’s not merely one story-line that carries through the work: there are many such lines, along with many themes that C. S. Lewis wanted to implant in his readers’ minds. One such theme is the lure of the “inner ring.” Mark Studdock, the academic who longs for acceptance into what he considers the “real” power group in his college and at the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments—the N.I.C.E.—is a prime example of how… Read more »
Some tasks are more pleasant and gratifying than others, to be sure. One of the tasks that I enjoy is developing courses for adult education at my church. And when I can develop a new one on a C. S. Lewis topic, I do it with relish. That’s definitely the case with the latest course. After developing and teaching “The Screwtape Letters,” “Mere Christianity,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and “C. S. Lewis on Life, Death, and Eternity,” I now have… Read more »
Regular readers of my blog know that I am in the process of developing a course at my church on C. S. Lewis’s “Ransom Trilogy.” Although I’ve taught the third in the series a number of times, I’ve never attempted to cover all three, but I’m looking forward to helping tell Lewis’s tale to those who are unaware of it and who don’t know the underlying themes that Lewis explores. The background that led to Lewis writing the trilogy began… Read more »
I have a little box published by The Upper Room consisting of, as it is titled, Living Selections from Devotional Classics. I’ve had this box of devotionals since the 1980s and don’t recall when I last dived into it. Over the past weeks, I’ve done some diving. The first ones to attract me, which I began using in my devotions each day, were selections from The Imitation of Christ, The Cloud of Unknowing, Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence… Read more »
One of the aspects of C. S. Lewis’s writings that I’ve come to see more clearly is that he repeats key concepts regardless of the genre, whether via autobiography, apologetics, or fiction. As I’ve been re-reading the Ransom Trilogy, I’m seeing this better than ever. Let me offer one example that shows up in both Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. As Elwin Ransom tries to understand hrossa society on Malacandra, he questions his friend Hyoi about pleasures. In… Read more »
A couple weeks ago, I announced my intention to develop a course on C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy. In preparation for it, I am digesting analyses of the books, but am also going back to them for a more in-depth study of Lewis’s wording, his thoughts, both theological and philosophical, and goals—what he wanted readers to come away with when they finished. It has been a few years since my last reading of Out of the Silent Planet, so I’m… Read more »