Saturday, November 21, 1998

ACU plans birthday bash for C.S. Lewis

By LORETTA FULTON

Senior Staff Writer

100th birthday bash for C.S. Lewis will be held at Abilene Christian University on Monday, and the fact that the celebrated Christian apologist won't be there shouldn't matter at all.

Practically every area of Lewis' writings, from his children's fantasies to his signature Mere Christianity will be touched on during the two-hour bash.

The public is invited to attend the festivities from 8-10 p.m. Monday in the Bean Sprout, which is located in the basement of the McGlothlin Campus Center.

"It's a little out of the ordinary -- you don't usually celebrate the birthdays of people who've been dead so long," said Dr. Darryl Tippens, ACU English professor who helped organize the party.

At least not the birthdays of someone like Lewis, whose long-lived popularity may be hard for some to understand. He wasn't a world leader or a celebrity, but rather a prolific writer with an unmatched intellect and imagination.

"Those of us who love Lewis do so because of the remarkable way he says things and the remarkable things he says," said Dr. Tony Ash, ACU professor of Bible who teaches a class on Lewis.

ACU's party, to be emceed by Ash, will consist of students and faculty reading from Lewis' works, interspersed with biographical information. People in the audience may give brief testimonials about how Lewis' works have affected their lives.

To set the proper atmosphere, Lewis' favorite music will be featured, and the Bean Sprout will take on the feel of a "dry" Eagle and Child, Lewis' favorite pub.

The party at ACU is one of many celebrations and seminars being held worldwide this year in honor of Lewis' birth on Nov. 29, 1898. Lewis died one week shy of his 65th birthday on Nov. 22, 1963, the same day President Kennedy was assassinated.

Most people are familiar with Lewis either through his children's stories such as The Chronicles of Narnia, his famed book on his conversion to Christianity titled Mere Christianity, or a recent movie, Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins.

A critic, scholar, novelist, and professor at Oxford and Cambridge universities, Lewis became a fervent atheist at age 15. He spent his 19th birthday in the fields of France, fighting for his life in World War I.

He was severely wounded and severely affected by the experience of war. He knew deep suffering, depression, defeat and despair. Yet he was "surprised by joy," his own term for his rebirth from atheism to Christianity.

That experience led him to be one of the 20th century's most noted Christian apologists. The fact that he is still being read, voluntarily, by young people today says much about Lewis' works.

Ash has been teaching a course on Lewis at ACU for 12 years and averages 25-40 students in each class.

"He has such a marvelous way of saying things," Ash said.

Indeed, that's why students such as ACU junior Jessica Reese and senior Merrit Tierce still find power in Lewis' words long after their introduction to him as children when their mothers read them The Chronicles of Narnia.

"He was able to write so much truth behind his words," Reese said. "I've been fascinated with him for years."

Reese said Lewis is able to express universal truths through simple stories that are easy to read, and she credits his works for influencing her thinking and beliefs.

"The Chronicles of Narnia baptized by mind long before I got baptized," Reese said.

Tierce, an English major, said Lewis' works have "meat and substance" to them. After hearing the Chronicles read to her by her mother, Tierce put Lewis aside until she was in college.

Lewis' continued popularity is not surprising to Tierce.

"I think it's evidence of the timelessness of the issues he dealt with," she said.

Tierce was particularly taken with Lewis' The Problem With Pain.

"He's helped me understand the problem of reconciling a good God with bad things happening," Tierce said.

The party at ACU on Monday will culminate several months of preparation. During the summer Tippens took a group of students to Oxford and visited Lewis' home, church, college, and gravesite.

The idea occurred to Tippens that since this is the centennial of Lewis' birth, a party was in order.

"All these things were going on everywhere else in the world," so why not ACU, Tippens reasoned.

The hope of the party organizers is that "Anglophiles and Lewisphiles" will turn out to celebrate the life of Lewis, have a good time, and perhaps be challenged to pick up another Lewis book.

"The best thing we think can happen is to turn students on to reading a Lewis book they might not have thought of," Tippens said.

For more information, call Tippens or Ash at ACU, 674-2000.