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C.S. Lewis, nicknamed "Jack," was raised in a family that attended church every Sunday. But the brand of Christianity that Jack experienced in childhood left a bad taste in his mouth for years. Church became synonymous with all things dry and legalistic.
A loss of faith
The death of his mother was Lewis's first religious experience and one that left him deeply disturbed. At the time, he thought of God as a magician who waved his magic wand the moment anyone asked him to do something. As a result, young Jack was mystified as to why God didn't answer his prayers to heal his mother. Although this apparent desertion troubled him, Lewis continued to explore his faith while at boarding school.
However, nothing took root, and by the time Jack finished up at Cherbourg, his faith had withered away. This change was triggered by a teacher at the school who became fascinated with spiritualism and turned Jack's mind onto beliefs far different than Christianity. In addition, as Jack struggled with adolescent issues, he became disillusioned as his prayers seemed unanswered. In response, Jack began to move farther away from Christianity. Over time, he began considering himself an atheist and abandoned faith altogether.
Strong influences toward Christianity
Lewis's first taste of genuine Christianity came when he first read George MacDonald's Phantastes. Lewis loved the book but didn't see its spiritual significance at the time. Looking back after his conversion, Lewis believed that MacDonald's influence on him was profound because MacDonald created in Lewis a desire to focus his imaginative yearnings on pure rather than sordid things.
 | The discovery of Phantastes proved to be the first step in Jack's journey toward Christian faith. The book served "to convert, even baptize . . . my imagination," reflected Lewis. "It did nothing to my intellect nor (at the time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later with the help of many other books and men." |
Despite any "advance work" MacDonald may have done to Lewis's imagination, Jack's logical mind was dead set against Christianity from his high school years until his late 20s. He argued that there was no proof of any religion and believed them all to be myths.
Yet after Lewis began his career at Oxford, a slow transformation took place. In 1926, Lewis began a five-year odyssey that would take him out of his atheism and to a belief in some sort of God, ultimately leading him to a belief in, as Lewis concluded, the "one true Christian God."
Several guiding forces influenced Lewis along this path towards faith, as discussed in the following sections.
Christian heroes, friends, and colleagues
While teaching at Oxford, Jack realized that all his heroes in life were Christians. People like George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Spencer, and John Milton all believed in biblical Christianity. In contrast, the non-Christian people with whom Jack agreed philosophically — such as George Bernard Shaw and Voltaire — he found to have the substance of cotton candy. In addition, Lewis found that the friends to whom he was becoming the closest and most attached to, such as Arthur Greeves, Nevill Coghill, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Hugo Dyson, were Christian.
A sensible worldview, sort of
During this period of religious reflection, Lewis also became aware that the Christian view of the world was logical and reasonable after all. After reading The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton in 1926, Lewis thought that the Christian perspective on history was starting to make sense. However, ever the fighter, he tried to dismiss it by saying, "Christianity was very sensible apart from its Christianity."
Confessions of a fellow atheist
Further nudging him toward conversion, in 1926, Lewis was deeply disturbed by a candid remark made by T.D. Weldon, a tutor in classical studies at Oxford. Weldon was militant in his atheism, but he conceded to Lewis during a conversation that the authenticity of the New Testament accounts of Jesus Christ was amazingly strong. In his autobiography, Lewis tells of Weldon's admission that "It almost looks as if it had really happened once."
If Weldon — this atheist of atheists — wasn't safe from the truth claims of Christianity, then Lewis wondered how he could possibly escape intact.
The first reluctant step
Lewis began to realize that he had a real choice of whether to believe in God or deny him. And, as time went on and he was influenced by those factors outlined in the previous sections, Lewis found it impossible to consciously deny God's existence. In 1929, Lewis finally admitted that God was God. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis calls himself "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
However, Lewis stopped short of believing in Christianity. He believed in the reality of a deity, but went no further. He denied the possibility of any relationship with God. Wrote Lewis, "I didn't call Him God either; I called Him Spirit. One fights for remaining comforts."
Final steps to faith and joy
Lewis's longtime process of embracing the Christian faith was like peeling an onion. The many layers of atheism and unbelief took a while to penetrate, but they gradually started to peel away by the early 1930s. Finally, the last remaining layers were stripped away in September 1931.
Accepting myth as truth
On September 19, 1931, Jack had dinner with friends J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson at Magdalen College, Oxford. Later, while walking the grounds of Magdalen, they discussed myths. Lewis told the others that he loved myths as stories but dismissed them as having any validity. Tolkien disagreed with his friend; he said myths almost always have a grain of truth in them, although the truth is usually skewed and distorted. The difference between Christianity and other myths, said Tolkien, is that Christianity is a particular myth that just happens to be true — God really did come to earth as a man and died so that those who believed in him could receive salvation. As Tolkien spoke, Lewis suddenly felt a strong breeze come over the threesome as they walked along the path, giving him the sensation of a message from God. Ever the rationalist, Jack didn't want to make too big a deal over this event, but the impeccable timing gave him goose bumps.
Lewis, Tolkien, and Dyson talked until early the next morning. After Tolkien went home, Dyson stayed with Lewis, discussing what forgiveness does to the new Christian. After this night of extended conversation, everything began to come together in Jack's head.
Throwing out all doubt
The last step of Lewis's long journey came a few days later. Lewis threw his final doubts and hesitations to the roadside and decided that he believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
| This decision was far more than an intellectual exercise for Lewis; it transformed his whole life. He experienced a new sense of purpose in his job at Oxford. He focused much of his future writing on defending or articulating the Christian faith. He began to understand that his lifelong pursuit for Joy could be fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Finally, Lewis was able to experience the deeper sense of friendship that had eluded him up until that point. |
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