Please Post Your “GKC” Summaries Here!
February 28, 2007
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Please Post Your C S Lewis Comment Here!!!
February 28, 2007
Having read the essays below about C S Lewis several of our study group members posted their comments already. To read and discuss their opinion or to post your own comment, please click here!
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/bio/
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/cslewis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
“Jackie” enjoying writing and a good cigarette..
Dorothy Leigh Sayers
February 27, 2007
GKC short biography (David Armstrong)
February 26, 2007
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the leading literary and apologetic figures in England during the first third of this century. George Bernard Shaw, an atheist, but very good friend of Chesterton’s, called him a “colossal genius,” no doubt wittily intending a double meaning (Chesterton was quite rotund in later years!). In an anthology by a Protestant publisher, he was described as “the ablest and most exuberant proponent of orthodox Christianity of his time”. The great Anglican poet, T.S. Eliot said of him: “He did more, I think, than any man of his time . . . to maintain the existence of the important minority in the modern world”. C.S. Lewis, arguably the greatest Christian apologist in the era following Chesterton, and also an Anglican, described reading Chesterton as an atheist in 1925:
Then I read Chesterton’s Everlasting Man and for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense . . . I already thought Chesterton the most sensible man alive “apart from his Christianity.” Now, I veritably believe, I thought that Christianity itself was very sensible “apart from its Christianity.”
When asked what Christian writers had helped him, Lewis remarked in 1963, six months before he died, “The contemporary book that has helped me the most is Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.” Chesterton produced nearly a hundred books, including the classics Orthodoxy and The Man Who Was Thursday, and biographies of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi. He wrote articles for about 125 periodicals, and was also a talented literary critic, mystery writer, economic and political analyst, social commentator, orator, humorist and poet. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1922. (Source: David Armstrong’s excellent blogsite)
G K Chesterton “GKC”, (1874-1936) — The Everlasting Man
February 26, 2007
1898, 1910, third picture undated,
group picture: with George Bernard Shaw (left) and Hilaire Belloc (center), 1927
MacDonald and Chesterton as mentors of Lewis
February 26, 2007
Dr. Bruce L. Edwards:
Freed from the notion that the past was invariably wrong and that the present always the barometer of truth, Lewis was able to confront the possibility that Christian message could have validity even in the twentieth century. By his own account, two authors also emerge as particularly influential and crucial to his agonizing grope toward faith. The first these was George MacDonald, the nineteenth-century Scot Presbyterian minister and novelist, whose works in his own time were more popular than Charles Dickens’. After reading two of MacDonald’s fantasy works, Lewis reflected that they had “baptized” his imagination, preparing him for a world beyond the material one he had grown so tired of. The other author was G. K. Chesterton, popular and prolific London journalist, and a talented Christian apologist in his own right. Chesterton’s work, The Everlasting Man, a portrait of Christ and of his impact on culture, presented Lewis with a more global, comprehensive picture of Christianity and its place in human history. Lewis could thus say:
In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.
Critical Summery of Lewis’ Autobiography: Surprised by Joy
February 26, 2007
If you really want to get to know more about C S Lewis, read his autobiography!
Edwards:
“In Surprised by Joy (1956), written seven years before his death, Lewis helps to shed light on all “three Lewises” in his most personal book.As such, Surprised by Joy represents one of the few works within the Lewis canon that speaks directly and unabashedly about his personal life. Given the almost stifling attention that Lewis’s private life has received since his death in 1963, Surprised by Joy stands apart as an astonishingly candid yet self-effacing volume by one widely-regarded as the premier Christian apologist of the twentieth century. Lewis proceeds in Surprised by Joy as one reluctant to reveal specific details of his life but who relents, as he suggests in the preface, in order both to answer “requests that I would tell how I passed from Atheism to Christianity” and “to correct one or two false notions that seem to have got about.”
Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis: A Critical Summary and Overview
Dr. Bruce L. Edwards
George Sayer: Biographer of C. S. Lewis
February 25, 2007
Meilaender: Certainly the best Lewis biography prior to Wilson’s — and quite possibly the best still — is Jack:C. S. Lewis and His Times (1988) , written by Lewis’s pupil and friend George Sayer. Sayer’s biography has more detail than Wilson’s, disagrees with Wilson on some points, is not as readable or as witty and does not attempt to probe Lewis’s psyche in the way Wilson does.
Three essays on Lewis’ conversion from atheism to christianity
February 25, 2007
Paganism and the Conversion of C.S. Lewis (Clotilde Morhan)
Saving C.S. Lewis: C.S. Lewis’ Journey From Atheism to Faith (David Kithcart)
Exploring the Spiritual Odyssey of C.S. Lewis (Richard J. Wagner)
Morhan: In 1931 Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had that famous conversation about the nature of myths as they were walking down Magdalen College parks in Oxford. [27] This discussion completed the conversion process of Lewis’ gaze. Lewis, who was still an agnostic, claimed that despite his great love for myths, he could see in them nothing but lies. Tolkien explained his belief that God spoke through the minds of the poets, and that, although containing error, myths reveal glimpses of the Truth. He reiterated the idea that Lewis had found in Chesterton a few years earlier on, that the Incarnation was the fulfillment of our dreams. A few days later Lewis converted to Christianity.
Wagner: Yet after Lewis began his career at Oxford, a slow transformation took place. In 1926, Lewis began a five-year odyssey that would take him out of his atheism and to a belief in some sort of God, ultimately leading him to a belief in, as Lewis concluded, the “one true Christian God.”
Several guiding forces influenced Lewis along this path towards faith, as discussed in the following sections.
Christian heroes, friends, and colleagues
While teaching at Oxford, Jack realized that all his heroes in life were Christians. People like George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Spencer, and John Milton all believed in biblical Christianity. In contrast, the non-Christian people with whom Jack agreed philosophically — such as George Bernard Shaw and Voltaire — he found to have the substance of cotton candy. In addition, Lewis found that the friends to whom he was becoming the closest and most attached to, such as Arthur Greeves, Nevill Coghill, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Hugo Dyson, were Christian.
A sensible worldview, sort of
During this period of religious reflection, Lewis also became aware that the Christian view of the world was logical and reasonable after all. After reading The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton in 1926, Lewis thought that the Christian perspective on history was starting to make sense. However, ever the fighter, he tried to dismiss it by saying, “Christianity was very sensible apart from its Christianity.”
Confessions of a fellow atheist
Further nudging him toward conversion, in 1926, Lewis was deeply disturbed by a candid remark made by T.D. Weldon, a tutor in classical studies at Oxford. Weldon was militant in his atheism, but he conceded to Lewis during a conversation that the authenticity of the New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ was amazingly strong. In his autobiography, Lewis tells of Weldon’s admission that “It almost looks as if it had really happened once.”
If Weldon — this atheist of atheists — wasn’t safe from the truth claims of Christianity, then Lewis wondered how he could possibly escape intact.
The first reluctant step
Lewis began to realize that he had a real choice of whether to believe in God or deny him. And, as time went on and he was influenced by those factors outlined in the previous sections, Lewis found it impossible to consciously deny God’s existence. In 1929, Lewis finally admitted that God was God. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis calls himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”
However, Lewis stopped short of believing in Christianity. He believed in the reality of a deity, but went no further. He denied the possibility of any relationship with God. Wrote Lewis, “I didn’t call Him God either; I called Him Spirit. One fights for remaining comforts.”
Final steps to faith and joy
Lewis’s longtime process of embracing the Christian faith was like peeling an onion. The many layers of atheism and unbelief took a while to penetrate, but they gradually started to peel away by the early 1930s. Finally, the last remaining layers were stripped away in September 1931.
Accepting myth as truth
On September 19, 1931, Jack had dinner with friends J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson at Magdalen College, Oxford. Later, while walking the grounds of Magdalen, they discussed myths. Lewis told the others that he loved myths as stories but dismissed them as having any validity. Tolkien disagreed with his friend; he said myths almost always have a grain of truth in them, although the truth is usually skewed and distorted. The difference between Christianity and other myths, said Tolkien, is that Christianity is a particular myth that just happens to be true — God really did come to earth as a man and died so that those who believed in him could receive salvation. As Tolkien spoke, Lewis suddenly felt a strong breeze come over the threesome as they walked along the path, giving him the sensation of a message from God. Ever the rationalist, Jack didn’t want to make too big a deal over this event, but the impeccable timing gave him goose bumps.
Lewis, Tolkien, and Dyson talked until early the next morning. After Tolkien went home, Dyson stayed with Lewis, discussing what forgiveness does to the new Christian. After this night of extended conversation, everything began to come together in Jack’s head.
Throwing out all doubt
The last step of Lewis’s long journey came a few days later. Lewis threw his final doubts and hesitations to the roadside and decided that he believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
| This decision was far more than an intellectual exercise for Lewis; it transformed his whole life. He experienced a new sense of purpose in his job at Oxford. He focused much of his future writing on defending or articulating the Christian faith. He began to understand that his lifelong pursuit for Joy could be fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Finally, Lewis was able to experience the deeper sense of friendship that had eluded him up until that point. |
Biographies of Lewis
February 25, 2007
HIS LIFE / BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS
C. S. Lewis Superstar (Bob Smietana; Christianity Today; 11-23-05)
C.S. Lewis: A Profile of His Life (Christian History magazine)
Biography and Fact Sheet (Everything2.com)
A Gallery: Family and Friends of C.S. Lewis (Christian History magazine)
God’s Storyteller: The curious life and prodigious influence of C. S. Lewis, the man behind The Chronicles of Narnia (Jay Tolson)
Lewis chapter of the book Skeptics Who Demanded a Verdict, by Josh McDowell
Interesting and Unusual Facts about C. S. Lewis (compiled by Robert Trexler and Jennifer Trafton)
J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, a Legendary Friendship (Colin Duriez interviewed by Chris Armstrong)
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien: Bitter Friends? (Scotsman.com)
C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald (Michael J Partridge)
Prisoner of Narnia: How C. S. Lewis Escaped (Adam Gopnik; differences in perception of Lewis between British and Americans)
The Many Faces of C.S. Lewis (Ray Waddle)
A 107th Birthday Tribute to C. S. Lewis (Bruce Edwards)
C. S. Lewis: Public Scholar and Christian (Bruce Edwards)
Psychoanalyzing C.S. Lewis (Gilbert Meilaender; mostly about A.N. Wilson’s biography of Lewis)
Centennial tribute article for Sunday, November 29, 1998: C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian (Bruce Edwards)
Short Biography (1)
Short Biography (2)
Biography (The Literary Encyclopedia)
Biography (The Stone Table)
A Timeline of C.S. Lewis’s Life (The Stone Table)
C.S. Lewis (Wikipedia)
Oxford’s C.S. Lewis: His Heresy: Christianity (article from Time Magazine, 8 September 1947)
Biography: C S Lewis, Scholar and Spiritual Writer (includes brief analysis of books)
C. S. Lewis (St. Peter’s Church, Nottingham, England; by Michael Leuty)
A Very Brief Biography (C.S. Lewis Chronicles site)
The Creator of Narnia: C. S. Lewis (Ann-Marie Imbornoni)
Frequently Asked Questions (Into the Wardrobe website)
C.S Lewis Frequently Asked Questions (Andrew Rilstone)
The Marriage of C.S Lewis (Andrew Rilstone)
The Failure to Communicate: C.S. Lewis and His Father (Michael McCrary)
Walking Where Lewis Walked (Virginia Stem Owens)
The House Where Jack Wrote (Michael Apichella)
Some of the best descriptions of Lewis’ character
February 25, 2007
Ann-Marie Imbornoni writes..
February 25, 2007
Later, however, as he entered his early 30s and settled into both his professional and domestic life, Lewis came to a real turning point in his spiritual life. While riding on a double-decker bus in the early summer of 1929, Lewis suddenly felt he had no choice but to acknowledge a belief in God. Shortly afterward, alone in his room at the university, he knelt and prayed.
His reconversion to Christianity was not quite this simple, because it was accompanied by many doubts, inward debates, and discussions with friends. As Lewis explained in a letter to his brother, though, he became a Christian because for him there was nothing else to do. Christianity was to become a central aspect of Lewis’s adult life and a subject of many of his writings, including the Narnia stories.
