CS Lewis - Biography

CHL62 - Church History II

Research Essay: Importance of C.S. Lewis to the modern Christian faith

Teacher: Mr. Doug Sharp

Student ID# 8410028

Due Date: October 13, 2008

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Over the centuries there have been many people that provided a major influence to the modern Christian church such as John Wesley, William Booth, Hannah More and Mother Theresa. However one Christian that stands out to me is C.S Lewis who was known for his literature discussing moral and religious ideas. Among his works, the three most well known are The Chronicles of Narnia, Perelandra and Mere Christianity.

C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on 29th November 1895. He was the second son of solicitor Albert and Flora Hamilton Lewis. When Clive was ten his mother fell ill with cancer and died. Barely a month after her death he and his brother, Warren, were sent to boarding school in England.

Oxford

C S LEWIS IN THE EAGLE & CHILD - OXFORD

English: Map of Narnian world as described in The ...

Lewis hated the school and was glad when, just two years later, the school closed and he was able to return to Ireland. Clive was brought up in a church-going family of the church of Ireland. When he was a teenager, at the age of 15, he declared himself an atheist, being "very angry with God for not existing".

In 1916, at the age of 18, C.S Lewis won a scholarship to Oxford University but unfortunately his education at Oxford was interrupted by enlistment in the British army during World War 1. After graduation at age 27, he went on to teach at Oxford for the next 29 years. While there he met and befriended John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the famous author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The two became leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known...