C.S. Lewis Classics ::: Homepage

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by the rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? The same with people…Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.

—A Grief Observed

From Our Blog

7.18.2008

Good News for Toy Soldiers

by Sarah Arthur

I recently completed my first year of graduate theological studies at a major university. Before classes began, I figured I would need to say goodbye to C. S. Lewis as a literary voice in my life, considering his rather dubious reputation among academics. Everyone in the academy darts for cover when an intelligent man broadcasts his Christian beliefs, right? And meanwhile, you never know which theologian is feeling cranky about Lewis’s war ethic, for instance, or his spin on female clergy. So I entered divinity school assuming I would hear little about Lewis for the next several years.

7.12.2008

“What should they teach at these schools?” Lewis on Education and Imagination

by Marisa White

I love to investigate the tables Barnes and Noble has set up for local schools’ summer reading. A few weeks ago, I was pleased to find The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on several of their displays. I started thinking, and I feel certain that seeing his book there would bring a great sense of joy into C. S. Lewis’s heart, not merely because people are still reading his stories, but, more profoundly, because of Lewis’s strong convictions about the role of imaginative literature in education.

7.6.2008

Lewis and the "Pursuit of Happiness"

by Robin Baker

Quite by accident, I came across a short article by Lewis that he wrote just prior to his death, entitled “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” (Saturday Evening Post, December 11, 1963). In it, he writes about an emerging issue in culture and even offers thoughts on the American Declaration of Independence. In this short essay, Lewis takes on a growing concept in the West in the mid-20th century that human beings have a “right to sexual happiness.”