Any C.S. Lewis fans out there?

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Poisson:
I always figured his stumbling block may have had something to do with his marriage to a divorced woman. Perhaps she was not free to be married in a Catholic Church. I’m only speculating though.
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I read in a biography of his life by A.N. Wilson that the Church of England was somewhat reluctant to marry him and Joy Davidman because of her previous marriage. I found it rather ironic because the Church of England was created so King Henry VIII could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.
 
The Great Divorce was my favorite. It really opened my eyes to see that it is really our choice as to our ultimate destiny, that in fact some people would choose hell over heaven and in the end get what they want.
 
Mere Christianity is my personal favorite. Love his explanation of the Trinity.
Shadowlands is the movie about when C.S. Lewis meets the divorced woman mentioned earlier. What a tear-jerker!
Stars Anthony Hopkins as C.S. I’m a big fan anyway and this is one of his best roles. Highly recommended.
 
I got this from a website – can’t remember the source, but it said that in Letters to Malcolm (p. 107), Lewis indicated that shortly before his death he was turning toward the Catholic Church. Lewis termed himself “very Catholic” – he prayed for the dead, believed in purgatory. He even went to a priest for regular confession (p. 198), and received the sacrament of extreme unction on 7/16/63 (p. 301).

This information appears to have come from C.S. Lewis: A Biography, but it’s not clear.

I think that’s stunning news that he was a closet Catholic – at least it’s news to me. I knew about his belief in Purgatory and prayers for the dead, but not about confession or last rites. Or might those “sacraments” have been available from the C of E? It was in the paragraph about Lewis’s interest in Catholicism, so I’m eager to find out. Wondered if any of you had the biography. I don’t know the author.

I have Great Divorce, which your comments will prompt me to read, Mere Christianity and Letters to Malcolm. Just starting to seriously appreciate Lewis. Thanks to all – I really enjoyed reading this thread.

JMJ Jay
 
Lewis was a High Churchman, ie. an Anglican with very Catholic theology. He was not a Catholic, and I understand had issues with the authority of the Pope.

That being said, I cannot imagine too many Baptists reading books on apologetics written by a Catholic, but they lap up Lewis. That has to be a good thing.

For myself, I love Lewis’ writings. I lend them to non-Christian friends without any fear of them feeling patronised. I find that his collections of essays are good to lend out, as they are each readable in a quarter of an hour or so, they are full of goodness and they are not all overtly Christian, which means that people do not feel preached at. Wonderful!
 
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Katholikos:
I got this from a website – can’t remember the source, but it said that in Letters to Malcolm (p. 107), Lewis indicated that shortly before his death he was turning toward the Catholic Church. Lewis termed himself “very Catholic” – he prayed for the dead, believed in purgatory. He even went to a priest for regular confession (p. 198), and received the sacrament of extreme unction on 7/16/63 (p. 301).

This information appears to have come from C.S. Lewis: A Biography, but it’s not clear.

I think that’s stunning news that he was a closet Catholic – at least it’s news to me. I knew about his belief in Purgatory and prayers for the dead, but not about confession or last rites. Or might those “sacraments” have been available from the C of E? It was in the paragraph about Lewis’s interest in Catholicism, so I’m eager to find out. Wondered if any of you had the biography. I don’t know the author.

I have Great Divorce, which your comments will prompt me to read, Mere Christianity and Letters to Malcolm. Just starting to seriously appreciate Lewis. Thanks to all – I really enjoyed reading this thread.

JMJ Jay
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According the *C.S. Lewis (*Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, 1974) Lewis started going to confession under the direction of the Anglican priests of the Society of St John the Evangelist in Cowley- popularly known as the ‘Cowley Dads.’ His reception of Extreme Unction was also by an Anglican priest. Acoording to the book (and other biographies), Lewis was at death’s door when he received it, and an hour later he was wide awake, asking for tea! He fully believed that he sacrament healed him (albeit temporarily).
 
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Katholikos:
I got this from a website – can’t remember the source, but it said that in Letters to Malcolm (p. 107), Lewis indicated that shortly before his death he was turning toward the Catholic Church. Lewis termed himself “very Catholic” – he prayed for the dead, believed in purgatory. He even went to a priest for regular confession (p. 198), and received the sacrament of extreme unction on 7/16/63 (p. 301).

This information appears to have come from C.S. Lewis: A Biography, but it’s not clear.

I think that’s stunning news that he was a closet Catholic – at least it’s news to me. I knew about his belief in Purgatory and prayers for the dead, but not about confession or last rites. Or might those “sacraments” have been available from the C of E? It was in the paragraph about Lewis’s interest in Catholicism, so I’m eager to find out. Wondered if any of you had the biography. I don’t know the author.

I have Great Divorce, which your comments will prompt me to read, Mere Christianity and Letters to Malcolm. Just starting to seriously appreciate Lewis. Thanks to all – I really enjoyed reading this thread.

JMJ Jay
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According *C.S. Lewis (*Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, 1974) Lewis started going to confession under the direction of the Anglican priests of the Society of St John the Evangelist in Cowley- popularly known as the ‘Cowley Dads.’ His reception of Extreme Unction was also by an Anglican priest. Acoording to the book (and other biographies), Lewis was at death’s door when he received it, and an hour later he was wide awake, asking for tea! He fully believed that he sacrament healed him (albeit temporarily).
 
Ahhhh, yes, Lewis! A breath of fresh air. My FAVORITE author! I think I have read the Chronicles around eight or nine times, and the space trilogy quite a few. Can you believe, I have not read all of Mere Christianity yet? But I loooved *Surprised by Joy, *(and yes, *The Great Divorce *is wonderful!!), and the sad but wonderfully written A Grief Observed.

I love his writing so much, I did my senior year thesis paper on his work. I focused on the different genres he wrote in, which gave me quite a bit of exposure to his writings. Basically the only genre he didn’t dabble in was drama. He even wrote some fabulous (though lesser-known) epic poetry.

I just got back two compilations of his shorter essays which I highly recommend – First and Second Things is probably my favorite. These essays are so, so wonderful – if you haven’t read them yet, get them! There’s another title, too, but the name escapes me at the moment…

And has anyone mentioned *Till We Have Faces? * A wonderful, beautifully-written re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche story.

And is anyone here familiar with Peter Kreeft? He is a philosophy professor at Boston College, an orthodox Catholic (sadly an anomaly at BC), and a scholar of Lewis. He has some fabulous books on Lewis’s work.
 
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Tanais:
I love his books, I find that his thinking was quite Catholic, unfortunately he had to let his puritanical predjudices get in the way.
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Tanais, I find it very interesting that you say Lewis had puritanical prejudices. How so? Can you give some examples?

Funny thing is, Lewis is often under fire from fundamentalist Christians because he did *not *have puritanical prejudices.

I’m really curious what you are referring to?? :confused:
 
Love that man!

First thing I ever read by him was the Screwtape Letters, many years ago. It was fascinating.
I thought he was a Catholic, and was a little surprised to find out he wasn’t. No difference in my regard for him.
Probably the most interesting things I read by him were the “Great Divorce”, and “Mere Christianity”.
Saw the movie “Shadowlands” for which I have the video. Films don’t always get the real story right but I hope this one did. It stirred me to my depths–I lost my wife under circumstances very similar, and that changed C.S. for me from an extraordinarily talented author into a human being I had something in common with.
 
I have read two books by Lewis:

  1. *]The Screwtape Letters
    *]The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

    Ironically, it was the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that started my conversion from being an athiest/agnostic to the Church back in my senior year of High School.

    PF
 
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jc413:
Ahhhh, yes, Lewis! A breath of fresh air. My FAVORITE author! I think I have read the Chronicles around eight or nine times, and the space trilogy quite a few. Can you believe, I have not read all of Mere Christianity yet? But I loooved *Surprised by Joy, *(and yes, *The Great Divorce *is wonderful!!), and the sad but wonderfully written A Grief Observed.

I love his writing so much, I did my senior year thesis paper on his work. I focused on the different genres he wrote in, which gave me quite a bit of exposure to his writings. Basically the only genre he didn’t dabble in was drama. He even wrote some fabulous (though lesser-known) epic poetry.

I just got back two compilations of his shorter essays which I highly recommend – First and Second Things is probably my favorite. These essays are so, so wonderful – if you haven’t read them yet, get them! There’s another title, too, but the name escapes me at the moment…

And has anyone mentioned *Till We Have Faces? *A wonderful, beautifully-written re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche story.

And is anyone here familiar with Peter Kreeft? He is a philosophy professor at Boston College, an orthodox Catholic (sadly an anomaly at BC), and a scholar of Lewis. He has some fabulous books on Lewis’s work.
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No, no one had mentioned Til We Have Faces. Nor The Four Loves. Nor any of his academic work. He was a professor of medieval literature at Oxford, and he wrote prolifically, not only on religious topics but also literary ones. He was an amazing, amazing gentleman.
 
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RNRobert:
I’m a big fan of C.S. Lewis. He was the first Christian author I read when I became a Christian, and still enjoy his writings even though he isn’t Catholic (I converted in '96). In any case, I find him more orthodox than many liberal Catholic writers I’ve come across. Anyone else on these boards who like Lewis?
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Same story here! The first book I read was Mere Christianity. I have tremendous admiration for C.S.Lewis.

Also read:
The Great Divorce
Screwtape letters
Miracles

Looking forward to more.
 
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PilgrimJWT:
Love that man!
Saw the movie “Shadowlands” for which I have the video. Films don’t always get the real story right but I hope this one did. It stirred me to my depths–I lost my wife under circumstances very similar, and that changed C.S. for me from an extraordinarily talented author into a human being I had something in common with.
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I have an interesting book about him by Kathryn Lindskoog called C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian.It’s not so much a biography (although it contains biographical elements) but a review of C.S. Lewis literature and his views on various subjects. It also mentions ‘Shadowlands’ (the play and the movie). Ms Lindskoog says that while the movie really doesn’t capture C.S. Lewis 's personality (Lindskoog knew Lewis personally) it has made the public more aware of him.
 
I read all of the Chronicles of Narnia to my three children and believe the religious messages were clearly understood. I think Men Without Chests, The Screwtape Letters and others are excellent. However, they have to be carefully read to be appreciated. I never read anything by Lewis I didn’t like.

Whether he was Catholic or not is, to me, not a valid criticism of his writings. Sounds too much like Hitler disparaging music and literature written by Jews.
 
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OriginalJS:
Whether he was Catholic or not is, to me, not a valid criticism of his writings. Sounds too much like Hitler disparaging music and literature written by Jews.
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I don’t think anyone here is criticizing Lewis for not being Catholic. Indeed, I think I read somewhere that next to Evangelicals, Catholics are the biggest fans of Lewis. I think perhaps some of these posts were simply expressing a disappointment that Lewis, as sacramentalist as he was, didn’t go all the way and become Catholic.
 
Chronicals of Narnia (all of them…I have a old box set from the '70? my dad gave me)

Screwtape Letters (anyone who likes this I can link you to my own version)

and the Space Trilogy

…oddly enough i am not a really big fan…I just had to read them for school
 
C.S. Lewis is one my favorite apoligists. (Followed closely by A.W. Tozer!!!) There’s a great site I found with some awesome Lewis quotes.

comnett.net/~rex/cslewis.htm

Check it out…there’s some good stuff in there…
Devyn
 
RNRobert, I reread the posts and I think you are right when you observe that no one is criticizing Lewis because he wasn’t Catholic.

To me the strength of Lewis’ writing is his use of logic and reason in the best Aristotelian fashion implementing common, everyday examples to demonstrate major points. This is analogous to Jesus’use of parables using everyday examples to make important points. (The worker’s in the vineyard, the wedding feast, etc.)

Lewis was not an apologist for any particular church. It is not possible to tell from his writing whether he is Catholic or Protestant, but his writing is unmistakeably Christian.
 
I’ve read a lot of Lewis, and found something worthwhile in everything I read.

For Lewis fans who want a real treat: “The Screwtape Letters” have been recorded on audio. I have the tapes, and they are quite something. 👍 John Cleese of Monty Python fame reads them, and oh my, does he ever do a fine job! :rotfl:

A couple are missing, due to space considerations (they were recorded before CDs, I think), but they are letters that pertain mostly to the state of Church of England parochial politics.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
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