Thursday, January 20, 2011

C.S. LEWIS

Several of his quotations here reflect the Christian faith of C. S. Lewis:

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world 
 C.S. Lewis quotes (British Scholar and Novelist. 1898-1963)



      A brilliant man, C.S. Lewis was born on November 29, 1898.  He was nicknamed Jack, and that's the name that everyone close to him used.  He was schooled in "extensive literary philosophical studies" in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian. He attended the University College, Oxford, twice, with his commission and service as a British officer in between.  His stint in the military lasted two years.  He was always actively writing, first in school magazines, then into the ever-greater works he became known for.  He was raised a Christian but fell away from that into atheism when he was about thirteen to fifteen years old (1911-1913).
       In 1929, he admitted God was God and became a theist.  In 1931, after a life-altering talk with his good friends J.R.R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, and Hugo Dyson, he took a ride by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo. On the way, in his own words, he said,, "I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did."  In at least one of his writings, he wrote that, "I was pursued by the 'hound of heaven'" until he had to give in to faith in Christ. His book "Surprised by Joy" records the conversation of that night with Tolkien and Dyson. The last two chapters in the book relate the end of his search for joy as he makes the leap from atheism to theism and then to Christianity.  He passed away on November 22, 1963, the same day of John F. Kennedy's assassination and the death of Aldous Huxley .
     Some of his best known works:  The Chronicales of Narnia, Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, The Space Trilogy, A Grief Observed, The Screwtape Letters, and Reflections on the Psalms.

Sources:
http://cslewis.drzeus.net/bio/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surprised_by_Joy
(Will add others I looked over)