Poe The Making of C. S. Lewis (1918-1945)

From Atheist to Apologist
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4335-6786-5
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

Reihe: Lewis Trilogy

Experience C. S. Lewis's Captivating Transformation from Atheist to Christian At the end of World War I, young C. S. Lewis was a devout atheist about to begin his studies at Oxford. In the three decades that followed, he would establish himself as one of the most influential writers and scholars of modern times, undergoing a radical conversion to Christianity that would transform his life and his work. Scholar Harry Lee Poe unfolds these watershed years in Lewis's life, offering readers a unique perspective on his conversion, his friendships with well-known Christians such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers, and his development from an opponent of Christianity to one of its most ardent defenders.

Harry Lee Poe (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the author of twenty books, including The Inklings of Oxford and C. S. Lewis Remembered, as well as numerous articles on Lewis and the Inklings. Poe hosts the annual Inklings Weekend in Montreat, North Carolina, and is a regular speaker on Lewis at universities and other venues worldwide. He served as the Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University, where he has taught a course on C. S. Lewis for over twenty years.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Poe, Harry Lee

Leseproben

Acknowledgments

This is the fourth book about C. S. Lewis I had not planned to write. When I completed Becoming C. S. Lewis, I felt there was much more to say. The book ended with the end of World War I. Lewis had become a man, but he had not yet become a Christian. Becoming C. S. Lewis focused on how his teenage years prepared the way for the conversion of Lewis and for the academic and popular writing he would do the rest of his life. It seemed a shame not to continue the story. When I proposed a volume to tell of how Lewis went from being an atheist at the end of World War I to being the most prominent Christian apologist in the world at the end of World War II, Crossway agreed to this second volume if I would also write a third that would take Lewis to the end of his life.

I am grateful to my acquisitions editor at Crossway, Samuel James, for his interest in this project and the support that he and his colleagues have offered. Thom Notaro has given careful editorial attention to making this a better book. Jill Carter has handled an array of administrative tasks throughout the publishing process with efficiency and good cheer. Claire Cook has been an invaluable contact in Crossway’s design department, which has beautifully packaged the book. Darcy Ryan and the marketing team have been so creative and shown such initiative in making people aware of the book. I am so grateful for these and all the other people at Crossway who did so much to make this book possible.

Several excellent biographies of Lewis have been written. A biographer must make choices about what material to include and what to lay aside. To that extent, a biography is not simply a chronicle of what someone has done but a story of the significant moments in that person’s life. To tell this story, a biographer must choose the most significant episodes in a life. In sifting all the days of the life of C. S. Lewis, I have had the benefit of several important primary sources that have been published, in addition to the unpublished holdings at the Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College and the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. The primary sources are The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper in three volumes, and All My Road before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis, 1922–1927, also edited by Hooper. It would have taken years to write this volume had Hooper not done the tedious and meticulous work of editing the letters and diary of C. S. Lewis. Scholars and lovers of Lewis can now examine those letters at their leisure in their own studies without facing the enormous expense of traveling to the research libraries and special collections that hold those letters. Walter Hooper has done an enormous service to generations that will come after him.

Other helpful primary sources are The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter, and To Michal from Serge: Letters from Charles Williams to His Wife, Florence, 1939–1945, edited by Roma A. King Jr. In addition to Surprised by Joy, Lewis’s own memoir of his conversion, the most important secondary sources are the collections of memoirs written by those who knew Lewis:

Como, James T., ed. Remembering C. S. Lewis: Recollection of Those Who Knew Him. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005; originally published as C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table.

Gibb, Jocelyn, ed. Light on C. S. Lewis. London: Bles, 1965.

Graham, David. We Remember C. S. Lewis: Essays and Memoirs. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001.

Keefe, Carolyn. C. S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1971.

Poe, Harry Lee, and Rebecca Whitten Poe, eds. C. S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends and Colleagues. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.

In addition to presenting papers at conferences and writing articles for magazines and journals, I have had a number of invitations over the years to speak and write about Lewis. These lectures have all informed this biography and helped to shape my thinking about Lewis. David Dockery and Greg Thornbury invited me to contribute a chapter titled “The Influence of C. S. Lewis” for an edited volume, Shaping a Christian Worldview (2002), in which I first explored the relationships between A Preface to Paradise Lost, The Screwtape Letters, Perelandra, and The Great Divorce. In 2006, I gave the keynote address for the Christianity in the Academy Conference, in Memphis, on C. S. Lewis’s understanding of a classical education. I was invited to contribute an article “C. S. Lewis and the Ladies” in a special 2007 issue of Christian Scholars Review, which explored Lewis and gender. I am grateful to W. E. “Nick” Knickerbocker and his wife, Sandra H. Knickerbocker, who established the C. S. Lewis and His Friends lectureship, and to the Memphis Theological Seminary, which invited me to give the inaugural lectures in 2008. These lectures allowed me to explore the way Lewis used various literary forms in different apologetic ways. I took advantage of another invitation to give a lecture at Williams College in 2009 on Lewis’s understanding of imagination, which I further developed for the Inklings Week in Oxford in 2013 and published in the Sewanee Theological Review. Dick Staub invited me to present “The Inklings and Friendship” for the Kindlings Fest on Orcas Island in 2010. In 2015, I gave two lectures for the Humanitas Forum that explored Lewis’s conversion, titled “From Ardent Atheist to Mere Christian,” and his treatment of hardship in “Pain, Evil, and Suffering.” For the Inklings Week in Oxford in 2019, I delivered a lecture titled “‘Friendship Must Be about Something’: The Case of C. S. Lewis.” One way or another, all of these invitations have found their way into this biography.

Even with the enormous amount of material that Hooper has edited, much remains unpublished at the Wade Center of Wheaton College and in the Bodleian Library. I am indebted to the center and its staff for their great kindness, generosity of spirit, encouragement, and helpfulness during several trips for extended periods of research into the primary documents related to Lewis during his middle years. Marjorie Lamp Mead has always been gracious to me and all those who come to use the resources of the Wade. Laura Schmidt and Elaine Hooker went out of their way to find things I did not know existed. David and Crystal Downing arrived at the Wade Center as the new codirectors while I was finishing my research on the first volume of this biography. Since then they have extended to me the warmest of possible welcomes, including the opportunity to talk with them on a podcast about this research. I am delighted that they will be leading this important research library into the future. Finally, I am grateful for the Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant for 2020 from the Wade Center, which has aided me in writing this book.

I also appreciate the help and courtesy given me by Rachel Churchill of the C. S. Lewis Company in securing permission to quote Lewis. The C. S. Lewis Company has safeguarded the work of Lewis, preserving his legacy for future generations, for which many are grateful.

I have had the pleasure of dialogue with many colleagues over the years with whom I have shared an interest in Lewis. Insights often come in undocumented conversations long forgotten. I am particularly indebted to Don King, Colin Duriez, Rebecca Hays, Walter Hooper, Paul Fiddes, William O’Flaherty, Dennis Beets, Barry Anderson, Malissa and Russ Kilpatrick, Stan Shelley, Nigel Goodwin, Joseph Pearce, Jerry Root, Holly Ordway, and James Como. Gregory Poore, my former student research assistant, brought a number of memoirs to my attention when I edited C. S. Lewis Remembered, which have contributed significantly to this volume.

For a number of years, I have taught a course on C. S. Lewis at Union University. My students have sparked my imagination with their questions, and I have found that new insights often come in the process of answering questions on my feet before the students. Connections are made that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. I have long believed that some of the best scholarship emerges from the classroom experience. I am grateful to those students over the years who have been my dialogue partners: Kelly Barron, Chelsea Blakley, Sarah Bradley, Valerie Burnett, Laura Bush, William Cherry, David Clark, Adam Craig, Ian Crawford, Ben Dockery, Jon Dockery, Jessica Farneth, Alyce George, Luke Hall, Meah Hearington, Graham Hillard, Jennifer Johnson, Jonathan Wade Jones, Stephanie King, Kelly Krebs, Jin Langford, Adam Lickey, Seth Massa, Kevin Minister, Brian Mooney, Katie Murphy, Eric Murrell, Chelsea Mytyk, David Patterson, Gregory Picard, Jennifer Powers, Kyle Riddle, Katie Sorrell, Greg Talley, Kerstin Ure, Travis Wales, Josh Wamble, and Brian Wells.

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