A Most-Converted Man: Remembering C.S. Lewis

Dr. James Emery White

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By Dr. James Emery White, Crosswalk.com

On Friday, November 22, 1963, three lives ended within hours of each other: John F. Kennedy, 35^th President of the United States; Aldous Huxley, noted English novelist and critic; and a man known by his friends simply as “Jack.” But it was this third and final life that has arguably shaped the most lives and who, in the words of The Times, “in his own lifetime became a legend.”

As we move from November to December, I cannot help but be reminded of Lewis. Not only did he die in November, but it was also the month of his birth (November 29, 1898). Yet while many still know his name, they may not know much of the man.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland. Following World War I, where Lewis fought in France and was wounded in 1917, he went to University College, Oxford, where he achieved a rare Double First in Classics, an additional First in English, and the Chancellor’s Prize for academics. He was soon offered a teaching position at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a fellow and tutor from 1925 to 1954, and then later at the University of Cambridge as professor of Medieval and Renaissance English (1954-1963).

In 1931, Lewis came out of atheism into the Christian faith, aided significantly by his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings. The intellectual questions that plagued him during his spiritual journey – why God allows pain and suffering, how Christianity can be the one and only way to God, the existence of miracles – became the very questions he helped others navigate with such skill as a Christian.

His first work, The Pilgrim’s Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism, came out in 1933. Then came a torrent of works, eventually reaching 40 titles, the vast majority attempting to put forward Christianity in a very non-Christian world. Among the more widely known are The Screwtape Letters, a trilogy of science fiction novels (when the genre was hardly known), and the Chronicles of Narnia (a series of seven children’s books that are widely heralded as classics of fantasy literature).

Lewis’ passion was thoughtfully translating the Christian faith into a language that anyone could understand. He was driven to have people know what Christianity was about. It was a series of radio addresses, given over the BBC during the Second World War, but later published in three separate parts, where his conversational style, wit, intellect, and rough charm revealed Christianity to millions.

The first invitation was for four, 15-minute talks. The response was so overwhelming that they gave him a fifth 15-minute segment to answer listeners’ questions. A second round of talks was requested and given. The clarity of thought, his ability to gather a wide range of information and make it plain, led one listener to remark that they “were magnificent, unforgettable. Nobody, before or since, has made such an ‘impact’ in straight talks of this kind.” The BBC asked for a third round of talks, this time stretching out for eight consecutive weeks. Lewis consented, but made it clear it would be his last.

His goal throughout was simple: “I was... writing to expound... ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and was what it was long before I was born.” Eventually gathered in a single work titled Mere Christianity, the work continues to make Christianity known to millions.

The challenge of Lewis’ life is found in answer to the question, “What would C.S. Lewis do today?” Richard John Neuhaus played with this idea in his essay, C.S. Lewis in the Public Square. “I rather hope that he would continue to do what he did so very well; that he would persistently, persuasively and winsomely make his arguments, engaging people one by one with the questions,” Neuhaus wrote.

In the Old Testament, God-followers were called to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. Jesus added “mind” to the list, as if making sure that when individuals gave their lives to God, they would not miss out on the totality of conversion, perhaps feeling that the intellect would be one of the more easily missed dynamics to yield to the Divine.

In this light, we can echo an observation made by Walter Hooper, a longtime friend and personal secretary to Lewis, who once commented that Lewis struck him “as the most thoroughly converted man” he had ever met.

James Emery White

Sources

James Emery White, Serious Times (InterVarsity Press), order from Amazon.

Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis: A Biography.

Richard John Neuhaus, “C.S. Lewis in the Public Square,” Ancient and Modern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21^st Century – Essays in Honor of Thomas C. Oden, edited by Kenneth Tanner and Christopher A. Hall.

Walter Hooper in Preface to C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. by Walter Hooper.

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James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.