In 1919 Lewis published his first book, a cycle of lyrics titled Spirits in Bondage, which he wrote under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. Books were not the only means Lewis found for sharing his message. Even so, it wasn’t love that primarily motivated the couple to marry in 1956—Joy couldn’t renew her permit to live and work in England, so her only chance to stay in the country was to marry an Englishman. After his only brother, Warren, was sent off to English boarding school in 1905, Jack became reclusive. His black hair had retreated from his forehead, which made him especially imposing. Jack, who would have spent some time that week reading the books with which the essay was concerned, would sit listening, very often lighting, smoking, and relighting his pipe, and perhaps making a few notes. His books continue to sell extremely well (the Chronicles of Narnia set, for example, is among Amazon.com’s top 200 titles), and many readers rate him as the most influential writer in their lives. It was Magdalene College at Cambridge University that finally honored Lewis with a chair in 1955. But he explored the Bible for himself, through reading it and through conversations with his friends. Joy had many strikes against her: she was an American, of Jewish descent, a former communist, 16 years younger than Lewis, divorced, and personally abrasive. Home > Sermon Illustrations. However, she stimulated Lewis’s writing, and he enjoyed her company. As C.S. His second volume of poetry, Dymer, was also published pseudonymously. Quite a feat for a man who long disparaged “the Christian mythology” and regarded God as “My Enemy.”. All rights reserved. Lewis was born into a bookish family of Protestants in Belfast, Ireland. These men became close friends of Lewis. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Whether in the realm of reason or imagination, in personal or public life, Lewis maintained, “I believe in Christianity … His mother’s death from cancer in 1908 made him even more withdrawn. C. S. Lewis then declared, “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. As the writer and scholar C. S. Lewis put it, "Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. Joy gradually fell into financial trouble. The outcome was seven sets of talks, broadcast between 1941 and 1944, with titles like “Right and Wrong: A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe?” and “What Christians Believe.”, The weekly broadcasts were very popular—just what weary, discouraged Brits were looking for in the gloom of World War II. In 1929 these roads met, and Lewis surrendered, admitting “God was God, and knelt and prayed.” Within two years the reluctant convert also moved from theism to Christianity and joined the Church of England. —George Sayer, Lewis’s pupil and, later, biographer, in Jack: C.S. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important… Since he never spoke of religion while I was his pupil, or until we had become friends 15 years later, it would have seemed incredible that he would become the means of bringing many back to the Christian faith.”. Though his books gained him worldwide fame, Lewis was always first a scholar. Lewis once said that “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The tutorial was a formal occasion. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." Lewis helped out by underwriting the boys’ boarding school education and paying the rent on a house not far from his own. In the words of evangelical leader John Stott, “He was a Christ-centered, great-tradition mainstream Christian whose stature a generation after his death seems greater than anyone ever thought while he was alive, and whose Christian writings are now seen as having classic status. The new Christian devoted his talent and energy to writing prose that reflected his recently found faith. “I never saw anything so beautiful.” Despite an interruption to fight in World War I (in which he was wounded by a bursting shell), he always maintained his home and friends in Oxford. Lewis did hit at least one jarring bump in his intellectual road: a 1948 debate with British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. “Christianity, if false, is of no importance and, if true, is of infinite importance. "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Soon after joining the English faculty at Oxford’s Magdalen College, Lewis met two more Christians, Hugo Dyson and J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis His attachment to Oxford was so strong that when he taught at Cambridge from 1955 to 1963, he commuted back to Oxford on weekends so he could be close to familiar places and beloved friends. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” I searched earnestly for a … Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. C.S. Mrs. Lewis’s death came just three months before Jack’s tenth birthday, and the young man was hurt deeply by her passing. “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. Subscription to Christian History magazine is on a donation basis, Christian History Institute (CHI) is a non-profit Pennsylvania corporation founded in 1982. “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading,” Lewis later wrote in the autobiographical Surprised by Joy. His mother’s death convinced young Jack that the God he encountered in the Bible his mother gave him didn’t always answer prayers. Soon thereafter her alcoholic husband abandoned her for another woman, and she moved to London with her two adolescent boys, David and Douglas. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” John is making it clear that he sees Jesus of infinite importance. His attachment to Oxford was so strong that when he taught at Cambridge from 1955 to 1963, he commuted back to Oxford on weekends so he could be close to familiar places and beloved friends. Christianity if it is true is worth our investigation." In 1950 he received a letter from Joy Davidman Gresham, a New Yorker who had become a Christian through reading The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters. - C.S. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” — “God In The Dock” 23. Though history has all but forgotten them, it was Christian preachers and teachers who really tamed the West. If it is not true, it is not "great for us" — it is very sad, and it means that Christians are deluded. A passionate atheist, now firm believer and author of a wide range of books, C.S. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. ... Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. In fact, Lewis’s “Christian” books caused so much disapproval that he was more than once passed over for a professorship at Oxford, with the honors going to men of lesser reputation. Wearing a gown, a pupil would stand outside the tutor’s door and wait until the clock struck to before knocking. 'You listen to this bloke,’ he shouted. In spite of his many intellectual accomplishments, he refused to be arrogant: “The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. No pupil of his will ever forget the way he quoted the poetry he enjoyed. On one side of the lovely eighteenth-century fireplace in which a coal fire would be burning during cold weather, there was a sofa upon which he sat; on the other side, there was an armchair for the student. The tutorial always began the same way: The pupil would read the essay that he had been told to write the week before. Lewis frequently received criticism from members of his closest circle of friends, the Inklings (the nickname for the group of intellectuals and writers who met regularly to exchange ideas). This is a fundamental question and no one has yet set out to prove or disprove Christianity. Lewis once said: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. Lewis writes, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. Lewis once aptly observed that “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The two were married in an ecclesiastical ceremony at Joy’s bedside, and she moved in with Lewis, presumably to die. He spent more time in books and an imaginary world of “dressed animals” and “knights in armor.”. Though the author hated radio, he recognized the opportunity to reach a wider audience. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." He died in his sleep on November 22, the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He admired their brilliance and their logic. Lewis’ writings continues to be the way in which Lewis combined reason and imagination. Lewis was impressed by the writing and the mind behind it, and a lively, intense correspondence followed. Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the … 22. The best way he knew to grapple with his feelings of grief, anger, and doubt was to write a book. The author quotes CS Lewis at the start of the book, who said, "Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, is of infinite importance. Jack’s door, like all the doors in New Buildings, was thick, but, through it, one could easily hear the strong, booming voice say, “Come in.” The room was adequately, but rather shabbily, furnished. The sheer volume of letters led him to seek his brother Warren’s secretarial assistance but did not prevent him from crafting responses that showed the same clarity of thought and literary grace possessed by all his writing. “What it actually did to me,” wrote Lewis, “was to convert, even to baptize ... my imagination.” G. K. Chesterton’s books worked much the same way, especially The Everlasting Man, which raised serious questions about the young intellectual’s materialism. "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. I doubt whether the full measure of him has been taken by anyone.”. Afterward, he would make wide-ranging criticisms, some of them semantic or philological, for he always hated the inexact use of words. All truth passes through three stages. A few months after the civil wedding ceremony, something happened that did rouse Lewis’s emotions. After a bad fall in her house, Joy was diagnosed with bone cancer. So did Nevill Coghill, a brilliant fellow student and lifelong friend who, to Lewis’s amazement, was “a Christian and a thoroughgoing supernaturalist.”. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”* God’s truth … Perhaps because of the worldwide shock regarding the president’s death, Lewis barely made headlines, and his funeral was attended mostly by family and close friends, including the Inklings. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The two developed a deep friendship, much to the dismay of many of Lewis’s friends. Even close Christian friends like Tolkien and Owen Barfield openly disapproved of Lewis’s evangelistic speaking and writing. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." 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