During his early
life, C. S. Lewis was a confirmed atheist. While at Oxford he
struggled with the problems of materialism, meaninglessness and
anomie. Eventually, after much soul searching he became in his words
a reluctant convert to Christianity. From this beginning, and
probably because of it, he became one of the foremost apologists in
the twentieth century, one who uses rational argument to defend
Christianity.
His works such as
Mere Christianity, and Surprised by Joy still
bring many readers to the Christian faith, the author being one of
them. He attributes his embrace of the Christianity, eventually
becoming
a pastor to reading C. S. Lewis while he was a student at UC Berkley.
Lewis'
scholarly works are not the only ones that bring people to
Christianity. Cootsona points
out that Lewis turned to writing fiction, primarily the Chronicles of
Narnia, because he
believed that other
scholars were more capable of making academic arguments. Engaging the
imagination was another way to continue the apologetic task. From the
number of people who love the Chronicles of Narnia, he seems to have
been correct.
This
is an excellent overview of Lewis' life and writing. The first
chapters are the most philosophical and somewhat difficult to follow,
but Cootsona intersperses Lewis' philosophical writings with his own
reactions. This makes the book very readable and
gives the reader insight into how Lewis' arguments affected the
author's embrace of Christianity.
If
you're unfamiliar with Lewis' writing, this is a good place to start.
If you've already read him extensively, this overview will help to
put the whole body of his work into perspective. I enjoyed the book
and highly recommend it.
I
reviewed this book for Net Galley.
No comments:
Post a Comment