Dear Jack...

I’ve been reading a great book called Finding God in the Land of Narnia, and I’ve really enjoyed learning more about C.S. Lewis as I’ve been reading it. I had sort of assumed that Lewis was raised in a Christian home and had been a dedicated Christian all his life ~ seeing as how he’s known as one of the most influential theologians of our time. Well, I was wrong. He was raised in a church-going family, but he became an atheist when he was 15. (side note: I thought it was kind of funny how later, he described his young self as being paradoxically “very angry with God for not existing.”)

His biography on Wikipedia explains his time as an atheist:

“His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:

Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam

Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa

"Had God designed the world, it would not be

A world so frail and faulty as we see."

Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:

...I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.”

"Lewis slowly re-embraced Christianity, influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."  He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson."

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[A statue of Digory Kirke from The Magician's Nephew) in front of the wardrobe of his book 

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in East Belfast, Northern Ireland]

As for the Christian message in the Narnia books, the introduction to the book I’m currently reading notes what Lewis himself thought about that:

“Lewis himself debunked the idea that his tales are mere Christian allegory, explaining that the Christian truths pushed their way into the story on their own. His theology was part of him, so it became part of what he created—like air bubbling to the water’s surface:

‘Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out ‘allegories’ to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. It was part of the bubbling.’”

It is also explained that the Narnia series isn’t an allegory at all... “Rather they grow out of a central supposition. Suppose there existed another world peopled by animals rather than human beings. Suppose that world fell, like ours, and had in it some equivalent of Christ. Aslan entered Narnia in the form of a lion just as Jesus came into this world in the form of a man. Based upon this supposition, Lewis created a fantasy world that depicts the central theme of our real world—redemption through the incarnate God’s death and resurrection. The magical part is that this mythical Christ somehow draws us ever deeper to the Real.

There is no doubt that C.S. Lewis hoped his Narnia tales would draw readers toward a deeper love of Jesus. In fact, none other than Aslan himself tells us so. At the conclusion of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy and Edmund encountered a lamb inviting the children to share breakfast. Hoping to see the great Lion, Lucy asked the Lamb whether they were on the path to Aslan’s country. “Not for you,” replied the Lamb. “For you the door into Aslan’s country is from your own world.” Edmund expressed shock, surprised to hear that there might be a way into Aslan’s country from his own world. So he asked the Lamb if such a way existed, thrilled by the possibility yet cautious—worried that he might have misunderstood.
Suddenly, the gentle lamb transfigured into the great Lion. “There is a way into my country from all the worlds.”
It was Aslan himself. The joyous embrace of reunion quickly dissolved into sad realization that it was time for Lucy and Edmund to leave Narnia and go home. Eager to know when they might get to come back, hoping it would be very soon, Lucy learned that she would never return. She was too old and must begin to draw close to her own world. And while she would miss Narnia, her real sorrow was the thought of never meeting Aslan again.
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” he reassured. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

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I also loved reading a couple of these stories about letters written to Lewis, and his replies to them:

Letter 1:

“In June of 1953, an eleven-year-old girl named Hila an awakening while reading the Narnia stories—an experience she later described as “an indefinable stirring and longing.” She wrote to C.S. Lewis, inquiring about this ‘other name’ Aslan suggested. She, like Edmund, wanted to know the way into Aslan’s country from our world. Lewis replied:

“As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again... Don’t you really know His name in this world?””

 Letter 2: 

“In May of 1955, the mother of a nine-year-old boy named Laurence wrote to C.S. Lewis, explaining that Laurence was concerned that he loved Aslan more than Jesus. To her delighted surprise, she received a reply ten days later that included the following:

“Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.””

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And, last but not least, my favourite quote from C.S. Lewis about prayer:


"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me."