Apologetics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 2 – Spring 2018
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By George M. Marsden. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. 264 pages. Hardcover, $24.95.
The “Lives of Great Religious Books” series by Princeton University Press novelly offers “biographies” of significant religious works. In C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography, George M. Marsden traces the “life story” of Lewis’s celebrated work from its origination to its reception and continuing influence. “What is it about this collection of informal radio talks,” Marsden asks, “that accounts for their taking on such a thriving life of their own?” (2).
Following a short introduction summarizing Lewis’s own life up through the outbreak of World War II, Marsden’s first chapter describes the circumstances in which Lewis came to deliver his (first) series of talks over BBC airwaves. These “Broadcast Talks,” while momentous, were but one facet of Lewis’s wartime service.
Chapter two focuses on Lewis’s series of talks, the first installment of which he delivered live on August 6, 1941. Due largely to their popularity, Lewis ultimately was secured for three sets of talks—each of which were published in turn between 1941 and 1944. Between these talks and the publication in 1942 of The Screwtape Letters, Marsden explains, Lewis became something of a celebrity both in England and the United States.
Lewis wrote eleven books during World War II, including the collation of all his broadcast talks: Mere Christianity. Predictably, these works, including the broadcast talks, generated wide-ranging responses. Marsden’s third chapter, “Loved or Hated,” surveys some of these responses (including that of George Orwell). In sum, “though widely popular, Lewis remained a highly divisive figure in Great Britain, in part just because of his popularity” (65). In the United States, on the other hand, Lewis found—with certain exceptions—an overwhelmingly positive reception.
The fifth chapter, “Into the Evangelical Orbit,” recounts the discovery by American Evangelicals of Lewis’s writings, especially of Mere Christianity. Thanks to the efforts of Evangelical influencers (e.g., Chad Walsh, Walter Hooper, and Clyde Kilby) and organizations (e.g., Christianity Today and InterVarsity Campus Fellowship), Lewis’s star rose quickly and continues to shine brightly across the Evangelical spectrum. In a similar vein, chapter six surveys Lewis’s influence among well-known Protestant and Catholic figures, establishing that “contrary to his own expectations that his works would soon be forgotten, Lewis is far better known in the twenty-first century than he was at the time of his death in 1963” (137).
Chapter seven briefly reviews some critiques of Mere Christianity, notably that of John Beversluis.
In the eighth and longest chapter, Marsden is at his best. He considers seven reasons for Mere Christianity’s lasting vitality. Whereas much of the first seven chapters’ material will be known to readers familiar with the existing literature on Lewis and his work, in this final chapter Marsden offers an original analysis of Lewis’s work. Here, Marsden perceptively highlights qualities of Lewis’s writings—style, approach, content—as well as of Lewis himself—for example, his sensitivity to human nature and carefulness in balancing reason and imagination—to account for the continuing (perhaps even growing) influence of Lewis.
C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography is a well-written, enjoyable tour through land familiar to Lewis aficionados. Though useful to day-trippers desiring a beginner’s guide to local paths, the seasoned wayfarer in search of untrodden trails shall have to look elsewhere.
