Nearly every Christian has read the work of C.S. Lewis. Most children have read at least one of The Chronicles of Narnia, and most adults have read either Mere Christianity or The Screwtape Letters. Lewis’s contributions to literature, culture, and education have blessed the Christian community, with his influence growing as new recruits latch on to his genius for applying the Christian faith as a writer and apologist.
C.S. Lewis is our feature for our upcoming Providence Foundations events. We are pleased to welcome professor, speaker, and author Dr. Joe Rigney to help us explore Lewis’s ideas: how they can impact and grow us a Christians, as parents, as thinkers, as readers. Dr. Rigney has written many excellent books, two of which focus on Lewis’s work.
His first is called Live Like a Narnian. Rigney plumbs the rich depths of The Chronicles of Narnia, applying concepts from the stories in fresh ways that will benefit both veterans and novices of Lewis’s work. Lewis wrote, “A children’s story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children’s story.” So true of The Chronicles of Narnia. Rigney benefitted greatly by Lewis’s profound ideas: “One of the primary means that God has used to sustain my faith in the darkest times is the Narnian stories themselves. They inevitably draw me out of the prison of my own mind and put me in touch with something True, something Good, something Beautiful, something Solid and Stable and Secure when all around my soul gives way.”
Dr. Rigney has also written a helpful biographical sketch that focuses on the humanity of Lewis, titled Lewis on the Christian Life. Lewis’s brilliance is his ability to address profound ideas winsomely, simply, and profoundly. From views on education in The Abolition of Man to his thoughts on heaven in The Great Divorce, Lewis’s genuis is captured by Dr. Rigney through exploration of multiple topics including sin, the church, prayer, and the believer’s road to sanctification. Writes Rigney: “Few things distinguish Lewis as much as his joviality, his glad-heartedness, his brightness. At the same time, few writers can rival him in their knowledge of the slipperiness of the human heart. He slices our motivations (and his) with a master touch. He avoids the twin dangers of sunny superficiality and morbid introspection.”
