We live ten mile from Mount Hermon, a Christian conference center that has been in operation nearly 100 years. Each summer Bible conferences at Mount Hermon feature some of the best Christian speakers known. My mother and father encouraged us to take advantage of this opportunity. I can’t say I went often but it was there I first heard quotes by C.S. Lewis. I subscribe to a few Christian magazines. While reading different articles and authors I found the name C.S. Lewis quoted again and again. I bought a book titled “Surprised by Joy”, a kind of autobiography of the life of Clive Staples Lewis. After that I began looking for his comments. I found that he died in England on the same day and hour that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Linda Marty, a friend or ours, told me about the Wade Collection of Lewis memorabilia at Wheaton College near Chicago. As I’ve written before, my wife and I don’t need much of an excuse to go anywhere, so soon we found ourselves in that library at Wheaton College.

There we met Lyle Dorsett, Curator of the Wad Collection. He was converted after reading some of Lewis’s books and has authored several books of his own. While conducting research on his book “And God Came In”, Lyle was offered the position as Curator of the Wad Collection. This is a library of the books and writings of Charles Williams, Tolkien, George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. Lyle was a professor at the University of Colorado and moved to Wheaton in 1979.

We visited the library the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a holiday on campus, and Lyle should not have been there. I marvel at the way these things happen. You could call it “Divine Intervention”. The docent on duty told Lyle that there was a couple from California in the library that he should meet.

Lyle did an excellent job of telling us about his interest in C.S. Lewis and gave us some personal history of his life. Suddenly he said, “I want you to come to our home and meet my wife Mary.” And so began a sweet relationship with these folks that has resulted in our finding a new and consuming interest in C.S. Lewis. It has all been very rewarding.

Let me tell you about this Christian giant, C.S. Lewis, a Fellowship Lecturer in English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University. A short time before his death on November 22, 1963, he was the distinguished occupant of the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. He was among the best literacy critics of this period. Because of the death of his mother, at an early age, and because of the influence of a tutor, Lewis became an atheist. His conversation to Christianity is an interesting story. However, if you want to learn about that, you will have to buy his book “Surprised By Joy”. We all must accept Christ by faith. Of Lewis it is often said that he had “an intellectual conversion”. His picture was on the front page of the September 8, 1947 issue of TIME magazine. (I have a copy) According to Time, “Lewis is the most influential spokesman for Christianity in the English speaking world.”

During the Second World War Lewis gave a series of lectures over the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) to the Armed Forces. He was known as “the most listened to” voice, after that of Winston Churchill. Now, 36 years after his death, he is one of the most quoted writers in England and America – one of the few writers of his generation whose books have never been out of print. Millions are still buying them. “Mere Christianity” is one of those 36 books, and it is still a best seller.

Even though Lewis was a man of high intellect he wrote many books for children. “The Chronicles of Narnia” are tales of fantasy that delight both young and old. My granddaughter Suzie is now reading them to her children. His books always have a strong moral conclusion.

I could go on, but Nelina often reminds me that everybody doesn’t share my interest in C.S. Lewis. I must bring you back to my newfound friend, Lyle Dorsett.

A short time later, Lyle discovered that a branch of Fairleigh-Dickerson University in England owned C.S. Lewis’s personal library, some 2,700 volumes. The university wished to sell the entire library. Lyle and I made a hasty trip to England and soon were the possessors of every one of the books in Lewis’s personal library. Many of the books are signed and filled with annotations and underlining. The Wheaton College library caused me to have a new interest in C.S. Lewis. As I inspected the covers I found that many books were given to Lewis by the authors. Chad Walsh, a professor at Beloit University, wrote a book titled, “Behold the Glory”. Inside are written the words, “For Jack – who helped make this book possible. Devotedly, Chad. 1956”.

I wrote DR. Walsh and told him that I had this book in my possession. After a few letters, Nelina and I found ourselves in his home in Vermont. We enjoyed a pleasant evening together, talking about the man we both admire.

We introduced ourselves to one of those people who stayed in the same hotel as we. The last night we saw him sitting in the lobby so we invited him to join us for dinner in a nearby restaurant. The man was John Lennox, a Professor of Pure Mathematics” from Cardiff, Wales. During our conversation he made the following statement: “The spiritual nature will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

“That sounds like a C.S. Lewis quote”, I said.

“Oh”, he responded, “C.S. Lewis was one of my professors.”

Whenever I tell this little story, Nelina remarks that I nearly jumped over the table to embrace him. (Not true.) We became good friends with John Lennox and his family as we visited in each other’s homes. We could share many more interesting encounters with the remarkable people in the circle of C.S.Lewis’s influence. Lyle Dorsett challenged me to advertise in nationally circulated Christian magazines and newspapers to find people whose lives were influenced by Lewis’s writings. The following tributes are from a few of them.

Dr. Joseph Cooke

I think I can truthfully say that C.S. Lewis’s writings have had a more profound impact upon me than any other writer. It was not quite a case of first love at first sight, though I did enjoy his books from the very beginning; but before long he had completely captivated me; and I found myself devouring everything of his that I could lay my hand on.

The wonder of it all was that he somehow managed to capture my mind, my imagination, and my heart all at the same time. So profit was combined with pleasure in a manner and to a degree that I had never known before. It was as if I had suddenly discovered a recipe for liver and spinach that proved to be the tastiest dish at the banquet – or contrariwise that I had just found convincing evidence that ice cream and cookies should be ranked as the number-one health food. Substance wedded to delight! Who could have believed?

Nor has the substance proved passing or trivial; for Lewis gave me a solid, vital, and lasting perspective on the greatest truths of “mere” Christianity. I particular, he gave me an insight – a living picture- into the meaning of love and personhood (and their opposites) that has proved foundational for much of my understanding of God and man – an understanding that has expanded and deepened with the years.

Yet I cannot say that I have ever outgrown Lewis. Still he has the ability to touch my mind and my imagination as I read him. Over and over again I keep coming back to his books : “The Great Divorce”, “Till We Have Faces”, the Planetary trilogy, the Narnia books, the sermons and the essays. And I would be hard put to it to choose a favorite; for each one seems to be my favorite as I reread it. But one which never fails to bring instruction and delight is his “Weight of Glory”. Frankly, it is the only thing I have ever read on the Christian hope that so deeply touches my mind and heart. Every time I read it I am amazed afresh at the depth and vitality of the insights there revealed.

Needless to say (but it gives me pleasure to say it anyway), I am profoundly thankful that I have had the joy and privilege of owning and reading Lewis’s books. And I always will be.

Dr. Chad Walsh

I saw Lewis a fair number of times, but certain of these occasions have a touch of the numinous about them. One such memory is when we went to Oxford with Joy, long before she and Lewis were married. We had two teenage daughters with us and Joy reported that Lewis was very nervous about meeting them because he had heard such terrible tales about the antics of American children. But he did exactly the right thing. We all walked to Magdalen College and he suggested we climb the tower. Far below, the familiar world had a different dimension – the moment had something of Narnian flavor, though of course, Narnia was waiting to be born. Quietly we all descended and went out in the grass behind the tower. There Lewis stretched out on his back and recitedstreches of Shakespeare, and snatches of 18th Century poetry.

Then there was Lewis and his hat, this latter object, shapeless but functional, had a way of disappearing and turning up weeks later. I was with him one time when he saw a hat that stirred his memory. “That looks like my hat,” he exclaimed. “It is my hat”, he shouted louder. Smiling triumphantly, he put it back on his head.

Lewis was a person of fixed habits. When he wanted a drink he seldom ventured beyond the “Bird and Baby”. It was there that he met Tolkien and various other Inklings about once a week for ale, talk and lunch. On my first trip to England, Lewis included me in on one of those meetings and I was properly awed. The talk was sharp and bracing – Lewis loved a good argument, loved to match wits with his peers, though one subject that did not come up was politics. His thinking on that subject hardly extended beyond the hope that politicians would fashion a system both Christian and intellectually convincing.

My last memory of Lewis is a somber one. I was in London and he suggested that I come to Oxford and be with him while he had a blood transfusion. By this time he had such a combination of maladies that if one was treated it was bad for the others. When I got there we talked in a very low keyed way. The dark shadow over us was the recent death of Joy. He seemed to have lost his zest for life and indicated that he was fully prepared to die. We shared memories of her and soon his eyes closed and I realized he was asleep. That was my final time with him and when I really said “good-bye”, though his actual death was almost a year away.

Dr. D.G. Kehl

“Books serve as the ax to break up the frozen sea within us”, Franz Kafka said. The writings of C.S. Lewis, perhaps more than any books except the Holy Scriptures, have broken a lot of ice for me as I have read and reread them personally and analyzed and discussed them with my students at Arizona State University.

I began reading Lewis as a college student myself, starting with “The Screwtape Letters”, then moving on to “Mere Christianity”. I was impressed by how Lewis discussed complex theological issues with simplicity, clarity, and freshness. His apologetics helped settle and confirm my own faith. Several students in my university classes on Lewis have been converted, receiving Jesus Christ as their Savior as a result of reading and discussing “Mere Christianity”. (Or,as Lewis’ Edmund would have put it, they were “undragoned”)

I regret that I didn’t discover the Narnia Chronicles as a child, but I read all seven of them to my two sons, who have since reread then several times on their own. They surely are among the very best works Lewis wrote. They have helped my family and me to slip past those “watchful dragons” and catch fresh glimpses of Jesus Christ through the figure of Aslan.

I shall never forget reading Lewis’s “Surprised by Joy” and “A Grief Observed” on the deck of the “Queen Mary” in August, 1966, returning from England to New York. The ice within me was not only broken up; it was melted. Thank God for this dear man of God and his gift of verbalizing the Christian faith.

Dr. J.C. Lennox
Professor of Pure Mathematics
Cardiff, Wales

In 1962, in my first year at Cambridge, I decided to “gatecrash” the English Faculty Lectures Lewis was giving in the Lecture Rooms in Mill Lane just across the road from the Department of Pure Mathematics. I was driven by sheer curiosity simply to see and hear the man to whose writings I was already enormously in debt. The rationale of “Mere Christianity” had played an important part in stabilizing my faith. His defense of the sheer “reasonableness” of Christianity was then, as now, powerfully convincing – so much so, in fact, that my father used to keep copies in the glove compartment of his car to give to hitch-hikers.

I was not disappointed with the lectures. As has so often been said, they began fractionally before he entered the room, almost at a run. The theatre was so crowded with students sitting on the floor and lining the walls, that one might have been forgiven for thinking that he was running the gauntlet as he came in and getting the first blow for truth before unbelief had time to rally! He was expounding John Doone and appeared to me to be using every reasonable opportunity to “smuggle” the faith in. I can remember the whole room roaring with laughter as he said: “And now a word from our weaker brethren…” (meaning the unbelievers). I had no idea at the time that he was dying. I just wish I had gone to more of those last lectures he ever gave.

It is very hard to capture in a small space what Lewis has done for my thinking. His books, from the Narnia Chronicles which I first read as an adult to “Miracles” are like a wind from another world and helped sharpen my thinking on the limitations of science and the fact that true science and the supernatural are not at variance. He also educated my imagination – in particular helping me to understand the way in which symbolism is used in Scripture, putting colour into abstract concepts.

But, over and above all of these things, he was a man who loved God. His “roar” was but an echo of that of his master. He believed that Aslan had landed.

Dr. Earl F. Palmer
Pastor, University Presbyterian Church
Seattle, Washington

C.S. Lewis the writer broke in upon my life like a very good rainstorm while I was an undergraduate at U.C. Berkley. My first C.S. Lewis book was the “Screwtape Letters” and this small book has remained one of the most influential books upon my life.

Lewis has a way of asking questions that I want to ask and a way of thinking up stories and analysis to go with the questions that always help me to really see more clearly the most important things to see. He is a story teller who loves stories of the fantastic and I owe him to him a great debt in helping me to grasp the greatest of all stories – the one that is both wonderfully fantastic and yet true.

Lewis never wasted a word and so I owe him that love of economy in language too. There is an integrity in this spareness that works on me to keep my words honest.

Finally, I appreciate all those little pieces of the puzzle that have come together to help me understand the man. He was reserved, interior, honest, rumpled, witty, thoughtful, strong-willed, non-stylish in appearance, yet with a face that was arresting and generous. I have wondered if the lad Shasta in “The Horse and His Boy” is not the self-portrait of C.S. Lewis after all.

Charles W. Colson
The Impact of “Mere Christianity”

One hot summer night in August of 1973 I visited an old friend at his home outside of Boston. It was during the darkest days of Watergate. My whole world was being turned upside down.

My friend was a keen businessman who had worked his way to the top. President of one of the largest corporations in America in his early forties, he was a hard-charging man driven to succeed. I understood because I was just like him.

But when I had paid him a quick visit during a business trip several months earlier, I had been astonished to find him peaceful, calm, relaxed: dramatically different.

When I asked him about it. He answered with an extraordinary explanation: “I have accepted Jesus Christ”. I had never heard anything like those words before; but I could not deny he had changed.

So, this August night, though I couldn’t admit it to anyone, I was seeking something – and I knew my friend might have an answer. Something was wrong in my life. Something much more than Watergate; I was empty inside, groping for whatever meaning there was to life, if indeed there was any.

That night he told me about his encounter with Jesus Christ, how his life had been transformed. Then he picked up a book off a coffee table, opened it to a chapter titled “Pride” and began to read.

It was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life. The words from that book – “Mere Christianity”, written by the great English scholar C.S. Lewis – ripped through the protective armor in which I had unknowingly encased myself for forty-one years. Lewis wrote about man’s great sin- his pride – as a spiritual cancer.

The events of my own life flashed before me. I thought I had been driven by desire to provide for my family, build a good law firm, serve my country. But in reality what I was doing all those years was feeding my pride, proving how good I was. Lewis convicted me that all my efforts had been in vain, that in my drive for the top I had missed the real pinnacle – to know God in a personal way.

As I left my friend’s home that night, I accepted his gift of the copy of “Mere Christianity”. I was deeply moved by his testimony and by the chapter he had read – though I refused to show it. But as I got into my car, The White House tough guy – the hatchet man, or so the press called me – crumbled in a flood of tears, unable to drive, calling out to God with the first honest prayer of my life. That was the night Jesus Christ came into my life.

Over the next week I studied “Mere Christianity”. I underlined, made notes, even kept a yellow pad at my side with two columns – one headed “there is a God”, the other headed, “there is not a God.” On another sheet of paper I had two more columns – “Jesus Christ is God” – “Jesus Christ is not God”.

I read the book as if I was studying for the most important case I ever argued. Lewis’s logic was so utterly compelling that I was left with no recourse but to accept the reality of the God Who is and Who had revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. “Mere Christianity” simply sets forth a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith in a wonderfully readable way.

Since then I have given out hundreds of copies of “Mere Christianity” and have met thousands whose lives have been transformed by it. It is the book God has used most powerfully in my life, apart from His own Word.

But I must warn you, it is not a book you can pick up and put down easily, nor is it a book you can read and return to being the same person you were before. For it masterfully presents the case for Christ. After reading it, the uncommitted person can only make a choice for or against Him. In the choice for Him the reader will discover, as did Lewis himself in his own conversion, that “that hardness of God is kinder than the softness of man, and His Compulsion is our liberation.”

Dr. E Eugene Williams
Church and Institutional Consultant

Mr. Bogard, your request regarding Clive Staples Lewis opened a Pandora’s Box of memories classified under the year 1944. I was a first pilot with the 435th Troop Carrier Group of the Ninth Air Force at the time. Our 76th Squadron was stationed at Welford Park, a quaint English village easily accessible to Oxford through the town of Wantage.

Inclement weather during this war year in southern England was endemic. To gain relief from boredom on non-flying days I would engage a jeep and a driver from the motor pool and spend time in Oxford, a university city that intrigues me to this day. The only attractions were not the double-deck busses, the medieval architecture, good friends and the leisurely flowing Thames.

The main attraction in Oxford for me was a Fellowship Lecturer I English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University. At our base in Welford Park I would listen eagerly to his broadcasts over the British Broadcasting Corporation radio. His name was C.S. Lewis and he was sharing his writings from his book, “Published Beyond Personality: the Christian Idea of God”, which was later revised and presented as the last part of “Mere Christianity”, my favorite of all his incredible writings. This personal partiality emerges from two vivid experiences deeply implanted in my memory. Its content related to my initial contact with C.S. Lewis, a solid reason number one. Secondly, in 1948 while a student at Pennsylvania State College, I presented a copy of “Mere Christianity” to a professor of philosophy. He claimed to be an avowed atheist. After he read this volume by C.S. Lewis and discussed its issues in our home, my wife and I had the exciting privilege of seeing him openly acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be his personal Savior. He later acknowledged his conversion to his class.

I first met Mr. Lewis in a pub on Turl Street in Oxford, located not too far from Magdalen College. A friend of mine mentioned that I might find him there, a place he sometimes frequented to imbibe ale, eat a sandwich, or play darts. When I introduced myself to him he was doing all three while in the company of two close friends. In the course of a rather brief, but very meaningful, conversation I asked him for permission to audit some of his lectures. That was a bold and, by British standards, perhaps a bit impolite. He asked me about a dozen questions concerning my motives, availability, and background. Then, to my surprise, he said if the University would grant permission for me to so it was alright with him. As I recall, I think I backed out of the door of the pub without taking my eyes off of him.

Unfortunately, this 21-year-old “fly boy” could attend only eight of his lectures due to incressed activity in combat and eventual movement of our base to France.

C.S. Lewis made a lasting impression on my life. I believe I met him during the most productive period of his life as far as writings were concerned. From 1942 when he published “The Screwtape Letters” until he was awarded the Doctorate of Divinity degree by St. Andrews University in 1946, and published his “Miracles” in 1947, I think he was in his prime. His mind was exceptionally sharp, his wit was ever present and his sarcasm was at its best. He challenged me to take careful inventory of my life, its purposes and its plans. C.S. Lewis personified the words of the late American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who stated that “Once the mind is stretched by a new idea it will never return to its original dimensions.” Dr. Lewis stretched my 21-year-old mind and continues to do so as I return from time to time to his stimulative writings.