[Walkin Man]

Mere Christianity and other CS Lewis books had a profound effect on my life and many others no doubt.

[cornelis]

FYI

[Darksheare]

Screwtape Letters.

[Sabertooth]

Aldous Huxley also died November 22nd, 1963.

[LiteKeeper]

read later - CS Lewis is oneof the best of the 20th C!

[the invisib1e hand]

I've been alive for forty years, not dead, and I still love 'The Chronicles of Narnia.'

***

I suspect the same sorts noise about Princess Diane's 'controversial' death will threaten (but not succeed) to obscure Mother Theresa's.

[VOA]

"The Most Reluctant Convert"...at least I think that's the way he described himself.

What's funny is that I've heard one of his stepsons say that Lewis faithfully attended chruch
services...but often had the habit of sitting in a certain pew by which his view of
the pulpit was obscured.
Apparently, this was Lewis' way of lessening exposure to certain preachers
(or priest, or whatever the main service speaker is called in The Anglican Church).

Nice to see that even one of the greats was a very good and human being.

[MinuteGal]

Thanks for posting this. I've always found C.S. Lewis to be a fascinating and unique man.

I wonder what he'd have to say about the Islam religion if he were alive today.

I think maybe I know. His thoughts would be calm, but erudite and theologically honest. He had an unique ability to reason and present his reasoning in an understandable literary context.

Leni

[Davea]

Although it may seem morbid but one of the best books I ever read was "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis. Brutally honest. It strips away the "pop" version of Christianity and goes to the core.

[MissAmericanPie]

"Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst," he wrote in "Reflections on the Psalms"


And they receive the worst punishment at the White Throne judgement.

[Wonder Warthog]

"But Lewis, like his friend J. R. R. Tolkien, knew the trouble lay deeper, and marshaled his literary imagination to explore it."

Hmmmm---the author fails to credit (or doesn't know) that it was Tolkien who was responsible for Lewis's conversion to Christianity--although JRRT was somewhat saddened that Lewis chose the Anglican Church instead of adopting Tolkien's Catholicism.

[Sam's Army]

Bump

[Lady Eileen]

bump...thanks for the post.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Those interested in the definitive biography of Lewis, I suggest William Griffin's Clive Staples Lewis: A Dramatic Life.

Because Lewis died on the day JFK was assassinated, it has always seemed likely to me that this was Satan's way of obscuring the passing of this great Christian.

[Quix]

THANKS.
MUCH APPRECIATED.

MUCH AGREE.

[maxwell]

BUMP for good article.

[whipitgood]

Anyone who claims to be a christian should read and understand "Mere Christianity"

[Intolerant in NJ]

The film Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger is an insightful (though a little slow) recounting of Lewis's surprise - to him - romance and marriage to an American writer. Hopkins portrays well his reticence and wariness in becoming involved, and the film captures touchingly the irony of Lewis lecturing about the ennobling power of suffering until he has to face the terminal illness of his wife and finds in real life nothing noble in the experience. Eventually Lewis resolves his pain by ackowledging that after a lifetime of running from love he finally had opened himself to it. He finds solace in something his wife had told him when they were confronting her illness: "the pain now is part of the happiness then - that's the bargain" - a sentiment I'm finding more and more meaningful as I grow older.....

[beckett]

"If you take your stand on the 'prevalent' view, how long do you suppose it will prevail? . . . All you can really say about my taste is that it is old-fashioned; yours will soon be the same." C.S. Lewis

[Kevin Curry]

"If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next," he wrote in "Mere Christianity," one of his best-known works. "It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this."

Other works of Lewis suggest he believed (as I do) that the Christians who did the "most" (that is, who obeyed most perfectly the will of God) are unlikely to find their works chronicled in the annals of human-written history. As celebrated as Mother Teresa is, Lewis would, I think, be willing to grant the existence of tens of thousands if not millions of everyday Christians known only to God who accomplished as much if not more. Worldly celebrity is not always a good barometer of relative worth or accomplishment in spiritual matters. In the parable of the feast, the man invited to take a seat closer to the head of the table is just as shocked as the man whose place he is invited to take.

The distinction is important because Christians who take to heart too readily the suggestion that those who do the visible and celebrated most to feed the poor, lift the weak, visit the sick etc are soon and strongly tempted to view confiscatory government as the prime engine for getting this done. So deceived, they end up creating more misery than they relieve.

As wonderful as Lewis's wisdom is, he did not well address the effect that government has on the calculus of righteousness. Perhaps that wasn't his job. Unfortunately, liberals and progressives are only too willing and able to construe his works as justifying if not requiring a smothering nanny government of enforced "good works."