C. S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith

C. S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith
Author: Richard B. Cunningham
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2008-06-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1556359225

C. S. Lewis was a man of many talents: a literary critic, a Medieval and Renaissance scholar, a stimulating lecturer, a prolific writer, a perceptive critic of Western civilization, and the author of highly acclaimed children's books. But he is perhaps best known as the unorthodox defender of orthodoxy, the most popular and influential Christian apologist of his time. His literary skill, his brilliant and wide-ranging mind, and his multi-layered imagination made him a master of communication and gave him insight into what should be communicated. This study of his work inquires what it is about his faith, his view of the world, and his apologetic methods that strikes such a responsive chord in the hearts of unchurched people; and it shows how he made the old ideas of traditional Christianity glimmer and glow with simplicity and attractiveness. Lewis took up his apologetic pen because he felt that most theologians are talking jargon. Any fool can write learned language, he said. The vernacular is the real test. If you can't turn your faith into it, then either you don't understand it or you don't believe it. His books are unusual because he believed that reason is the organ of truth; imagination is the organ of meaning. In the infernal correspondence of Screwtape, the haunting myths of his trilogy of space fiction, and the allegories of the Narnia books, he tries to bring the reader suddenly face to face with transcendental values and existential questions. Richard Cunningham evaluates the different kinds of literature Lewis uses as apologetic instruments, studies the devices and techniques of debate he employs to communicate his faith to unbelievers, and deduces some pertinent principles to help others define and understand the Christian faith.

Surprised by Jack

Surprised by Jack
Author: Bob Hereford
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1098037979

Surprised by Jack follows the journey of C. S. Lewis from atheism to belief. The book recounts the people, books, and events that helped in molding both parts of his life. It also explains how, in spite of a number of obstacles, he became one of the greatest writers and scholars of his day, as well as the greatest defender of the Christian faith in the twentieth century. Surprised by Jack will also include an outline and review four of Lewis's greatest apologetic works, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, and The Weight of Glory. In this book, you will learn - How the death of Lewis's mother at age ten started him on a downward spiral into a world of cruelty and fear. - How one of Lewis's greatest teachers who prepared him for Oxford was a committed atheist. - How the pledge to a friend resulted in the care of the friend's mother for the rest of her life after his friend's death in World War I. - How an exemption from math tests allowed Lewis to enter Oxford. - How Lewis became the second most recognized voice on the radio during World War II. - What, according to Lewis, the greatest sin is. - Why gluttony is more than a sin of excess. - What the four cardinal virtues are. - Why Lewis never drove a car. - What the trilemma is concerning Jesus. - What will cause "the abolition of man." - Why the devil wants to keep us from logic and argument. - What Lewis said is the "weight of glory."

C. S. Lewis and Friends

C. S. Lewis and Friends
Author: David Hein
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2011-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1610977912

C. S. Lewis is one of the best-loved and most engaging Christian writers of recent times, and he continues to be a powerful defender of the faith. It is in his imaginative fiction that his genius finds its fullest expression and makes its most lasting theological contribution. Famously, Lewis had friends who, like him, employed powerfully creative imaginations to explore the profundities of Christian thought and their struggles with their faith. These illuminating essays on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rose Macaulay, and Austin Farrer are written by an international team of Lewis scholars.

C.S. Lewis' Case for the Christian Faith

C.S. Lewis' Case for the Christian Faith
Author: Richard Purtill
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2011-05-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1681490633

Drawing on the whole body of C.S. Lewis' published fiction and non-fiction, as well as previously unpublished letters, Richard Purtill offers a clear, comprehensive assessment of Lewis’ defense of Christianity. He examines Lewis’ thinking on religion in light of contemporary thought, giving attention to such central issues as: the nature of God, the divinity of Christ, the manifestation of miracles in history, the challenge of faith, the meaning of death and the afterlife. C.S. Lewis’ Case for the Christian Faith is an excellent introduction to Lewis's best thinking on the major themes of the Christian tradition. Those who know his writing will find a new appreciation of his “Christian imagination” and a deep respect for his distinctive contribution to an understanding of Christianity.

C. S. Lewis's Case for Christ

C. S. Lewis's Case for Christ
Author: Art Lindsley
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2005-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780830832859

There can be many obstacles to faith, as C. S. Lewis discovered. But he overcame them to become one of Christianity's most ardent warriors of the faith. Art Lindsley provides a readable introduction to C. S. Lewis's reflections on objections to belief in Jesus Christ and the compelling reasons why Lewis came to affirm the truth of Christianity.

Defenders of the Faith in Word and Deed

Defenders of the Faith in Word and Deed
Author: Charles Patrick Connor
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780898709681

Defenders of the faith have been raised up in every era of the Church to proclaim fidelity to the truth by their words and deeds. Some have fought heresy and overcome confusion: Athanasius against the Arians and Ignatius Loyola in response to the Protestant reformers. Others have shed their blood for the faith: the early Christian martyrs of Rome, or Thomas More, John Fisher and Edmund Campion in Reformation England. Still others have endured a "dry" martyrdom: St. Philip Howard, Josef Cardinal Mindszenty and Jesuit Walter Ciszek. Intellectuals have been no less conspicuous in their zealous defense of the faith: Bonaventure, Albert, Thomas Aquinas, or Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Challenges for Christian Faith

Challenges for Christian Faith
Author: Clifford Chalmers Cain
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2021-05-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1793618453

The famed thinker and writer, C.S. Lewis, addressed issues that were paramount and pressing for religious persons in his time. In this volume, and in honor of Lewis, experts in their fields examine topics and challenges that face Christians living their faith today. Originally delivered as invited public lectures in a decade-long series--The Annual C.S. Lewis Legacy Lectures at Westminster College in Missouri--they include faith and reason, theological imagination, religion and ecology, the life and thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, antisemitism, Native American spirituality, science and religion, racism and poverty in the ministry and social action of Martin Luther King, Jr., misconceptions of Islam, religious pluralism, and religion and violence. The authors argue that these issues must be acknowledged and confronted in order for Christianity to remain, or to become relevant, in the current century.

C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity
Author: George M. Marsden
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691202478

The life and times of C. S. Lewis's modern spiritual classic Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis's eloquent defense of the Christian faith, originated as a series of BBC radio talks broadcast during the dark days of World War Two. Here is the story of the extraordinary life and afterlife of this influential and inspiring book. George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican—famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugh Dyson—and how his plainspoken case for Christianity went on to become one of the most beloved spiritual books of all time.

Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity
Author: C. S. Lewis
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2001-02-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0060652926

A forceful and accessible discussion of Christian belief that has become one of the most popular introductions to Christianity and one of the most popular of Lewis's books. Uncovers common ground upon which all Christians can stand together.