flick427:
I never heard of C.S. Lewis until recently and am not sure what the big deal is. I have heard he was not a Catholic, but thought like one. Are his writings in agreement with the Catholic Theology? Was he a fiction of non-fiction writer? Basically, I don’t know what to make of all these Catholic organizations promoting/suggesting his works, not that it is a terrible thing, but I am not sure what he writes about.
I am assuming he wrote many books but have yet to look into reading any of them.
Thanks for any info…
He wrote seven children’s books, a scientifiction trilogy, many volumes of literary criticism - he was a proffessor of English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he went to Cambridge - and many more books on various aspects of Christian theology and experience. His best-known book is probably either “The Screwtape Letters” (in which an older devil advises a younger how to tempt most effectively; which reveals many far-from-obvious temptations), and “Mere Christianity” (that is, the body of Christianity common to all Christians; which is about the “Christian basics”.)
For may years he was an atheist, until the late 1920s. See his book “Surprised by Joy” for his account of how he made the change from atheism to Christianity.
He’s sometimes, and mistakenly, thought to be “RC” - in some ways he was very “Catholic-minded”; but he was also catholic in sympathies: and it’s not well-known that he was on good terms with a number of Evangelicals. he was an apologist, without being in any sense a controversialist. Interestingly enough, he was from Northern Ireland - not the British mainland. I think he was from Belfast. He was born in 1898, and died in 1963, on November 22 - a date which will doubtless be familiar to many people in the USA for very different reasons.
Some Evangelicals are not keen on him, either because he wrote fiction, or was friendly with Catholics, or because they don’t understand authors as well-read as he was, or because he was not a believer in the total inerrancy of the Bible. IOW, for reasons which derive probably from the difference between Protestant Fundamentalist Christianity in the USA, and Christianity in the UK.
IOW, he had a very considerable range, and is not an easy man to pigeon-hole. He’s the sort of author from whom one can always learn something new, no matter how often one reads him. His children’s books are inexhaustible. IMO, he is a 20th-century doctor of the Church.
There are plenty of sites devoted to him - you should be able to find a great deal on them. Just do a search on his name. ##
Anyway, Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis was an Anglican–though his conversion back to Christianity was aided by Tokien (who had hoped Jack would also become Catholic) As said before, Lewis’s North ireland upbringing and British predjudices did apparently leave some minor animosity towards Catholicism, at least the Irish version. According to the book The Inklings, it contributed to Lewis’s and Tolkien’s friendship dissolving. However, as mentioned before, never did it leak out into his writings.
