📄The Areopagus Update – Jan/Feb 2025
The Areopagus seminar for the first semester of 2025 is one of my favorite courses in our catalogue: “C. S. Lewis: The Life and Works of a ‘Mere Christian.’” Lewis was an intellectual savant, one of the 20th century’s most gifted and prolific writers, and a wise guide as we navigate our way through life in our contemporary society and culture. A first-rate scholar, Christian apologist, poet, sci-fi writer, and author of children’s fantasy novels, he wrote with charm, wit, profound insight, and occasional eloquence. Disinterested in impressing the cultural literati and the secular academic elite, he wrote for the common man in a conversational and accessible tone without pandering to his audience.
Mere Christianity, Lewis’ informal primer in Christian apologetics, is often regarded as perhaps the most significant and influential Christian book of the 20th century. In the year 2000 Christianity Today magazine voted it the most influential Christian book of the century, and The Screwtape Letters was #2 on the list. More than 50 years after his death, 36 of his books are still in print, and collectively they have sold over 250 million copies. Lewis was one of the great Christian thinkers of the 20th century. Although neither a professional philosopher, a theologian, a Bible scholar, a historian, a psychologist nor a social scientist, he wrote perceptively in all of these areas.
Furthermore –and a rarity among intellectuals – he reconciled and balanced reason and imagination with biblical fidelity. Lewis understood that when taken to extremes, reason often leads to Rationalism while imagination leads to Romanticism (and escapism). As a Christian writing in a post-Christian age, Lewis offered a scathing critique of modernistic secular humanism, scientism, and moral relativism. Like his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis’ writings were self-consciously and often deliberately at variance with 20th-century trends and fads. Paradoxically, because his writings address the most consequential issues of life, they are timeless and always relevant.
Lewis was a “mere Christian” – a “Great Tradition Christian” as he described himself – and as such he appeals to serious believers across theological and denominational lines. Throughout his Christian life, he was convinced that sectarianism is one of Satan’s most effective weapons against Christianity.
As the early Christian scholar Clement of Alexandria taught, every committed Christian should be…
- A Bible scholar;
- A theologian; and
- A philosopher;
In our day and age, conscientious Christians must also aspire to be…
- An apologist who can clearly and effectively explain and defend the rational and factual reasons why we believe the Christian faith to be true;
- A cultural “watchman” in the midst of our increasingly secular, hedonistic, materialistic, and immoral society and culture; and
- A contemplative Christian who develops a deep spiritual relationship with God through a life devoted to the traditional Christian spiritual disciplines.
To the extent that C. S. Lewis incorporated these traits, he serves as an inspiring example for us all.
Join us as we learn about this devout and gifted man who contributed so much to making the Christian faith sensible, credible, and relevant to modern man. Even if you took this seminar years ago, you will find this expanded course on Lewis’ life to be all the more spiritually enriching and relevant.
Also in this issue… Four Relevant and Recommended Books of 2024 by Jefrey Breshears
