Saturday, April 4, 1998

Remembering C.S. Lewis, defender of the faith

By MAUREEN HAYDEN / Scripps Howard News Service

When Perry Bramlett picked up a tattered copy of C.S. Lewis' book "Mere Christianity" in a used bookstore 30 years ago, he had no idea it would change his life.

At the time, Bramlett was a young Baptist preacher at a church in Birmingham, Ala., just beginning to question whether his work as a pastor was the ministry to which he was called.

Lewis' simple but powerful writings on the transforming nature of Christian faith took Bramlett on a long journey from which he has never returned.

Bramlett left the pulpit after a decade and took on a new ministry as a teacher of Lewis' work. He's since written two books and numerous journal articles and led more than 300 seminars on Lewis, who died 25 years ago, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most read and trusted Christian authors of the century.

Among his works are the classic children's tales found in the "Chronicles of Narnia."

Whenever Bramlett conducts a seminar, he expects to find the same kind of audience he often meets: Christians who have been deeply touched by Lewis' ability to combine his skill as a scholar, novelist and theologian into moving accounts of faith.

"When you read Lewis, you know that he struggled like everybody else does (with faith)," said Bramlett, who now lives in Louisville, Ky. "Yet he had a genuine closeness to God. ... He was proof that you can be intelligent, intellectual and respectable and still have faith; proof you don't have to be a right-wing fundamentalist to be a Christian."

The answer to the question of why Lewis remains so popular is found in his writings, Bramlett said. His simple yet eloquent style, filled with vivid and often humorous metaphors, is timeless and appeals across the denominational divisions of Christianity.

What may also make his work more appealing is the fact that Lewis was a fierce atheist as a young man.

Though raised in the Anglican Church, the Belfast-born Lewis began to lose his faith after the death of his mother from cancer. Lewis was only 10 years old at the time.

Lewis later wrote that he grew up to be "an arrogant prig" with no belief in God. His return to faith was a long journey.

"Lewis told people he literally argued and kicked his way into Christianity," Bramlett said.

He emerged as a celebrity during World War II, when he became famous as a religious broadcaster and dubbed "the apostle to the skeptics."

His wartime radio essays, broadcast in both the United States and Britain, explained and defended the Christian faith. Those broadcasts were eventually collected and published in the United States as the book "Mere Christianity."

Yet Lewis' biggest commercial success came with his sevenvolume "Chronicles of Narnia" for children.

The fantasies began with the 1950 volume, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," a tale about Aslan the lion, a Christ figure who creates and rules the supernatural land of Narnia and presides over the amazing adventures of four British schoolchildren.

The book, though, has caused some controversy. Some conservative Christians, decrying Lewis' use of magic, have lobbied for the book to be banned in school systems.

But it was the Narnia tales and Lewis' other works that captured the imagination of American Joy Gresham.

A poet, novelist and screenwriter, Ms. Gresham began writing to Lewis about her own conversion from atheism to Christianity. The two eventually met and married. Their story is the basis for the award-winning stage play and movie "Shadowlands."

It was her death at an early age from cancer that challenged Lewis' faith once again. Bramlett said Lewis had to fall back on his own theological writings about the purpose of pain and his belief in the afterlife to survive the tragedy.

"People love Lewis because he was able to write about a Christianity that every Christian believes and understands," Bramlett said. "He never was pompous in his work about faith. He understood the struggles of the common man."

(Note: Perry Bramlett has published two books and several journal articles about Lewis. His latest work appears in the 640page "C.S. Lewis Reader's Encyclopedia," scheduled to be released by Zonderman Publishing in July. Bramlett is among 52 authors who have contributed to the book.)

(Maureen Hayden is a reporter at The Courier in Evansville, Ind.)