Free Republic

When a new book came out, the great C. S. Lewis would first seek out an old one on the same subject. That’s good advice for embattled Americans. In fact, two old books address what is happening today with rare perception. Regent College Publishing has reissued The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove, the two volumes of Chronicles of Wasted Time by Malcolm Muggeridge. Paul Johnson called it one of the great autobiographies of our time, which might be an understatement. Wisdom and wit leap off the pages, and there’s even a news hook: Russia has invaded Ukraine and that...

isitors to St. Mary’s Church, a 12th-century parish in Yorkshire, England, will soon be welcomed by a cast of characters from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. As Harriet Sherwood reports for the Guardian, 14 limestone sculptures depicting Aslan the lion, Jadis the White Witch, Reepicheep the talking mouse and other magical creatures are set to replace worn medieval carvings on the church’s exterior. ...

When one thinks about the incomparable C. S. Lewis one normally thinks about the great Christian apologist that he was, or the author of famous children’s books, or the celebrated professor of English literature. One does not usually think of him as one who spoke or wrote much about political matters. But he did. Scattered throughout his writings are various discussions about political matters, democracy, freedom, equality, law and justice, tyranny and the like. From talks he had given, or essays he had written, political matters quite often appear in the Lewis corpus. And they are fully relevant for the...

Newsdump Update: Health Freedom Protest London Some people are worried about: 5G perhaps we need to be worried about: 5C... The Character Assassination Of A Dutch Politician Who Forced A Vote On Compulsory Vaccination In Parliament... This week Peter Hitchens posted a ten year old remembrance of his late brother Christopher Hitchens at one point describing... Love and Loss. Christmas and more is all in a movie I link to next it's based on the personal experience of C.S. Lewis as written down in "A Grief Observed"... Newdump Breaking News: Hard Christmas Lockdown In The Netherlands To Coerce Vaxxing The...

Legendary Christian writer and thinker C.S. Lewis went from “vigorous debunker of Christianity” to one of history’s most transformative and apologetic faith voices. But most people today are much more acquainted with his hit books, like Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia, than the finer details of his compelling faith journey. Nearly 60 years after Lewis’ death, that spiritual evolution is getting a fresh look through the popular, new film, “The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis.” Actor Max McLean, who plays Lewis in the movie, recently told Faithwire about the author’s stunning transformation from “hard-boiled...

If heaven is more real than earth, joy is more realistic than despair.A friend and I were recently discussing the tension we feel between seriousness and humor, both online and in real life. Living as eternal souls in this sin-cursed world is undoubtedly serious business. I’m always bringing up weighty matters of politics or theology, because how else will we learn to live well in this life or the next? It matters.At the same time, we must laugh. Humor is the padding that keeps life from being all sparks and sharp angles. It defuses tensions and reminds us we’re all...

oday C.S. Lewis, the man whose literary works such as The Chonicles of Narnia book series is known as a titan of the Christian faith. When he was alive, Lewis’s deep insights, wisdom, words of comfort, and reason were all sought after, particularly during World War II, when he addressed the people of Great Britain on the BBC, and thereafter. After he passed away in 1963, C.S. Lewis’s writings would continue to bring valuable insight, wisdom, words of comfort, and reason to generations looking for serious answers about God, life experience, the fractured world around us, pain, suffering, and how...

"FPA founder and artistic director Max McLean stars as middle-aged Lewis recalling events that began his journey from vigorous debunker of Christianity to one of the most influential Christian writers of the past century. The film is based on the play C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert that premiered in 2016. Play and film are both taken from Lewis’ memoir, Surprised by Joy, which is licensed from the C.S. Lewis Company. “When we began working on our distribution of the film, we had a handful of theatres, mostly in major markets, with one showing on one day on...

America’s founders said our rights come from God. This is enshrined in our national birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. And yet many of the intellectual elites in the West (including in America) in the last century or so have abandoned belief in the Creator. The theory of evolution helped grease the skids toward unbelief. In 1860, a year after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species, there was the “Great Debate” in a building at Oxford University that now houses a science museum and collection. It is generally held that the evolution side won, and this...

C.S. Lewis saw the direction things were heading back in 1958, when he warned of the rise of a scientocracy — a government driven by science that would offer salvation from danger and illness at the expense of personal freedom. From The Magician's Twin:

The arguments made by conservatives skeptical of critical race theory need to be addressed and met on their actual merits.The Washington Post’s Christine Emba claims conservative opposition to critical race theory has less to do with intellectual concerns and more to do with emotivism and fear. She accuses conservatives of “disguising” their “discomfort with racial reconsideration as an intellectual critique,” asserting conservative skepticism of critical race theory reflects a “psychological defense, not a rational one.” The irony, however, is that Emba’s argument relies on a textbook logical fallacy.That fallacy is the ad hominem, and more specifically “bulverism,” a term coined...

“We now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.” -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters A masterful piece of religious prose disguised as satire, C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is a series of messages from senior devil Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood on how best to corrupt mortals. Originally released during World War II, its tight 175 pages provide charming, timeless wisdom. In an addendum released shortly before the author’s death in 1963 – Screwtape Proposes a Toast – Lewis pivots from dispensing universal wisdom to directly criticizing social trends of his day,...

“We now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.” -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape LettersA masterful piece of religious prose disguised as satire, C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is a series of messages from senior devil Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood on how best to corrupt mortals. Originally released during World War II, its tight 175 pages provide charming, timeless wisdom. In an addendum released shortly before the author’s death in 1963 – Screwtape Proposes a Toast – Lewis pivots from dispensing universal wisdom to directly criticizing social trends of his day, trends...

A historic pub in the centre of Oxford that has served students, scholars and literary greats for over 450 years is to close. The Lamb and Flag, once frequented by the likes of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien and his friend C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, has suffered a disastrous loss of revenues since the start of the pandemic. It first opened in 1566 and moved to its present location on St Giles, a broad thoroughfare in the city centre, in 1613. It is owned by St John’s College, one of 45 colleges and private...

C.S. Lewis and accomplished author J.R.R. Tolkien sat down and had a talk about children’s stories in their day. Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C.S. Lewis’s, elaborated on this conversation between them. He said, “[Lewis and Tolkien] sat down and had a discussion about children’s literature that was being produced in those days. They found that they both agreed that children’s literature of that time was really not good enough for children. It didn’t say the things that children needed to hear. And it didn’t say the things that children would like to hear and enjoy. So, they both decided...

Mask scolds have been monomaniacal about this virus as if there is no other way to die. What they don’t seem to understand is that this is no way to live.Those of us who are unsettled by mask mandates often cite the loss of freedoms as the reason behind our concerns, but that doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. Mask mandates are not just dehumanizing in the context of today’s society, preventing us from reading the faces of others. There is yet another level of dehumanization. Getting “used to” masks suggests something more spiritually sinister: a Borg-like facelessness...

Seventy years after its first publication, C.S. Lewis's classic 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' remains resonant with readers young and old. Since its publication 70 years ago today, C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” has been translated into 47 foreign languages, made into a movie series that grossed more than $700 million at the box office, and was included in Time magazine’s list of the top 100 novels published since 1923.Featuring a land of magic, evil witches, and otherworldly creatures, the world of Narnia introduces millions of children to the fantasy genre every year. It’s...

Douglas Gresham is the last person living who knew C. S. Lewis well. The son of Joy Davidman, Douglas watched his mother and “Jack” fall in love and marry. He wept with his stepfather when Joy died of cancer, and led the mourners behind the casket when husband followed wife to the graveyard. In a recent interview, Douglas told me that many biographers have misunderstood Lewis’s marriage. Lenten Lands is Douglas’s memoir of his life at The Kilns in Oxford with his brother David, his mother, Lewis, and Lewis’s brother Warnie. A poignant and powerful account of his mother’s death...

From Narnia to Wormwood to the Four Loves—Here Are the Best 125 C.S. Lewis Quotes  Many of us may remember the awe and wonder we felt when Lucy first encountered the world of Narnia after walking through an old wardrobe. One inventive man and author was able to stretch our imaginations to new lengths through his epic fantasy series, and he did not stop there. From so many of his well-written novels and musings, we have the 125 greatest C.S. Lewis quotes to share!Clive Staples Lewis was a popular British writer who authored over 30 books during his lifetime. A...

By now regular readers know that I am a fan of C.S. Lewis, and I was a fan of him before becoming Orthodox. In fact, I consider him one of the influences that led me to Orthodoxy, though I would not have thought of it that way before I became Orthodox. You see, it was not until I became Orthodox that I realized just how much of C.S. Lewis’ thinking reflected a more “Eastern” viewpoint, or perhaps, I had better say a more “universal” or catholic viewpoint.One of his statements has to do with the whole issue of theosis or...