“Two famous men died on November 22, 1963. The first did so in the most dramatic way possible, assassinated in the full glare of publicity on the streets of Dallas; the second in relative obscurity, in the upstairs bedroom of his simple home on the outskirts of Oxford, England. John F. Kennedy’s legacy has, of course, been enormous, but I wonder whether C.S. Lewis has actually, in the course of these past 50 years, had a greater impact on the culture than his counterpart. When he died at the age of 65, Lewis’s reputation was on the wane, but he has enjoyed an extraordinary posthumous vogue, as two successive generations have delighted in his literary criticism, his novels, and above all, his clever and incisive Christian apologetics.
“One reason why Lewis has proven so persuasive to so many is that he was compelled to undergo a transition – halting, painful, anguished – from non-belief to belief. Though he had been brought up in a Christian environment, he had lost his faith by the time he entered university. He was not someone to whom religious conviction came naturally or effortlessly; he had to work his way to it, in the face of often harsh opposition, both interior and exterior. This very personal struggle gives him credibility with the millions today who want to believe but who find ideological secularism and militant atheism enormously challenging.”
In a recent commentary, Father Robert Barron reflected on the life and legacy of C. S. Lewis – especially as it relates to proclaiming the Good News of the victory of Christ.
To access Fr. Barron’s complete essay, please visit:
Boston Pilot: C.S. Lewis and the art of evangelization (29 NOV 13)
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