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Christianity Today, July, 2008 |

Found in Space

How C. S. Lewis has shaped my faith and writing.

Philip Yancey | posted 7/22/2008 08:41AM

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I doubt Lewis ever anticipated that almost half a century after his death several million people each year would buy one of his dozens of books still in print, and that Disney Studios would release movies based on Narnia with spinoff products available in every shopping mall. If informed of that fact, he would likely have shrunk back in alarm.

We writers are not nouns, he used to say. We are mere adjectives, pointing to the great Noun of truth. Lewis did that, faithfully and masterfully, and because he did so, many thousands have come to know and love that Noun.

Including me.

Adapted from Mere Christians: Inspirational Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis, forthcoming from Baker Publishing.

Related Elsewhere:

Yancey's previous columns are available on our site.

More articles on C.S. Lewis, including our 2001 cover story, are collected in our full-coverage section.

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July 2008, Vol. 52, No. 7

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Amy	Posted: July 30, 2008 9:20 AM

I read the Narina books in middle school and loved them. Then, I read "The Screwtape Letters" in high school. Wow! What an impact that little book had, and continues to have, on me. Lewis is one of my favorite authors, simply because he sees deep into the human heart. His insight in Screwtape is as intensely uncomfortable as it is hilarious. Thanks, Phillip, for your testimony and good words for Jack.

Rumala Morel

Posted: July 30, 2008 1:00 AM

C.S Lewis is someone who helps all of us in every generation & culture know God better! I think all Chrisitians who have a college education should read Lewis to be better able to defend their faith. He was introduced to me by the Fellowship of Christian University Students [FOCUS] in Sri Lanka & he is the author who most influenced my faith. Buddhism attacks the 'Problem of Pain' by attempting to escape it...in to Nirvana. Lewis first made me realise that pain is protective as in leprosy [where people injure themselves because they don't feel pain] and warns us of a world gone wrong. Thank you for recommending that 'the problem of pain' & 'A grief observed' should be read together. I will recommend both books hereafter to so many who question 'How can a loving & all powerful God allow pain?'

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: July 29, 2008 11:58 PM


It is a sad commentary on contemporary Christianity to see it tolerating anyone-but who comes preaching a different savior, a different spirit and a different gospel from the ones taught and offered today by Jesus Christ, personally, with "all the authority in heaven and on earth" but without the help of any so-called "adjectives" be it Lewis or Yancey!

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