C. S. Lewis Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church

C.S. Lewis

Essay Collection

Faith, Christianity and the Church

Edited By

Lesley Walmsley

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

INTRODUCTION

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS VOLUME

[PART 1] THE SEARCH FOR GOD

[1] THE GRAND MIRACLE

[2] IS THEOLOGY POETRY?

[3] THE FUNERAL OF A GREAT MYTH

[4] GOD IN THE DOCK

[5] WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF JESUS CHRIST?

[6] THE WORLD’S LAST NIGHT

[7] IS THEISM IMPORTANT?

[8] THE SEEING EYE

[9] MUST OUR IMAGE OF GOD GO?

[PART 2] ASPECTS OF FAITH

[10] CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE

[11] EVIL AND GOD

[12] THE WEIGHT OF GLORY

[13] MIRACLES

[14] DOGMA AND THE UNIVERSE

[15] ‘HORRID RED THINGS’

[16] RELIGION: REALITY OR SUBSTITUTE?

[17] MYTH BECAME FACT

[18] RELIGION AND SCIENCE

[19] CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS

[20] WORK AND PRAYER

[21] RELIGION WITHOUT DOGMA?

[22] THE DECLINE OF RELIGION

[23] ON FORGIVENESS

[24] THE PAINS OF ANIMALS

[25] PETITIONARY PRAYER: A Problem Without an Answer

[26] ON OBSTINACY IN BELIEF

[27] WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME

[28] THE PSALMS

[29] RELIGION AND ROCKETRY

[30] THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER

[31] FERN-SEED AND ELEPHANTS

[32] THE LANGUAGE OF RELIGION

[33] TRANSPOSITION

[PART 3] THE CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD

[34] WHY I AM NOT A PACIFIST

[35] DANGERS OF NATIONAL REPENTANCE

[36] TWO WAYS WITH THE SELF

[37] MEDITATION ON THE THIRD COMMANDMENT

[38] ON ETHICS

[39] THREE KINDS OF MEN

[40] ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON CHRISTIANITY

[41] THE LAWS OF NATURE

[42] MEMBERSHIP

[43] THE SERMON AND THE LUNCH

[44] SCRAPS

[45] AFTER PRIGGERY – WHAT?

[46] MAN OR RABBIT?

[47] ‘THE TROUBLE WITH “X”…’

[48] ON LIVING IN AN ATOMIC AGE

[49] LILIES THAT FESTER

[50] GOOD WORK AND GOOD WORKS

[51] A SLIP OF THE TONGUE

[52] WE HAVE NO ‘RIGHT TO HAPPINESS’

[PART 4] THE CHURCH

[53] CHRISTIAN REUNION

[54] PRIESTESSES IN THE CHURCH?

[55] ON CHURCH MUSIC

[PART 5] LETTERS

[56] THE CONDITIONS FOR A JUST WAR

[57] THE CONFLICT IN ANGLICAN THEOLOGY

[58] MIRACLES

[59] MR C.S. LEWIS ON CHRISTIANITY

[60] A VILLAGE EXPERIENCE

[61] CORRESPONDENCE WITH AN ANGLICAN WHO DISLIKES HYMNS1

[62] THE CHURCH’S LITURGY, INVOCATION, AND INVOCATION OF SAINTS

[63] THE HOLY NAME

[64] MERE CHRISTIANS

[65] CANONISATION

[66] PITTENGER-LEWIS AND VERSION VERNACULAR

[67] CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND DEATH PENALTY

INDEX OF ESSAYS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Other Books By

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898 and became a renowned scholar of medieval English, in which he lectured, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge. He also wrote widely on that subject, but as an author is now best known for his religious writings, including such books as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia.

He was also a prolific writer of essays on many subjects to do with faith and life, and although they have been published in various collections over the years, this present volume is the first time that they have all been brought together. To make for ease of reading I have tried to put them into logical sections, but in some cases an essay could happily fall into at least two, such was Lewis’s breadth of approach, and within each section the essays are generally listed chronologically. There is a short introductory history for each one, including details of the latest collection in which it has been published, and at the front of the book there is a list of titles, with publication dates, of all the books mentioned as sources.

For all this background information, as for so much else to do with the works of C.S. Lewis, I am greatly indebted to Walter Hooper, whose C.S. Lewis–A Companion and Guide gives full details of all Lewis’s writings, including of course his essays. I have also largely kept the helpful footnotes which he added for those reading the essays many years after they were written. One small addition should be a note about The Guardian, which was a religious magazine rather than the national newspaper now known by that name.

Lewis was writing over a long period, from the 1920s to shortly before his death in 1963, and the world has changed a great deal since then. For many people there is no firm religious background to life, and new mass communications have brought influences from all kinds of ideologies into our very homes, all presented with lavish and impressive marketing techniques, some of which we don’t even realize may be changing the way we think. When Lewis made the broadcasts which were to form Mere Christianity Britain was at war, and his words came as a firm foundation to people who were looking for a faith to steady their lives. In reading them again I was struck by how directly they still speak to us at the turn of the century, despite having been written in that very different world of some fifty years ago.

Lesley Walmsley

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS VOLUME

Lewis’s adult religious books were first published by Geoffrey Bles, but in 1953 Bles was bought by William Collins, and his books then appeared under the imprints of William Collins Sons & Co (hardbacks) or Fontana (paperbacks), until in 1977 the religious paperbacks launched their own imprint of Fount. Collins later joined with the American publisher Harper & Row, and is now HarperCollinsPublishers. Unless otherwise stated, the books listed below were all published by Bles/ William Collins/HarperCollins/Fount. The dates shown represent the first and latest editions.

Complete publication details of all Lewis’s writings, up to 1996, can be found in C.S. Lewis–A Companion and Guide by Walter Hooper, published by HarperCollinsPublishers, London and San Francisco.

The Abolition of Man or, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of School, Bles 1946, Fount 1978 US: Macmillan 1947, Macmillan Paperback 1965

Christian Reflections, Bles 1967, Fount 1981, 1998 US: Eerdmans 1967

Christian Reunion, Fount 1990

Compelling Reason, Fount 1996, 1998 (formerly Undeceptions and First and Second Things–see below)

The Dark Tower and Other Stories, Collins 1977, Fount 1983, 1998 US: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Harvest/HBJ paperback 1977

Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays, Fontana 1975, Fount 1977, 1998

First and Second Things: Essays on Theology and Ethics, Fontana 1971, Fount 1985

God in the Dock–Essays on Theology and Ethics, (US) Eerdmans hardback 1970 UK: Undeceptions–(see below)

God in the Dock–Essays on Theology, Fontana 1979, Fount 1979, 1998 (This sedition is much shorter than the American one)

Of Other Worlds– Essays and Stories, Bles 1966 US: Harcourt, Brace & World 1967, Harvest Book paperback 1975

Of This and Other Worlds, Collins 1982, Fount 2000 (The contents are not exactly the same as those of Of Other Worlds)

Present Concerns, Fount 1986, 1991 US: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Harvest/HBJ paperback 1987

Rehabilitations and Other Essays, Oxford University Press 1939

Selected Literary Essays, Cambridge University Press 1969

The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Bles 1961 US: Macmillan 1962; revised Macmillan Paperback 1982

Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces, Fontana 1965, Fount 1977, 1998

Surprised by Joy–The Shape of My Early Life, Bles 1955, Fontana 1959, Fount 1977

They Asked for a Paper–Papers and Addresses, Bles 1962

Timeless at Heart–Essays on Theology, Fount 1987, 1991

Transposition and Other Addresses, Bles, 1949

US: The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, Macmillan 1949 (see also The Weight of Glory below)

Undeceptions–Essays on Theology and Ethics UK edition of (US) God in the Dock (1970), Bles 1971

The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (revised and expanded edition) US: Macmillan Paperbacks 1980

The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (US) Harcourt, Brace & World 1960

[PART 1] THE SEARCH FOR GOD

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