The books that have influenced meCS Lewis

The coming weeks

Today – CS Lewis

Next week – Charles Page

August 2 – What’s So Amazing About Grace

August 9 – The Ragamuffin Gospel

August 16 – The New Creation

August 23 – The Rule of Benedict

August 30 – Celebration of Discipline

CS Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis

Hated his name

Jack

November 29, 1898 – 22 November 22, 1963

Brilliant

Medieval romantic poetry

Atheist for his early life

Why

Mother died at a young age

How? Why? He prayed and God did nothing

So, there must be no God, of if there is, He’s mean and evil

When through his young life like this

Solider in WWI

Schooling

Teaching – Oxford

Every loves Lewis

Catholic to Baptist

Big fan of alcohol and cigars

Catholic – high church The Creeds

Purgatory

BaptistsConversion

His Conversion

The Inklings

Met at pub – Eagle and Child “Bird and Baby”

Walked around campus talking

Nature of salvation and God

Went to the zoo, when he left he didn’t believe

When he arrived, he did

Christian Spokesman

During WWII – the two most famous voices were Churchill and Lewis

Began to write about his faith

Brilliant, but understandable

Looked down on in academic circles

But did more to spread the Gospel than most anyone

Particularly an intellectual educated understanding

Mere Christianity

Mere Christianity

Perhaps the most influential Christian book of 20th Century

First book I read after conversion

A statement of “Mere Christianity”

Basic faith and belief

Charles Colson’s Conversion

Mere Christianity

The Moral Law

Our yearning

"Lewis trilemma”either he really was Godwas deliberately lyingor was not God but thought himself to be (which would make him delusional and likely insane)

Christian BehaviorLove God and neighbor and self

QuotesMy argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us;

Screwtape Letters

Screwtape Letters

As complicated as MC is, this is easy and fun

Letters from a chief demon in hell (Screwtape) to his junior (Wormwood) on how to keep a Christian from growing

Great, great, great

QuotesThere are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.”

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Pilgrims Regress

Pilgrim’s Regress

• Not as popular

• Terrible reading

• Don’t read it

• It’s awful

• But it tell his journey

Why then?• I like the idea of a journey

• It’s taken me a while to get to where I am in faith and what I believe

• I’ve struggle with faith

• Tried different things

• And I know now what I believe, sure of it

• Grace, mercy, peace

• God’s desire to change you, but in a graceful way

Lewis Struggled till finding faith

• I understand that

• I appreciate that

• I’ve done that

• Most of us have

• This book tells that we are not alone