An ideal persuader

I sometimes wonder whether any among twentieth century Christian writers have been more frequently quoted—and misquoted—than Clive Staples Lewis, which might be partly explained by the sheer breadth and versatility of his work (published in more than thirty books).

Despite a TIME cover story in the days when people still read magazines, many of us forget that not only was Lewis a novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist, but he also held academic positions at both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

  And if those achievements are not impressive enough, maybe Bryan Sibley’s 1985 book Shadowlands (telling the story of  Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman) will enrich them; or the movie versions of Shadowlands with Claire Bloom and Joss Ackland (BBC TV); and Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins (1993).

  The New York Times Book Review once aptly described Lewis as “the ideal persuader for the half-convinced, [and] for the good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect getting in the way.”  

  This icon of Christian thought and teaching always seemed poised to set aside his intellect and be “surprised by joy” (to borrow one of his own titles), and HarperOne has added its own happy surprises with a new project drawn from Lewis’s non-fiction writings, including many of his letters.

  The first of three books is titled How to Pray: Reflections and Essays: C.S.Lewis. It’s a compact little hardback that illuminates the significance of prayer, and why it’s central to faith. In Q & A format, it defends and clarifies the issues surrounding such a spiritual practice in such a secular age. For example:

  Can prayer be proven to work?

  Why make requests of God if He already knows what we need?

and,

  Isn't it presumptuous for us to bring our concerns before God?  

  The answers lie in the Lewis pieces selected for republication in this book, with the original titles and sources shown on the opening page of each chapter, and shorter excerpts on the topic dropped in as sidebars.

  Perhaps one answer, picked at random, might clarify the book’s approach. The response to the teaser, How can we get out of our own way and pray? includes these thoughts from one of Lewis’s addresses, “A Slip of the Tongue”:

  “It is not so much our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention: it is ourselves.     

  “He will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that He will accept a deliberate compromise. For He has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but Himself; and He can give that only in so far as our self-affirming will retires and makes room for Him in our souls.”

  There will always be room for Lewis on my bookshelves, and the inspiration and laughter that permeate his writing will reach right across my neighborhood—especially when we add the good news that How to Pray is just the first in this HarperOne series on Lewis’s works.

  Ahead lie How to Be a Christian (August 2018), and The Reading Life (May 2019).