It seems that there are a few of us that have read C.S. Lewis. I belonged to the C.S. Lewis Society of Cleveland Ohio in the 70’s.
I have read quite a bit by him and books written about him.
My question is, was he really great or just hohum? I think is writings were fabulous. I agree with just about everything he said, well, except for one. He believed in evolution.
Anyone?
I enjoyed most of the “Narnia” series. I wasn’t a big fan of “The Silver Chair” or “A Boy and his Horse” (I think that was the title).
I certainly wouldn’t call him a religious “kook”. He was religiously driven, and there really isn’t anything wrong with that as long as you aren’t driving it down the throats of others.
Genius? I don’t know. He certainly was inspired and driven, which IMO makes up a large part of what genius really is. He had ideas that he believe in and went about presenting in a intelligent manner. I think that would qualify as genius. But if we mean pure genius in the sense of coming up with something completely unheard of, completely original or just something that has to make you go WOW! … maybe just a little short of genius.
“Glitch … Window, large icons.” - Bob the Guardian
Genius, for the most part, Ken. He did have some Ulster prejudices which he never quite shed (and don’t we all have our blind spots). One rather smartalecky cavil: he didn’t believe in evolution; he believed in God. He accepted evolution on the witness of the data and his willingness to respect the authority of scholars in the field (of whom he knew several, and debated with at least one atheist evolutionary biologist on matters religious not having to do with creationism).
I am a major C.S. Lewis fan; I think he is one of the greatest (and certainly the most famous) modern Christian apologists. That said, I don’t think he was either a genius or a kook; I think he was a man who came by his convictions honestly and after some deep introspection – which means that while he believed through faith, he came to believe by critical thinking, something manny Christians today could do a little more of, IMO.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Raad Narnia years ago…
recently picked up some of his other stuff.
Mere Christianity - wonderful
Screwtape letters - thought provoking to say the least.
I think I’d vote for the Genuis side.
† Jon †
Phillipians 4:13
I wish he were here to debate. Him and David B? That would be HOT.
Religious kook. Smullyan nailed his form of religion in a passing comment in “This Book Needs No Title”. I did like the “Out of the Silent Planet” series, though.
What I like best about Lewis is his ability to develop an unambiguous argument with great clarity. He wasn’t the best logician, but he was the best explainer of why he thought what he thought than anyone else I’ve ever read.
Surg:
I would give anything to see that.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
Wanna all be really scared? I AGREE WITH JODIH for once.
C.S. Lewis put me to sleep as a child with some great imagination. He was awesome. But I must say, the PBS series that was acted out, did his books great diservice.
“For once”? You’ve only been here two days. 
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Truce?
Borderline genius. While Tolkien, for example, was a better writer, Lewis focussed more tightly on religion. I started with Narnia (as did 99 44/100% of y’all, I guess :)), and got through Screwtape and Mere Christianity in high school (and have subsequently most fo the rest of his books).
I agree that his style made his explanations more accessible. He actually talked to his readers rather than simply preaching. I don’t necessarily agree with some of his theology. But I understand him.
-andros-
Fergit Mikey and Jodi . . . I just agreed with Phaedrus. Satan, how’re those popsicles coming?
That’s “A Horse and His Boy”, Glitch.
I’m of the not necessarily a genius, but definitely not a kook bend. I love C.S. Lewis. Has anyone ever read “Surprised by Joy”? That book make me think more than just about any other. If anyone could make me a Christian, C.S. Lewis could. He puts most so-called “Christians” to shame.
Whenever I read a work by C.S. Lewis I hear Anthony Hopkins.
Whenever I read one of Paul’s letters I hear Anthony Hopkins.
So,
C.S. Lewis is Paul.
Oh, and all three of him are geniuses.
If we are out of our mind, it is for the Lord; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 2Cor.5:13
And more evidence: C.S. Lewis is dead, and of course, Paul is dead.
Sorry.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Screwtape letters is incredible. A unknowing christian may see it initially as an evil if it were recited. You know, the devil talking about getting converts by using the more obnoxious fundy tricks against them.
The Great Divorce was great because it turned traditional imagery of Heaven and Hell on its end. Heavan being the countryside with density (blades of grass that cut like glass) as opposed to weightless angels floating around. Hell being a bleak unending urban landscape.
I liked Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, but now I feel it is not his best work. The religious imagery, especially in the third book, is a little heavy handed. He also shows his prejudice toward Arab culture.
Overall, all of the Oxford Christians, including Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, MacDonald and others that I can’t remember now were quite good writers.
Couple a facts. Clive Staples Lewis or “Jack” died November 23, 1963. So did “Jack” the President and so did Aldous Huxley (Brave New World).
Lewis used to run a weekly? debate in Cambridge with a bunch of Chrisians and Atheists, it was called, “The Socratic Club”. I wish I<-bold, could have seen THAT!
Good posts, I hope we have plenty more.
Lewis’ writings have helped me many times, including recently.
From “A Grief Observed”,
“Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be-or so it feels-welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence becomes. There are no windows in the house. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in our time of trouble?”
“Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My Mother, my Father, my Wife. I wonder who is next in the queue.”
“I have no photograph of her that’s any good. I cannot even see her face distinctly in my imagination. Yet the odd face of some stranger seen in a crowd this morning may come before me in vivid perfection the moment I close my eyes tonight. No doubt, the explanation is simple enough. We have seen the faces of those we know best so variously, from so many angles, in so many lights, with so many expressions-waking, sleeping, laughing, crying, eating, talking, thinking-that all the impressions crowd into our memories together and cancel out into a mere blur… But her voice is remembered-that can turn me into a whimpering child.”
“Have I forgotten when she cried out, “And there was so much to live for”? Happiness had not come to her early in life. A thousand years of it would not have made her blasé. Her palate for all the joys of sense and intellect and spirit was fresh and unspoiled. Nothing would have been wasted on her. She liked more things and liked them more than anyone I have ever known. A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away. Fate (or whatever it is) delights to produce a great capacity and then frustrate it. Beethoven went deaf. By our standards a mean joke; the monkey trick of a spiteful imbecile.”
I hear Hopkins too, I wonder if it was because of the movie about Lewis, Shadowlands?
Good posts, I hope there’s more to come.
One of my faves from ‘Grief Observed’:“ Bridge players tell me that there must be some money on the game, ‘or else people won’t take it seriously’. Apparently it’s like that. Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself. “
Oh, and A. Hopkins played Paul in ‘Peter and Paul.’
Also, if you rearrange the letters in ‘Paul’ and ‘Lewis,’ you get ‘Anthony Hopkins.’
What Libertarian said. Well put, BTW.
It only took me a twelve pack to put this one together 
I still think Screwtape Letters is genius. I gave my son Chronicles this year for christmas. [Non-Chrstian Caveat]I view Lewis as I view Jesus, as a great moral teacher and lover of mankind.[/Non-Christian Caveat]
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching