Tuesday 19 November 2013

C.S. Lewis

With the 50th anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death approaching later this week, it is extremely heartening to see that his work is beginning to be taken seriously in academia. There has also been an unexpected glut of programmes about him on the BBC. This radio documentary about Lewis and Aldous Huxley (who died on the same day) was fascinating, and I was surprised to hear Screwtape's voice booming from my radio the other day.

It's tempting to see him in Catholic terms, as Michael Coren does here, but we shouldn't underestimate Lewis's emotional and intellectual attachment to what he called in That Hideous Strength (one of his greatest books) the "sweet, Protestant world". It is certainly true that the Church of England has changed since Lewis's day, but it doesn't necessarily follow, as Joseph Pearce argues here, that: "The sobering truth is that even if Lewis had not chosen to leave the Church of England, the Church of England would have chosen to leave him."