God's Storyteller
The curious life and prodigious influence of C. S. Lewis, the man behind The Chronicles of Narnia
Uneasy faith. But if anyone thinks Lewis's own faith never faced great challenges, the last chapter of his life offers a powerful counterargument. Around the time of the death of Minto in 1951, he met and then later married a Jewish divorcee, Joy Davidman, who had converted to Christianity partly in response to Lewis's writing. Bringing her two children into the Kilns household--the elder brother, David Gresham (who eventually became an orthodox Jew), never warmed to Lewis, but Douglas, who later became executor of his estate (and one of the film's producers), adored him--Joy also brought Lewis the happiest years of his life. And, finally, the hardest. Stricken by a virulent form of cancer, Joy miraculously seemed to make a full recovery. Then, after a period of robust health, she fell back into the grip of the disease, dying an excruciatingly painful death in 1960. In A Grief Observed, Lewis gave vent to his darkest suspicions of a supreme being who "when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture." If Lewis ultimately retained his faith in that God--and held to it until his death on Nov. 22, 1963 (the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated)--he arrived at a more complicated view of religion. He continued to believe that the doctrines of faith were important signposts, but he now insisted, Jacobs writes, that they not be mistaken for "the goal of the Christian life," which was "Something, or rather Someone, that religion can never capture."
Faith was not easy, Lewis taught his fellow Christians. That was why he differed somewhat with the evangelicals' emphasis on justification by faith and the born-again experience. As Jacobs says, Lewis kept asking and answering the same question: "What have you been saved for? For service, ministry, and your own transformation. You have to become something other and greater." That challenge to become something other and greater is the one faced by the four Pevensie children who wander into the wardrobe. And as Lewis knew, it is a challenge faced by children of all faiths, not just by mere Christians.
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