If I Had Lunch With C.S. Lewis: Exploring the Ideas of C.S. Lewis on the Meaning of Life
By Alister McGrath
(Carol Stream, IL, Tyndale House Publishers, 2014, $17.99hb)
Reviewed by Darold Morgan
A major interpreter of C.S. Lewis, Alister McGrath, has given us in this brief book a remarkable approach to Lewis’ major ideas about the Christian life. This volume makes for interesting reading. Its format is unique and of genuine value in the current realm of apologetics, especially regarding a rational defense of Christian truth in an age of dominant secularism. McGrath, well-known for his recent biography of Lewis as a world class theologian, has given us intelligent and live ammunition in the intriguing conflict with current atheism. In fact, Lewis’ famous move from atheism to theism is one theme the author pursues with verve and wisdom, resulting in explicating ideas of relevance for students today.
McGrath also elaborates helpfully on Lewis’ use of imagination, not only in his writings, but as a creative way to understand theol
ogy which is sometimes difficult for some readers to grasp. He makes this rather nebulous concept of imaginative ideas understandable in some of Lewis’ books. What a way to approach Lewis’s Narnia novels, books which amaze us all in their increasing popularity among children. When one adds up the sheer genius of Lewis, plus the influence of friends in Oxford, the raw suffering emerging from his wife’s lost battle with cancer, the war years compassing both conflagrations in Britain, one concludes that these events have colored these writings which have helped multitudes to a stronger and more balanced faith in God.
Using this imaginative approach of “Lunch with Lewis,” McGrath brings Lewis out the past with the rush of events of our day. The probing and insistent questions about faith, hope, heaven, suffering, and science permeate the book. This technique is arresting, informative, and genuinely helpful today as so many make technology the source of answers to large questions. One’s own Christian experience finds both a strong intellectual surge combined with the essentials of faith and commitment emerging from these pages.
Whether or not one is a Lewis d’evotee, here is an engaging, distinctly original book that will leave the reader exceptionally glad to have read and digested it. .
