"The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is--not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding- -the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be."
Founded 21 January, 2005 - To bring together people in the local area who share for Clive Staples Lewis a special admiration and an active interest.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
George MacDonald on Poetic Knowledge
"The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is--not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding- -the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be."
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Was Lewis Reformed?

The next to last chapter in Newsom's book, which will be part of our discussion in January, refers to an article by the Presbyterian Douglas Wilson entitled "Was C. S. Lewis Reformed?" The issue at hand is what he thought of predestination (beware - lots of people have different ideas of what is meant by that word). If you are interested in what one Christian writer has to say about Lewis' belief on this subject, you may read the article here . Afterwards, you may wish to browse the other articles in that issue.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Order your book NOW for the January discussion
NarniaWeb has a podcast
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Michael Ward to visit 11 April, '08
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Lewis Talk Newscast, 15 Dec.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Kindlings on Lewis' Letters
Monday, December 10, 2007
More on Michael Ward & His Narnia Book

Image: http://filer.case.edu/~sjr16/advanced/jupiter.html
Michael Ward Article About Narnia On-line
If you are a Narnia fan, you will love reading this article! Michael Ward, of Peterhouse, Cambridge, was working on his doctoral dissertation about C. S. Lewis when he made a fascinating discovery: the Narnian chronicles are structured according to the Medieval view of the universe. He had to re-write his dissertation! However, he was glad to do so because this is such a fascinating topic. Oxford Press is going to release his work in a book next year. Touchstone magazine has an article on Michael's work in the current issue and, lo and behold, it is available on-line. Go here for the Touchstone article, "Narnia's Secret". Go here for a description of his book at Oxford Publishing.
Image: From: Peter Apian, Cosmographia (1539). Reprinted in Alexandre Koyre, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore; Johns Jopkins, 1957). http://www.oglethorpe.edu/faculty/~m_rulison/CosmoGen/CosmoLect/lecture4.htm
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Prince Caspian Trailer!

Monday, December 3, 2007
Lewis and Evolution

We have had several occasions to discuss Lewis and his ideas about Darwinian theory at our meetings. I just found this article on the www.asa3.org site, published 1996, which I found helpful. The article concludes:
It is doubtful that Lewis would have felt comfortable espousing the views of present-day creationists. He always carefully indicated that he opposed evolutionism as a philosophy, not evolution as a biological theory. At the same time his correspondence with Bernard Acworth suggests that he had come in his later years to entertain more doubts about the claims made for organic evolution than his published works indicate.
As for the first line, I think it may need qualification in the year 2007.
Image: pensament.com
Sunday, November 25, 2007
December Meeting - 14 December
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
January '08 Meeting News

The meeting will be the third Friday of January, the 18th. As for future meetings, we would like to meet at Rock Point for the first quarter of the year, but we may have to move away from third-Fridays, especially since the third Friday of March, 2008, will be Good Friday. We'll post more information here later.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Rosen WSJ Article
Your Thoughts on Miracles

Image: The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
2008 UTC Lecture
RTS Lectures on Mere Christianity
Last night, I discovered that various lectures from Reformed Theological Seminary have been added to "iTunes U" (in the iTunes program) in the form of podcasts. If any of you were not aware of this, I wanted to bring it to your attention. This is an amazing source of lectures on theology, Christian Apologetics, church history, contemporary culture, etc. I highly recommend subscribing to these podcasts. Furthermore, I found lectures on C.S. Lewis here as well. I felt that this might be appropriate to mention since we are reading "Mere Christianity." Currently there are 26 lectures posted as part of this podcast with topics on Lewis' biography, theology, and views on various issues. I am going to provide direct links to these podcasts at the end of my message. You will need to have iTunes installed on your computer to subscribe and listen to these podcasts....
To go directly to the RTS lectures on C.S. Lewis, click this link:
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/rts.edu.1171640252.01171640257
To go to the directory of all the RTS Podcasts, click this link:
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/rts.edu
NOTE: If you go to this latter link, the Lewis lectures are listed under "Practical Theology."
November, 2007, E-mail Post
News on this Friday’s meeting
Lyle Dorsett lectures CD
Meeting this Friday
We will have our final discussion of Lewis’ book Miracles, this Friday, 7:00-9:00 P.M. at the Vicarage. Do let us know if you plan to attend. The discussion will be on the chapters 15-17 and the Appendices.
Dorsett on CD
The C. S. Lewis Institute has a series of lectures by Lyle Dorsett similar in content to those he gave at our conference last year. The topics are:
“Lewis in the School of Prayer"
“Study and Application of Scripture”
"Anglican Spirituality and the Church”
"Reluctant Spiritual Guide”
You may find them here for purchase on CD:
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/store/display.conference.php?cat=19
Our October, 2007, E-mail List Post
• Meeting this month & chapter 14
• J. I. Packer on Lewis and Rowling
Meeting
Our October meeting is this Friday, the 19th, 7:00-9:00 p.m. at the Vicarage in St. Elmo. We will be discussing chapters 11-14 of Miracles. As usual, if you’ve not been keeping up, don’t let that hinder you from coming. Let me know you are coming, if you please.
Having already provided you, via e-mail, with summaries of 11-13, I think we will be able to simply talk about what interests us in those chapters. Chapter 14 is easier going, but it is a long chapter. I’ll have an outline of it for us on Friday, but I will not take a lot of time summarizing it.
As you read chapter 14, remember that the object of the chapter is to ask whether or not the miracle of the incarnation is something that our sense of “fitness” can accept; does it make sense as a part of our world? If so, how and why? If it does make sense, if it seems to have a place, then we are able to consider it “probable” and free to look at history to see whether it really happened or not.
There are some powerful passages here! I look forward to our talking about them.
Packer
If you will go here: www.regentaudio.com you will find a link where you can download (for $5 Canadian) a half-hour talk by Dr. J. I. Packer on Lewis and Narnia. It is before an informal group and it is mostly about Lewis’ life and the Narnia books. Packer makes a fun personal observation about Lewis, having heard him while studying at Oxford. During a question and answer section, Packer gives his opinion of the Harry Potter series. It is positive. He compares it to the British schoolboy genre of stories, started by Thomas Hughes with his Tom Brown’s Schooldays in the 1800’s. He has a very good answer for those Americans (and it seems to be just Americans) who think the Potter books encourage the practice of witchcraft.
If you are not familiar with Dr. Packer, go here:
www.jipackeronline.com/
We look forward to seeing you Friday evening.
Our September 2007 E-mail List Post
Dear Friends of C. S. Lewis:
Yes! It’s already here! Our next meeting of the C. S. Lewis Society of Chattanooga – this Friday, 7:00-9:00 p.m. at the Vicarage. We will continue our discussion of the book Miracles. Last time, we just got through chapter 3, so we are a little behind. We’ll see if we can get through chapters 4 to 10. As usual, if you aren’t able to get the reading done ahead of time, come anyway; there’s always lots to discuss and learn.
If you are coming, let me know, and if you want to bring something to munch on, let me know that as well so we can plan.
Neuhaus Aricle
In 1998, Richard John Neuhaus wrote an article which touches our discussion of Miracles. It was entitled “C. S. Lewis in the
Neuhaus’ conclusion is that Lewis would probably go on doing what he did anyway, with needful adjustments. Neuhaus says this because he recognises that the approach Lewis took in the past is still needed, in spite of its obstacles, and that Lewis would realise the same. Lewis would still argue with people about what they find as true in daily life. He would continue to speak to individuals as one human to another, trying to help them recognise what is true and real in the world in which they live; he would still appeal to common human experience. Also, Lewis would continue to tell stories; stories which reveal the truth in our universe. Though the stories of our world are being emptied, theoretically, of their worth, nevertheless the realities of our world are still there and stories still do their job in communicating them to people. People are still people.
Neuhaus also adds his own opinion of the great necessity of the witness of the Church to continue in life and liturgy (meaning, those liturgies that, in their drama, tell the story of Creation and Redemption, such as are found in the Orthodox, the Roman, and the
You may want to keep a dictionary beside you as you read his article, but it is worth it. As for how it affects our study, we must recognise that the arguments Lewis makes in Miracles seem convincing enough to ourselves, who have a more absolutist and supernatural understanding of our world, but they may not be convincing to others. As a result, we must be creative in how we communicate the same things we learn in Miracles to the people around us.