Christian Apologist (1898-1963)
Clive Staples Lewis, who was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland, spent most of his life in Oxford, where he served as a scholar of medieval literature. Though in his youth he had spurned religious faith, at the age of thirty-two he found his way back (like a prodigal, “kicking and struggling”) to Christianity. Afterward, through books and radio broadcasts, Lewis came to be recognized as one of the most popular exponents and defenders of Christianity in the English language— a reputation that continues to the present.
While he remained comfortably settled in the Anglican Church, Lewis espoused what he called “Mere Christianity”— an expression of the essential elements of the Gospel—that appealed to readers across denominational boundaries. His arguments, rooted in reason and everyday experience, were leavened by aphoristic wit. For example: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Or: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Late in life, Lewis married an American woman, Joy Davidman. Her death from cancer four years later was a devastating blow, an experience he described in one of his most personal works, A Grief Observed. Lewis himself died three years later on November 22, 1963.
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
—C. S. Lewis
