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Overview
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a distinguished scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature who taught at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. After his conversion to Christianity, Lewis began writing Christian apologetic works aimed at a popular audience. It is for these works that Lewis is now best remembered; especially in the U.S., where his books have sold in the millions and continue to be popular today. Perhaps because of this popularity, however, Lewis's Christian writings are generally dismissed by theologians as oversimplified and conceptually flawed. With this book, Wesley A. Kort hopes to rehabilitate Lewis and to demonstrate the value and continuing relevance of his work. Kort not only to retrieves Lewis from the now-dated context of his writings, but also wrests him from the hands of evangelicals who have turned his word into gospel and mistaken his attacks on modernity for a retreat from the world. Kort addresses and refutes common prejudices about Lewis and shows that, although Lewis was sharply critical of the materialism and narcissism of modern culture, he nevertheless insisted that only through culture can Christian teachings effectively shape moral character. Lewis's desire for a fruitful, interactive relationship between Christianity and culture sharply distinguishes him from neo-orthodox theology and many contemporary Christian rejections of culture.Synopsis
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a distinguished scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature who taught at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. After his conversion to Christianity, Lewis began writing Christian apologetic works aimed at a popular audience. It is for these works that Lewis is now best remembered; especially in the U.S., where his books have sold in the millions and continue to be popular today. Perhaps because of this popularity, however, Lewis's Christian writings are generally dismissed by theologians as oversimplified and conceptually flawed. With this book, Wesley A. Kort hopes to rehabilitate Lewis and to demonstrate the value and continuing relevance of his work. Kort not only to retrieves Lewis from the now-dated context of his writings, but also wrests him from the hands of evangelicals who have turned his word into gospel and mistaken his attacks on modernity for a retreat from the world. Kort addresses and refutes common prejudices about Lewis and shows that, although Lewis was sharply critical of the materialism and narcissism of modern culture, he nevertheless insisted that only through culture can Christian teachings effectively shape moral character. Lewis's desire for a fruitful, interactive relationship between Christianity and culture sharply distinguishes him from neo-orthodox theology and many contemporary Christian rejections of culture.
Publishers Weekly
Almost 40 years after his death, C.S. Lewis continues to capture headlines. Recent controversy about the "de-Christianizing" of his Narnia series has again raised questions about the value of Lewis's apologetics and the merit of his religious fiction. Taking a broad look at Lewis's weaving together of Christianity and culture, Kort (religion, Duke Univ.) offers a refreshing new reading of Lewis's life and work. He argues that evangelical Christianity's appropriation of Lewis is mysterious, because Lewis did not advocate a withdrawal from or an opposition to modern culture, as many evangelicals do. Instead, writes Kort, Lewis knew that Christians will always find themselves situated in a particular culture and define themselves religiously within that culture. With his deep erudition in 16th-century English literature, especially Spenser and Milton, Lewis strove continually to emphasize that Christian doctrines, such as redemption and creation, imbue language and literature, enabling us "to have and discover right relations" between ourselves and our culture and religion. Kort concludes by arguing that, although we cannot recover Lewis completely for our time, he provides a model of Christian engagement with culture that neither despises culture nor diminishes Christianity. Although Kort provides perhaps the most challenging and cogent reading of Lewis now available, the scholarly tone of the writing and its frequent lapses into academic jargon will make it accessible only to a limited audience. (Nov.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.