C. S. Lewis

Life

Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). His father, Albert Lewis, was a solicitor, and his mother was Flora Hamilton Lewis; he was their second son. His parents were members of the Church of Ireland. He lost his mother in childhood and, as an adolescent, abandoned the faith and became an atheist. He served as a British Army officer in the First World War and was wounded; after the war he completed his studies at Oxford.

From 1925 to 1954 he taught English literature at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. In 1954 he became the first holder of the newly created chair of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at the University of Cambridge, a post he held until his death. In 1929 he came to accept the existence of God, and in September 1931 a late-night conversation with his friends J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson led him to faith in Christ. He remained a layman of the Church of England for the rest of his life. In 1956 he married the American writer Joy Davidman, who died in 1960. Lewis died at his home in Oxford on November 22, 1963.

Work and Achievements

Lewis was neither a pastor nor a professor of theology but a scholar of English literature. He wrote extensively for general readers, explaining and defending the Christian faith through reasoned argument, a type of writing known as Christian apologetics.

• Mere Christianity: Originally a series of BBC radio talks delivered from 1941 to 1944, during the Second World War, published in three volumes and then collected into a single volume in 1952. Setting aside points of dispute between denominations, it seeks to explain the core of Christianity held in common by many traditions.
• The Screwtape Letters: Written in the form of letters from a senior devil to his nephew, a junior devil, this work satirizes the process by which human beings fall into temptation.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: A seven-volume series of children's fantasy novels published from 1950 to 1956. It is the best known of his works.
• Other works include The Problem of Pain, Miracles, The Great Divorce, and his autobiography, Surprised by Joy.

Influence on the Korean Church

In Korea, the publisher Hong Sung Sa acquired the official rights and in 2001 published Mere Christianity in a translation by Jang Kyung-chul and Lee Jong-tae. The publisher went on to release other major works, including The Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves, and A Grief Observed. Today most of his English-language writings are available in Korean translation. The translator Hong Jong-rak is reported to have translated more of Lewis's books than anyone else. Lewis is regarded as a leading author of Christian books read across denominational lines.

Assessment

Mere Christianity has been translated into more than thirty languages and used in evangelism, and it has been especially widely read in American evangelical circles. Because he became an iconic figure in evangelicalism despite being an Anglican, he has been described as an "unexpected evangelical icon."

Some conservative Reformed and evangelical critics, however, are reported to object to several points: Lewis's stated personal belief in purgatory (the Roman Catholic doctrine that souls undergo purification after death); passages that appear to leave open the possibility that people who have not clearly known Christ may receive salvation; and his not adhering strictly to biblical inerrancy. Lewis's defenders point out that he deliberately set aside questions disputed between denominations and devoted himself to defending the faith confessed in common by all Christian traditions.