C. S. Lewis

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I was wondering if there was anyone out there that read any of C. S. Lewis’s works. Although he was an Anglican, he certainly wasn’t unfriendly to the Catholic Church. I was a big fan when I was a protestant, and I must say, his writings did somewhat put me on the quest for “something more” that led me Home. I still enjoy his works, but I read them in light of Church teaching.

Any thoughts?
 
I have read and love many of CS Lewis’s works … Pilgrim’s Regress and the Screw Tape Letters are my favorites
 
BennyBoy89 said:
I was wondering if there was anyone out there that read any of C. S. Lewis’s works. Although he was an Anglican, he certainly wasn’t unfriendly to the Catholic Church. I was a big fan when I was a protestant, and I must say, his writings did somewhat put me on the quest for “something more” that led me Home. I still enjoy his works, but I read them in light of Church teaching.

Any thoughts?
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😃 Seems like he was a help to many of us finding our way Home to Rome, which I’m sure was not his intention, but God works in mysterious ways.

I started reading just about anything he wrote - maybe 6 or 7 years ago - and the same thing happened with me. I began to see Traditional Christianity in a whole new light, which led me on a journey, a torturous journey 😉 all the way to Rome.

I love Lewis to this day and owe him a lot. 👍
 
Jeanette, speaking of Lewis, I really like the quote in your sig? Where did he say that?
 
BennyBoy89 said:
Jeanette, speaking of Lewis, I really like the quote in your sig? Where did he say that?
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I will have to do some digging. I’ve had that part of my sig for several years now, can’t seem to give it up. 😉

I believe I found it in a book that I have called Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis, which is like a daily devotional that gives snippets of Lewis’ works from almost all of his writings. I love love love that little book! I read it over and over again, he just never ceases to stretch my mind!

So, this came from that book, and which of his original works it came from, I will surely have to do some looking.
 
i have read a number of Lewis’ works and love them!

-His space-trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
-Screwtape Letters
-The Great Divorce

👍
 
I also love:

The Problem of Pain - I think my allover favorite

Mere Christianity - excellent

and of course the Chronicles of Narnia!

The Great Divorce was really very good.

God In The Docks

Until We Have Faces, a very touching, heartbreaker.

I just love him.🙂
 
Mere Christianity is great. There is also another whose title escapes me right now. It might be the Three Loves (or is it Two?), it is something with Love. I read it ages ago.
 
Joannm said:
Mere Christianity is great. There is also another whose title escapes me right now. It might be the Three Loves (or is it Two?), it is something with Love. I read it ages ago.
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You were closer the first time! 😛

Four Loves 😃

Excellent book as well. 👍

Another good one I remembered, The Abolition of Man.

So many to choose from. 🙂
 
I owe Lewis greatly as he was one of the forces that led to my conversion to Christianity. He also helped me become a Catholic (even though he was an Anglican!)

One of my theology professors once said that it is by the grace of God that Lewis never became a Catholic - God used him as an inside spy to help bring more people to Catholicism than most Catholics of his time did! Funny thought.
 
I love the guy’s writings. I fell in love with the Narnia books as a child, and now I’m getting to know his other writings as well.
 
I was raised in the Methodist Church and had a “born again” experience late in my freshman year at college (about 34 years ago). Within two years, I discovered C. S. Lewis’s books and he was my favorite Christian author for quite a few years – and I read most of the books I came across.

I read enough to learn that C. S. Lewis was greatly influenced by the writing of George MacDonald. So I got a book by George MacDonald. And I became convinced that much of MacDonald’s writing was much more like Catholicism than I wanted to read. But it must have had an effect on me. MacDonald’s writing also influenced J. R. R. Tolkein and G. K. Chesterton.

About 3½ years ago when I made an initial inquiry with a priest – regarding helping to straighten out my new Baptist minister because I thought he was wrong about Holy Communion being only symbolic – I was surprised to find a number of C. S. Lewis books on the priest’s bookshelf. And I also figured out that I was the one needing straightening out – that I was going to the wrong Church. So I went through RCIA.

I am unaware that there is much if anything C. S. Lewis wrote that the Catholic Church finds fault in.

But C. S. Lewis did not instill in me a love of Jesus’ mother Mary, nor did it introduce me to the Holy Rosary. Those things came to me with time beginning about 3½ years ago.

jmm08
 
I very much liked The Great Divorce.

I’m working my way through Miracles and Mere Christianity now. Good stuff!

I actually thought that Lewis was Catholic, until he mentioned the Church of England in one of those books. :o
 
Lewis is one of those writers that most Catholics and Protestants both love, Chesterton as well.
 
Fragile said:
Lewis is one of those writers that most Catholics and Protestants both love, Chesterton as well.
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Heh - that brings the total number of such writers to what? Two? 😉

I kid, of course.
 
EB4304 said:
I owe Lewis greatly as he was one of the forces that led to my conversion to Christianity. He also helped me become a Catholic (even though he was an Anglican!)
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Same here. For 15 years I thought that Christianity was for stupid people who couldn’t handle reality. I read “Mere Christianity” as a contrast to “The AntiChrist”, just as an intellectual exercise. I learned more than I had ever known, humbly admitted my errors, returned to church and read the entire New Testament for the first time.

Within a year, I realized that the Christianity described by Lewis (and described in the New Testament) was lacking in my Christian community and I converted to Catholicism. I had never imagined myself becoming Catholic - without C.S. Lewis, it likely wouldn’t have happened.
kwitz said:
One of my theology professors once said that it is by the grace of God that Lewis never became a Catholic - God used him as an inside spy to help bring more people to Catholicism than most Catholics of his time did! Funny thought.
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I have heard that said as well, and I firmly believe it.
C.S. Lewis may have been an Anglican, but when you read what he says about marriage alone in “Mere Christianity”, he is practically pointing the way to the Catholic Church.

I can count on one hand the questionable statements that I’ve read by Lewis (and I’ve read quite a few of his books). I’ve heard him quoted by Catholic Priests, including a couple from Opus Dei.

I’d say that C.S. Lewis is safer for Catholics to read than a lot of modern Catholic thinkers.
 
I started reading Lewis after I recieved a degree in catholic theology (i did read the narnia series as a bot, though). i have never found anything in his books that contradict faith or morals that i could see. he’s one of my favorite authors of all time! myexperiance with his writing is that nomatter what book it is, it’s going to blow my mind.

peter kreeft has some great online lectures about his work.
 
Here’s a great website for all you C. S. Lewis fans:

groups.yahoo.com/group/SpareOom/

We are a motley group, consisting of Catholics and Protestants, PhD’s, scholars, authors and just plain ordinary folks who happen to like ol’ Jack. We discuss his works but sometimes wander off to those of his friends and fellow-Inklings like J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, and his mentors George Macdonald and G. K. Chesterton. And every now and then we engage in Creed Wars or go completely off-topic to discuss everything under the sun except Lewis, though the ListDragon has instituted a rule, never really enforced, that we talk about Lewis at least 50% of the time, the 50% Lewis Content (LC) Rule. All non-Lewisian postings are supposed to be marked NLC (No Lewis Content) to give members fair warning if they should decide not to read them.

As one of SpareOom’s denizens I invite all true Lewis fans to enter through the War Drobe in the Professor’s Spare Oom and exit on the other side where Mr Tumnus and the rest of us await you with hot tea and crumpets in the Never Never Land called Narnia, wherein Aslan also dwells.

I am known there by a different name. Maybe you’ll recognize me. Hope to see you there.
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In the end there are only two kinds of people, those who say to God, "Thy will be done" and those to whom God says, "*thy* will be done."

---C. S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce."
 
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