The late, great British author died the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and yet remains one of the most influential writers and thinkers in Western Christianity today. His Chronicles of Narnia series has been a must-read classic collection for children and young adults of any theological background for half a century. His theological and Christian apologetic works are cited by clergy and laymen alike with a frequency that would lead a stranger to assume Clive Staples Lewis had been the Pope at one point, or perhaps a Patriarch of the early Christian church.
Professor Alister McGrath’s new book, C. S. Lewis – A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, masterfully dispels the misguided notion that Lewis was anything other than a real, flawed, and fascinating person. Warts and all.
The book covers Lewis’s life and career in great detail and culminates with McGrath’s treatment of the question, “Why is this guy still so popular after all of these years?” The reader learns more about Old Clive’s love affair with the mother of a deceased war buddy (Mrs. Jane King Moore), his cantankerous relationship with his father (Albert Lewis), his penchant for “adult beverages,” and his surprising marriage to an American woman named Joy Davidman in 1956.
On the surface, it sounds more like the back-story of the lead, tragic character of a Dostoevsky novel than that of an Oxford Don whose imaginative commentary on the Christian faith has inspired consecutive generations of American pastors and religious leaders (such as John Piper and the late Chuck Colson).
So why, to reiterate McGrath’s question, is Lewis so beloved among modern Christians? And, to broaden the discussion out even further, how does he remain culturally relevant–even serving as a key influence in iconic pieces of pop culture like the TV show Lost–fifty years after his death?
There are technical and logistical explanations for Lewis’s cultural endurance–the formation of loyal societies and book clubs in the 1960s, the faithful work of Lewis’s private secretary and literary executor Walter Hooper–but the most interesting one given by McGrath in his book is the storytelling abilities of both Lewis and his friend J.R.R. Tolkien. McGrath believes that the popularity of their respective novels and other works of fiction served as mutually beneficial catalysts in keeping both men’s names in the public’s mind (and their books in front of readers’ eyes).
C. S. Lewis is chiefly remembered because he told great stories. He was the creator of worlds and realms outside of our own that taught us more about the one in which we live. He produced good art, first and foremost. He didn’t set out to create an alternate “religious version” of something secular artists were doing. He told stories that he felt compelled to tell. These stories began in his creative mind–a mind fueled and informed by his love of things like medieval literature and history, as well as his Christian faith. His life experiences, including time spent as a soldier in WWI and all of the controversial subjects I mentioned above, were also integral to the end product that appeared on the pages of the books many of us still read today.
We who come after such seminal talents are the ones who can end up idolizing them. We remain willfully ignorant of their true life stories and are shocked when the idyllic picture of a kind, old professor sipping warm milk in his robe and slippers is jarred back into reality by tales of love affairs and personal indulgences and weaknesses.
C.S. Lewis was a real man–a really talented, complicated man. You should read this book to find out even more about him.
He’s worth your time.
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