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When the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” comes on the pre-show soundtrack, it’s a tipoff that C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is going to be a diabolically delightful evening of theater and infernally amusing. The script is deftly adapted for the stage by Max McLean (who also directs) and Jeffrey Fiske from Lewis’ popular epistolary novel wherein the moral universe is turned upside down: God is “The Enemy” and the Devil-in-chief is “Our Father.” The Screwtape Letters is obliquely a story about the vicissitudes of faith and the joke is that it’s set in Hell, where Screwtape is a...

I'm a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Ivor do...

Among C.S.Lewis’ best writings is his essay about insider cabals. Entitled The Inner Ring, it can be read here on the website of the C.S. Lewis Society of California. Lewis begins with a quotation from Tolstoy’s War and Peace...

MINAS TIRITH, GONDOR—Kicking off a major trade war between the two kingdoms, the Middle-Earth Trade Federation has announced heavy tariffs on the import of Narnian steel, sending the stock market into a freefall Thursday.Any steel imported from Narnia to Gondor, Rohan, Erebor, or Mirkwood will be subject to a 30% tax. The move is expected to raise the end consumer price of various imported goods significantly, according to expert economists working at Rivendell.“Trade wars are great, and they’re really easy to win,” the king of Gondor said in a dispatch via carrier pigeon. “If we keep allowing cheap Narnian steel...

We must never forget that at this time of year, we celebrate much more than a birthday. As the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis put it, Christmas is the story of how “the rightful King has landed.” When Jesus stood before the Roman governor Pilate, just prior to going to His execution, Pilate asked Him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” After some discussion Pilate concluded to Jesus, “You are a king, then!” Jesus answered him, saying, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came...

Originally an atheist, C.S. Lewis credited his Catholic colleague at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien, whom he met in 1926, as being instrumental in his coming to faith in Jesus Christ. *snip C.S. Lewis wrote: “The best popular defense of the full Christian position I know is G. K. Chesterton’s ‘The Everlasting Man.'” In “Surprised by Joy,” 1955, C.S. Lewis described how he resisted “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape,” until in 1929 he came to believe in God: “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen (College, Oxford) night after...

Subtitle: Cue up Pajama Boy. The great crimes of the Left begin in the public school student’s earliest years, when they work to snuff out of Love of Country. On July 4th I watched a clip from Democracy Now, a progressive TV news show hosted by Pacifica’s Amy Goodman. While I didn’t expect to watch stirring renditions from our Founding Era, I was taken aback by a segment devoted to the Leftist historian and author Howard Zinn. In A People’s History of the United States (1980), which is required reading in many high schools and universities, students are pummeled with...

Video LinkIf you want to skip the Preface and Foreword, the first chapter starts at the 16:25 mark.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable...

Mid-twentieth-century C. S. Lewis witnessed and wrote about the increasing moral breakdown and intellectual decay of Western civilization. He observed how secular and atheistic academics, philosophers, politicians, intellectuals, and cultural elites abandoned reason, denied universal truths, undermined Christian doctrines, and rejected moral principles that formed the foundation of civilized society. "Lewis walked our cultural ground," explained Chris R. Armstrong. "He lived, as we do, in a society that denied objective value; lacked a coherent social ethic; wallowed in instant gratification, sexual license, moral evasion, and blame-shifting; and failed to pass on a moral framework to its children." In his book...

"If you ever doubt that C. S. Lewis was gifted with a prophetic voice, you need look no further for correction than Prince Caspian. In the story, you may remember, Narnia is in a desperate situation. The Telmarines have taken over, and the citizens of Narnia have been persecuted, silenced, and driven into hiding. When Prince Caspian—a Telmarine himself, but one who sympathizes with the Narnian cause—joins forces with them, this leads to a fresh round of attacks from the other Telmarines and their king, Miraz. The Narnians try to summon help by using Queen Susan’s horn—and they are successful,...

 When events at Yale University and the University of Missouri propelled college politics to national news, many conservatives were caught off guard by the power of "political correctness." To those familiar with the works of C.S. Lewis, however, these events were of little surprise. Lewis's The Abolition of Man explains both the confusion and the radical ideology on campuses today, and how Americans should respond to these dire threats.What's Happening on College Campuses?In the September issue of The Atlantic, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, described a...

I was recently asked my opinion about the current state of affairs, and thought some of you might be interested. Or not. ===================================================== Hi Cousin You asked my thoughts about Paris, so here they are. What we are seeing is not a clash of civilizations, but rather a clash between civilization and barbarism. Paris is but the latest consequence of The West 1) failing to recognize/address barbarism, and 2) losing faith in civilization itself. In short, Paris is the well-deserved consequence of The West's aggregate contempt for its own Christian heritage. G.K. Chesterton once said that when a people no...

Two authors who collectively have sold hundreds of millions of copies of their books decades after their deaths receive scant attention in academia. C. S. Lewis, according to Publisher’s Weekly, had sold 18 million copies by 2013. J. R. R. Tolkien, according to answers.com, has sold about 250 million copies. But try finding a panel on either of them at the Modern Language Association. Perhaps it has something to do with the outlook of this literary pair. Indeed, even during their lifetimes, despite spending most of their working lives as Oxford dons, both Lewis and Tolkien were more widely appreciated...

One of the most unpopular and difficult virtues of Christianity is forgiveness. As C.S. Lewis put it, “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” Sadly, our personal lives recently have been an exercise in forgiving the unforgivable.

[Originally published under the title "Notes on the Way," in Time and Tide, Vol. XXIX (August 14, 1948), it was subsequently reprinted with the above title in the posthumous God in the Dock book, published by Wiilliam B. Erdmanns, Grand Rapids, MI). "I should like Balls infinitely better," said Caroline Bingley, "if they were carried on in a different manner ... It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day." "Much more rational, I dare say," replied her brother, "but it would not be near so much like a Ball." We...

Your Love is Lifting Me Higher – A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe readings in today’s Mass speak to us of our desperate condition, and how God’s abiding love has not only set us free, but also lifted us higher. God was not content to restore us to some earthy garden, paradise though it was. No, he has so loved the world that he sent his Son who has opened heaven itself for us and given us a new, transformed and eternal life.Let's look at some of the themes and ponder that God works...

Do you find it difficult to believe in God or accept the claims of Christianity? I did, when I was an atheist, but I changed my mind, and my reasons for doing so may be of interest to you in your own personal journey and attempts to make sense of life. I am a freelance writer and lecturer. Since graduating from Oxford in 1973, with a degree in politics and philosophy, I have spent most of my professional life in politics and journalism, loving, as I do, the world of books, ideas and debate. Two questions in particular have always...

My dear Wormwood, These days I scarcely know where to turn next in the public prints, there's such an abundance of cheery news from the upper regions. Clearly you have things well in hand up there. War and the threat of war, aggression everywhere and suffering galore to go with it. Diplomats holding endless meetings that amount to a green light for more invasions and ever more power for those out to squelch freedom in the world. Congratulations and keep up the good work. It may be only a matter of time before our devilish friends in Teheran get their...

C.S. Lewis wrote in 1952 that “perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful.” The good Oxford don did not live to see the times we now live in, times in which progressive extremists can state a straight face that actually there are no sexual perversions – times in which even the long-held taboos against pedophilia and incest are falling like dominoes. The evidence that in the name of absolute sexual freedom, traditional taboos are no longer to be honored is everywhere. While sexual perversion has always existed, it has never been as widely tolerated and...