Barry's Blog

An article in last Friday's Wall Street Journal written by David Skeel, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, provided an interesting take on the legacy of C.S. Lewis, and the possibility of his successors in the world of Christian apologetics. In the article entitled, "Apres Lewis," Skeel laments that there has not been another writer like C. S. Lewis to provide an updated version of Lewis' remarkable defense of orthodox Christianity entitled, "Mere Christianity," which has sold millions of copies since it's original publication in 1952.

Concerning the writing style of the Oxford don, Skeel observes: "Lewis was an adept Christian apologist who used his literary gifts--his fluent prose style, his powers of description, his engaging narrative voice, his way with metaphor--to explain the basic tenets of Christianity: what it meant to believe in Jesus Christ and to live according to Christian principles. More than that: He was at pains to capture, in prose, what it meant to discover Christianity as something worthy of belief. On the page, he thought his own faith through, trying to make sense of it for himself and others. There is always something ecumenical and instructive to Lewis' religious writings, and 'Mere Christianity'... is the nonfiction book by which American Christians, not least American evangelicals, know Lewis best."

Skeel then surveys recent modern attempts by evangelicals to provide a more current treatment of Lewis' apologetic works, Mere Christianity "wannabes," if you will. Among them are Lee Strobel, the former investigative reporter in Chicago ("The Case for Christ"), N. T. Wright, the Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar ("Simply Christian," among other writings), and Tim Keller, a New York City pastor whose teaching style attracts over 5,000 attendees, most of them young, single, urban professionals. And while Skeel suggests that Keller's work is most winsome and the most akin to Lewis' style (and I would agree with him here), he observes that, "it too is no 'Mere Christianity.' It does not have the original arguments or the magical prose of Lewis' classic."

While these contemporary writers are all very capable writers for the Faith in their own right, none can match the strength and sheer wit and turn of phrase of Lewis' writings, not only in his classic, "Mere Christianity," but his other works as well. In some ways, it is almost unfair to compare these writers with Lewis. You may recall that the basis for the book "Mere Christianity" was a series of broadcast talks Lewis delivered over the BBC during the Second World War between 1942-1944. Lewis, through these radio broadcasts, would quickly discover that he had moved from the private world of being an Oxford don, to the public stage, as his voice through these radio talks would make him the second most recognized voice in all of England, second only to Winston Churchill.

The historical context in which Lewis delivered these radio broadcasts cannot be overestimated in providing, as it were, a "perfect storm" for his sudden popularity. In her excellent Foreword to the current edition of "Mere Christianity," writer Kathleen Norris observes that some of the talks that Lewis gave during the Second World War (in addition to the BBC talks) were to men in the Royal Air Force, "who knew that after just thirteen bombing missions, most of them would be declared dead or missing. Their situation prompted Lewis to speak about the problems of suffering, pain, and evil..."

But what might account for the continual fascination with the man and his writings, as untold millions of copies of his books are sold every year? (Since 2001, his books have increased in sales 125%, and The Chronicles of Narnia have been translated into over thirty languages, and have sold more than 85 million copies). Perhaps it has to do with Lewis' love not only for reason and truth, but also his love with the imagination. Norris, again in the Foreword, writes that "Lewis betrays a deep faith in the power of the human imagination to reveal the truth about our condition and bring us to hope. 'The longest way round is the shortest way home' (from "Mere Christianity") is the logic of both fable and faith." 

One can hardly improve on the way Norris describes Lewis' "mere" Christianity, that has made his writing so persuasive and winsome over the years: "The 'mere' Christianity of Lewis is not a philosophy or even a theology...it is a way of life, one that challenges us always to remember, as Lewis once stated, that 'there are no ordinary people' and that 'it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit' (from "The Weight of Glory")...The Christianity Lewis espouses is humane, but not easy: it asks us to recognize that the great religious struggle is not fought on a spectacular battleground, but within the ordinary human heart, when every morning we awake and feel the pressures of the day crowding in on us, and we must decide what sort of immortals we wish to be."

Maybe we don't need another C. S. Lewis after all.

For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow