{"id":10838,"date":"2014-10-21T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T04:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=10838"},"modified":"2014-10-20T15:24:42","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T19:24:42","slug":"c-s-lewis-public-intellectual-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2014\/10\/c-s-lewis-public-intellectual-2\/","title":{"rendered":"C.S. Lewis, Public Intellectual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This week\u2019s post is a review I wrote of Alister McGrath\u2019s\u00a0C.S. Lewis: A Life<\/em>, from the Anxious Bench archives:<\/p>\n

Alister McGrath\u2019s\u00a0C.S. Lewis: A Life\u00a0<\/em>comes with\u00a0endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and perhaps most weightily given the topic, from my Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs, who calls it \u201ca meticulously researched, insightful, fair-minded, and honest account of a fascinating man\u2019s life.\u201d As I have\u00a0written earlier<\/a>, I admire Jacobs\u2019 own Lewis biography,\u00a0The Narnian<\/em>,\u00a0and his assessment of McGrath\u2019s book is apt. \u00a0McGrath\u2019s book is a judicious and accessible treatment of Lewis\u2019s remarkable but controversial career. While Jacobs\u2019 might\u00a0be the better, more penetrating\u00a0book for those who already know Lewis\u2019s writings well, McGrath is\u00a0a better first choice\u00a0as an introduction to Lewis in general, especially for\u00a0those who (like me) first met Lewis through Narnia, and have only sampled parts of his other writings.<\/p>\n

For our knowledge about Lewis\u2019s life, there is one major new\u00a0revelation here, which is McGrath\u2019s re-dating of Lewis\u2019s conversion to theism to 1930 instead of 1929.\u00a0By a systematic reading of Lewis\u2019s correspondence in chronological order, McGrath is also able to see Lewis\u2019s intellectual and spiritual progression much as the man himself experienced it, including the details of his conversion (although I am sure some will not accept McGrath\u2019s new timeline of it).<\/p>\n

McGrath clearly likes Lewis, but he is not shy about criticizing him, especially for his two most significant romantic relationships, one with Jane Moore, the other with Joy Davidman (McGrath approvingly quotes Jacobs in saying that in financially supporting Davidman and entering civil marriage with her, he had become \u201can American divorcee\u2019s sugar daddy.\u201d) This is not fawning hagiography, but an honest, charitable assessment of a great but flawed man.\"\"<\/p>\n

The aspect of the book that I found most fascinating is Lewis\u2019s handling of fame and his role as a public intellectual. Until World War II, Lewis was a little-known Oxford scholar, butThe Screwtape Letters<\/em>\u00a0and his wartime talks on the BBC launched him into \u201cinternational fame for which he was ill prepared.\u201d Some of this lack of\u00a0preparedness\u00a0was due to Lewis\u2019s naivete about accountants, agents, and taxes.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0he was also ill-prepared to\u00a0manage the academic resentment toward\u00a0him for\u00a0writing \u201cpopular\u201d books,\u00a0and\u00a0for selling a lot of\u00a0them. This is a longer story in academia, one that persists through present day. Sometimes there are reasons for real concern when academics become well-known authors, such as when the temptations of\u00a0grinding out more best-sellers can lead to accusations of writing pabulum (or worse, plagiarism).<\/p>\n

But Lewis\u2019s Oxford colleagues seem to have\u00a0indulged a more straightforward jealousy for his role as a\u00a0bestselling author. Even though he still produced occasional academic books \u2013 some of considerable weight \u2013 his fame led to rancor on the faculty, who passed him over several times for named chairs at Oxford. By 1954, Lewis wrote of a crisis on the Oxford English faculty which tempted him \u201cto hatred many times a day.\u201d Ultimately the tension led to his departure for the friendlier climes of Cambridge.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0prolific<\/a>\u00a0and well-known Christian apologist McGrath can obviously identify with the tensions felt by Lewis and other public intellectuals. Popular academic writers will and should come under special scrutiny \u2013 they must abide by the same scholarly standards that got them into an academic position, while writing in such a way that the general reading public can appreciate their work. But especially\u00a0among Christian scholars, we certainly need\u00a0those who are\u00a0willing to bridge the gap. Unlike many of Lewis\u2019s Oxford colleagues, we should give those who attempt to reach a broader audience the benefit of the doubt.\u00a0Reliable\u00a0public intellectuals\u00a0are essential for cultivating the Christian life of the mind, a task at which Lewis labored heroically.<\/p>\n

Friends, you can\u00a0sign up here<\/a>\u00a0for my Thomas S. Kidd author<\/em>\u00a0newsletter.\u00a0Each newsletter will update you\u00a0on what\u2019s happening in the world of American, a religious and political history, and current events. It will contain unique material available only to subscribers, and each will help you keep up with my blog posts, books, and other writings from around the web. [Your e-mail information will never be<\/em>\u00a0shared.] Thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s post is a review I wrote of Alister McGrath\u2019s\u00a0C.S. Lewis: A Life, from the Anxious Bench archives: Alister McGrath\u2019s\u00a0C.S. Lewis: A Life\u00a0comes with\u00a0endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and perhaps most weightily given the topic, from my Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs, who calls it \u201ca meticulously researched, insightful, fair-minded, and honest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,5],"tags":[1947,470,2800],"class_list":["post-10838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-thomas-kidd","tag-alister-mcgrath","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-thomas-kidd"],"yoast_head":"\nC.S. 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