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Ep. 50 / C.S. Lewis, Logic and a Lasting Faith ► Mark Noll

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 50

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What makes a mid-century Oxford don the go-to guide for people wrestling with faith, doubt, and meaning today? In this episode we welcome back esteemed historian Dr. Mark Noll as he helps us explore how C.S. Lewis became a trusted voice in American life, why his work crosses denominational lines, and how his unique blend of logic and imagination keeps winning new readers.

We start with the story: a brilliant student who lost his faith, survived the trenches of World War I, and slowly returned to Christianity through moral reasoning and wonder. Dr. Noll walks us through Clive Staples' early scholarship, his wartime talks to RAF airmen, and the BBC broadcasts that taught him clarity and brevity. Then the pivot: The Screwtape Letters explodes in the U.S., Macmillan Publishers rolls out more titles, and soon Mere Christianity and the Chronicles of Narnia anchor a new kind of public faith—thoughtful, accessible, and deeply human.

Along the way, we unpack why Lewis resonated first with Roman Catholic academics, why evangelicals embraced him later, and how Mere Christianity let him speak across traditions without flattening convictions. We also look at the space trilogy’s moral universe, the stark honesty of A Grief Observed, and the enduring pull of Aslan’s world. Mark argues that Lewis’ refusal to chase headlines is exactly why he feels current: he wrote about conscience, choice, and meaning, not the news cycle. That timelessness, paired with luminous storytelling, makes his books surprisingly portable across languages and cultures.

If you’re new to Lewis, we offer clear starting points based on temperament—reasons, wonder, or lament—and explain how each path reveals the same center: reality is morally textured and grace interrupts. If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll appreciate fresh context on his American reception and why his scholarship still matters. 

If you'd like to learn more from Dr. Mark Noll you can purchase his book, C.S. Lewis in America: Readings and Reception, and read his work through publishing partners. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. Who would have guessed that an English professor in the nineteen forties in Oxford and Cambridge would become not only widely read but widely trusted in the pursuit of faith in a secular age? C.S. Lewis was one of a kind. Today in this age of spiritual quests and denial, his name comes up again and again. My friend historian Mark Noll has written about this very matter also asking why an American audience would gravitate to his decades old literature. Just for your information, Mark Noll, a preeminent historian of the Church in North America, is an historian who has been so helpful to me over the years to understand the world of faith I occupy, where it came from, and how I can see it better today. And in this book, C. S. Lewis in America he not only opens us to who in America took him in, but why C. S. Lewis has been critical to many of us in our literary and faith journeys. His writings of logic and mystery bridge those two worlds like no one I've read. That's why Mark today will help us think about his value to our lives, and it may stir up your mind to read him again or for the very first time. And thanks to you for being a part of this podcast. As you listen, would you consider sharing this episode with a friend? And if you haven't, please hit the subscribe button by joining the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Now to my guest, historian Mark Noll. Mark Noll, thanks for joining us again on Evangelical 360.

Mark Noll:

It's my privilege, Brian. I've uh enjoyed listening to some of the podcasts, and even I don't do podcasts, but some of yours have been grabbers.

Brian Stiller:

Well, uh I'm a I'm a kind of a novice historian. I did my undergraduate in history, and I've read, I think, most of your books, but I was fascinated by this book, C.S. Lewis in America, uh, which came out not long ago. And I'm both fascinated in C.S. Lewis as a writer, but I'm also interested in how those people, their lives, their writings, their ideas roll down from generation to generation. And so when I read this book, I thought, Mark, here's my way of bringing together one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite historians, so we can have a chat about what's going on in the world today and how the past is impacting today, and uh and uh asking you to kind of put your prophet's hat on, uh, which is the antithesis to being a historian, and we think about the future. So uh, Mark, thanks for joining us and C. S. Lewis in America today. Maybe for some who are that familiar with C.S. Lewis, maybe you could give us a thumbnail sketch on who he is and what he wrote and uh his impact.

Mark Noll:

The book actually covers America and attention to C. S. Lewis in his early days, so up until 1947 when he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. But what people were discovering then is the same thing that people are continuing to discover today about C. S. Lewis. So he's born in Northern Ireland in Belfast, 1898. He is a uh precocious young man in his learning and in his sensitivity to the world. So his mother dies when he's young, maybe nine or ten years old. He's shipped off to boarding schools by his father. It's clear that he's very, very bright. He's clear that he's sensitive to morality. He loses his faith in boarding school, partly because he had prayed that his mother, who was suffering from cancer, would be healed, and she wasn't. His father sends him to study privately with a schoolmaster in England, whom the father had had as a regular schoolmaster. Kirkpatrick was his name, and Lewis did study privately 1914 to 1917, in in order to prepare to be prepared to go to the University of Oxford at Cambridge. He's admitted to Oxford after World War I has begun, in part because admission standards are lower. And that's actually a curiosity when we think about the brilliance of C.S. Lewis, that he was admitted to Oxford only because they needed students. His math was terrible, everything else was wonderful. He volunteers for the British military. He serves on the Western Front in the front in France. He's wounded. He comes back to Britain. He's in convalescence for a while. Then after the war, he returns to his studies and he has a brilliant career as an undergraduate at Oxford. He does a, what we would say in the U.S. is a triple major, uh, the Greek and Roman classics, philosophy, and English. He then obtains a teaching position at Oxford, and he's there for uh the next 30 years until he as a mature uh scholar in the mid-50s, he secures a position at Cambridge University. The really interesting thing about uh C.S. Lewis is his sensitivity to morality, his sensitivity to uh the life of the mind and the way those develop. He wrote an autobiography and published in the 1950s, mid-1950s, called Surprised by Joy, in which he traces the course of his early life as one who, as a very, very bright person, turns away from the Christianity of his inheritance and then gradually is brought back. Philosophical reasoning, moral reasoning pushes him toward accepting God, theism. And then by the early 1930s, he he actually calls himself the most reluctant convert in Christendom when he acknowledges Christ and returns to the Christian faith. What sets Lewis apart, and this was very obvious in the uh early period that I was looking at, but it continues to be obvious today, is his desire to communicate broadly on Christian topics, but also his desire to be a first-order, reputable scholar of English literature. So in the 1930s, he publishes a very, actually, it's difficult to read now, but a very complicated counterpart to the Pilgrim's Progress called the Pilgrim's Regress. It's an allegory about how his intellectual journey led him through all sorts of contemporary modern ways of thinking until he returned to Christian faith. The Pilgrim's Regress is published in 1935 or so. It's read in America with some appreciation, but there's no particular uh uh population and no particular audience for this. Then for the next five or six years, he mostly publishes uh works of literary criticism. There's a there is eventually a very important book on Milton's Paradise Lost. He publishes a series of essays on medieval literature, uh, The Allegory of Love, in which he says the high renaissance in Britain is really important for bringing together courtly love and married love, which is actually an interesting uh development early on. But still, he's not much known in America. There is a uh a number of professional journals that review these books, and then Lewis has something of a name. The really important development for Lewis' later career place outside of the classroom and outside of his life as an author, when he's asked at the start of World War II to bring lectures to servicemen, usually the RAF, on Christian topics. What that urged him to do is to think about how to communicate important Christian truths in a way that would be presentable to a broader public. And as he went on, he he got much better at being concise, which of course is not an academic uh uh specialty, much better at being concise, much better at bringing together clear conceptual presentation with forceful imaginative writing. He's asked in these early days if he would bring uh radio broadcasts on the BBC, introducing Christian faith, and he did so in the manner that he had learned how to talk to the troops. And so we have a series of radio broadcasts that are done in the roughly 1940, 1941, and then those broadcasts have begun to be published in booklets, but there's no real resonance in America yet. And there's no great popularity of C.S. Lewis even in Britain, although people know who he is, until in 1942, Lewis has published in Britain the Screw Tape Letters, an imaginary dialogue between a senior devil and a junior devil who has the responsibility for one individual in wartime London. These uh screw tape letters are published uh serially in in Britain and then brought out in the book in uh February of 1942. It's republished in America in 1943 in February, and there's an immediate enthusiasm for this writer. Most of the enthusiasm is just the wonderful device of presenting the Christian faith always backwards. The senior devil is always counseling the junior devil about how to work against the Christian influences that's coming to the subject. It really is just staggeringly innovative, funny, clear, but also poignant and helpful. What was intriguing to me in looking at the American responses to the C.S. Lewis is Maine American publications, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, that were enthusiastic about the the uh screw taped letters. Mainline Protestants in the U.S. were pretty enthusiastic. Evangelical Protestants were not. And maybe, Brian, we we should find out later why it was that the tremendous enthusiasm for C.S. Lewis in evangelical circles comes later rather than earlier. The people who fastened on to Lewis first happened to be learned academic Roman Catholics who had known something about his earlier literary work and could combine their analysis of that literary work with now the popularity of the screw tape letters. Macmillan was Lewis's publisher. They saw the enthusiasm for the screw taped letters and they immediately rolled out several other works, including some of the uh the broadcast uh diet. I'll look at my uh list just to be sure I can get the order right. But then uh they also brought out uh the first of Lewis's uh space novels, so science fiction. He had been a great uh enthusiast for science fiction, but did but realized that there wasn't really often a lot of moral content. So he had published earlier out of a book called Out of the Silent Planet, which uh it is a fictional journey of someone from Earth to Mars, where he finds out that the problems of Earth, warfare, strife, contention are not present. Why? Because the Earth has become a silent planet in the control of an evil spirit, whereas Mars was a planet that was still dominated by the one true God. Of course, they don't use the word one true God. Macmillan rushes that book into print. Macmillan rushes the first of the radio broadcasts into print, and C.S. Lewis's popularity goes on from there. The I ended in 1947 when Lewis is a really popular person, but the great worldwide popularity comes just a little bit later. The first of Lewis's stories for children, the Narnia Tales, is published in 1950. The book Mere Christianity that pulls together the booklets that had come from the radio broadcast appear only in 1952. So you have a period that I was looking at in particular, where there's a kind of scattered appreciation for C. S. Lewis, academic, Christian apologist, fiction writer. But by the time we get to the 1950s and 1960s, including now, a lot of enthusiasm by evangelical Protestants as well as other Christians, C. S. Lewis becomes the figure that he is. And Brian, just before speaking to you today, I checked Amazon for best-selling books. Mere Christianity is the number one book today in Christian apologetics. It's number 38 in all of books. So you look at Amazon, what are the most purchased books right now, and right there is Mere Christianity. Uh it's it's number one in books of essays. And books of essays of the top ten of Amazon, three of them are CSOs. So in an age where there's just tremendous concentration and focus on what's done now, with immediate desire to have an instant analysis of things that are happening in the present, you have the appearance of these books. Now, they're not ancient, but from the 40s and the 50s, that are still selling, still attracting readers, and still making a difference. That's a very abbreviated history of a very influential writing career, but it points to the fact that this person who is rooted in his own times, before World War I, during World War I, before World War II, during World War II, with literature not exactly addressing the times specifically, but coming out of those contexts, is literature that continues to have an appeal to this day.

Brian Stiller:

Mark, you're uh without doubt the foremost historian of Christianity in North America. So why would C.S. Lewis attract your attention to spend your time in research and writing? What was there as an historian looking at the significance of various movements and ideas on our North American world? Why would C.S. Lewis be such an important person for you to take hold of?

Mark Noll:

Yes, that's an interesting question. And it brings into the picture how Lewis, writing primarily for his British context, was a person who doesn't really fit any of the main religious and even uh uh intellectual categories in the United States. So uh in the book I point out how Lewis is uh uh celebrated first by Roman Catholics. Well, Lewis is not a Roman Catholic, he's an Anglican. I I point out how uh Lewis is uh by and large given very positive press by academics. And it's known that he's a Christian believer, and although the literary uh study in the US 30s, 40s, and 50s was not as um secular it has become, still a literary scholar with Christian foundations was a little bit odd. And then uh amongst Protestants, C. S. Lewis is uh looked upon with some suspicion by evangelicals. He doesn't have the evangelical sense and emphasis upon an inerrant Bible. He clearly knows and honors and uses the scriptures, but not he's not worried about biblical inerrancy. His lifestyle is British, ordinary Christian. There was a story about uh the famous American fundamentalist leader Bob Jones visiting C. S. Lewis in the 1950s, and he comes back to America. And of course, he's he's speaking to an audience of fundamentalists who are concerned about Christian faith, but also about a particular way of living. And apparently Bob Jones said something like, Well, that man smokes and that man drinks, but I do believe he is a Christian. There is this sense that Lewis has not no natural constituency in America. But he writes so clearly and he writes so well, and here is a very important point, his apologetics for Christianity is what the famous book from 1952 called Mere Christianity. He's not presenting something that's only evangelical Protestant, he's not presenting something that's only Church of England, only Roman Catholic, but he's trying to present a vision of the Christian faith that takes in all branches of Christianity that have a particular traditional grasp of what would be we'd call the creedal, the Nicene, the Apostles' Creed Foundation. Interestingly, when he was preparing the radio broadcast that eventually led to a mere Christianity, he sent out his broadcast to, I believe, four or five clerics, a Catholic priest, an Anglican, I think a Methodist, maybe one other person, and then they commented, and Lewis would adjust a little bit at least what he was preparing for the radio by what he heard from these people. So it was mere Christianity. And then you can't really ever predict a kind of literary and intellectual genius of his kind. He was uh creative, he was clear, he was a brilliant writer, and those qualities meant that he could be attractive in religious and non-religious groups, even where he didn't come in as one of them. There's just a wonderful uh quotation by James Packer, J.I. Packer, writing after Lewis's uh uh death some years about why he found uh Lewis uh really important. And I I'll read that now because it it answers the question why somebody outside the United States really not fitting into any of the parties in American religions that could be so effective. The secret of Lewis's great piercing power lay in his blend of logic and imagination. All of his arguments, including his literary criticism, are illustrations in the sense that they throw light directly on realities of life and action. So the imaginative work is talking about serious life things. Well, all of his illustrations, including the fiction and fantasies, are arguments in the sense that they throw light directly on realities of truth and fact. So blending of logic and imagination, maybe not unique, but pretty close to being unique in this in the modern world. So mere Christianity, logic and imagination,

Brian Stiller:

that captures my understanding. His logic is absolutely it traps you. There's nowhere to go. When he's finished with you on a subject, there's just no exit. And yet his imagination um for years, every I have an annual ritual of reading the Great Divorce. I've always been interested in life after death. And I've always felt that the metaphors that we in our own evangelical world, especially our music, it uh it conjures up uh uh uh corny, homely uh uh pictures that just seem to be uh so pedestrian to what I think uh heaven might be. And then I came out I came across uh the Great Divorce and the way he sets it up by being in that dreary city at a bus stop, and he eventually goes to heaven, and the metaphors and the imagination that he plays with, I find uh on a regular read opens to me other ideas of the possibilities of of the eternal the eternity of our lives uh in ways that uh no one else has has ever has ever stroked. So uh J.I. Packer, his his definition is is is powerful. So taking that uh and um part of my interest in this conversation with you today, Mark, is that uh I find that both C.S. Lewis as an actual writer and what he can sponsor in giving imagination and possibilities to younger writers today, I I simply have a great interest in moving people to be more familiar and ingest more of his writings. So with that kind of as a as a as a subtitle to our conversation or subtext, um uh what is there going on in our world today uh that is uh that would produce the kind of analysis you just made by look by going by going to Amazon and finding out he's the number one of apologists, he's the number four in in in whatever else that you've described. Why is that why is that landing with such solidity? Uh and where's the and and with continuity out of the past? Well, why is that going on, do you, in your view?

Mark Noll:

That really is a strikingly um important and interesting question, particularly when we think about most of what is published and read today is mostly about the pre from the present, about the present, with present uh understanding. I do think one of one of the secrets in Lewis is continuing authority, power, is that in his own day, and we have to think about Lewis comes to uh maturity during World War I. He's wounded in the struggle, he's part of British society in a very tumultuous 1920s. He experiences the depression with everyone else. He's very actively involved in these enterprises around uh World War II. He's a person uh right at the center of British intellectual life. And yet in his works, you don't get the sense that he's talking to current events. You get the sense that he's talking about realities for all people at all times. Partly in uh writing the book a couple years ago and partly in getting prepared for this uh uh interview today, I read more of Lewis, went back to mere Christianity, read some of his essays, and there are dateable matters. Lewis's Lewis very often refers to man. When we would today talk about humankind, men and women. There are there are uh a few places where um he's obviously thinking about a world that's settled, a world in which expectations of the next generation have something to do with what what the previous generation. But by and large, um the fact that he is usually reasoning from human condition and human actions and ordinary human relationships means that people can pick them up and read. Mere Christianity is a really uh good example. What how do how can you defend the reality of Christian faith? With the radio broadcast, 1940, with the with the pamphlet, 1942, with Mere Christianity is a book in 1952, he begins with saying, almost everybody has moral conclusions about things in life. Something happens to you and you say it's not fair, something happens to someone else and you say they deserved it. And then he goes on. Where does that sense come from that there are standards that we can apply to the behavior of other people? And then, of course, there's it's it's not all that simple how we develop it, but but as he as he carries readers along, he says, well, it comes from the fact that there must be objective morality in the universe. And he explains that, takes objections, that goes further, and then in the next steps, and he does this pretty quickly, but it's still pretty complicated. The Christian faith fits nicely upon a universe in which everyone thinks that some things are right and some things are wrong. And so by not writing to the present that he lived in, he is actually writing about realities that continue in all times and all places. And that is one of the things that I think makes his work relevant to the day, as does also the fact that he is writing about mere Christianity and not presenting himself as an apologist for any one of the many varieties of Christian faith. And I would, Brian, to turn the reflection back on you, ask, I'm sure you have found in your travels around the world that at least some of C.S. Lewis's works translate very well. Wheaton College has a center, the Wade Center, that focuses on Lewis and his friends, and they they have shelves full of books translated, Lewis's books, translated into a plethora of world languages, and all with at least some resonance, some stickability in those other cultures and other languages.

Brian Stiller:

Oh, Mark, I'm just in reflection on your comment. I'm thinking I I have in my hand the screw tape letters. Well, that's that translates into every world. And it's hilarious, it's counterintuitive, and it lands Kerplunk in everyone's lives with realism and with and and you know it's like I never thought of that. So wherever you go, his his logic and with his his enormous capacity to interplay with uh with uh uh with other literat literary uh writers and uh and uh ideas and and myths for him to bring those into play uh as he did with uh with some of his uh some of his more mystical uh uh writings.

Mark Noll:

Let me let me pause to emphasize that point. Uh Lewis is an extremely learned person. Um he I I've read some of some of his literary criticism, and it it holds up pretty well today. There's very little self-referential writing of C.S. Lewis about his own learning. You can glimpse it sometimes, but there'll be page after page after page that's that's direct, straightforward prose, not name-dropping, but moving his argument, moving his presentation along. So the great learning was, I think, absolutely essential for his effectiveness, but it's learning worn very, very lightly.

Brian Stiller:

And isn't that instructive to writers? You don't have to tell people on every page all that you know. That's right.

Mark Noll:

I mean my my uh instinct as a historian is always want to footnote everything, you want to footnote everything. Well, Lewis could have footnoted everything. But he realized that for most people, most of the time, what you want to hear is the presentation of a good story or presentation of a solid argument, you're not so much concerned where it comes from unless you go deeper. And then, if you do go deeper, you'll be able to find with a C.S. Lewis that there really is a full superstructure underneath what is so clear and transparent and moving on the surface.

Brian Stiller:

Mark, I don't want to get ahead of history, but today as we reflect on C.S. Lewis, uh the tragedy that uh that was uh recently in in your country, uh the death of a young man. Um at the same time, we're seeing certain uh we're seeing the emergence of uh I would call them kind of revival or spiritual renewal moments. Uh you talk the they talk in in England about the the quiet revival. Uh you see it both among Catholic and Protestant uh spiritual events or events that speak of spiritual interest and renewal. Uh Ryan Burge, in his study primarily of the U.S., is showing that that faith as a component of human life of civilian life is holding its own. The the diminishment of by way of secularity doesn't seem to be as precipitous or as severe as we thought, or maybe as it has been. So with so I as a historian, you may want to comment on whether you you are seeing any kind of evidence of that. But I my question to you is uh when you look at the history of this man and what he has written, how is that speaking into today's world with secularity, with maybe operate with maybe occasion of spiritual renewal, of of war and disaster? How is he relevant to today?

Mark Noll:

I do I do think the situation you described for the U.S. uh is is intriguing people. Uh my own sense is that uh trust in traditional Christian institutions maybe does continue to decline. But that interest in Christian questions, and then interest in the in the broader category of spirituality, where the Christian faith has something to say, are maybe as strong as ever and maybe even growing. In those circumstances, what C.S. Lewis offered was again not commentary on the present, but pointing people to what was um secure and solid. And and I don't I don't think it's I mean I think it's important to recognize that that it's probably the Narnia tales that are are given the widest reading. It's it's narrative that doesn't seem to have anything to do with political polarization in our day, doesn't have anything to do with commentary on China and US, Russia in the US, war in Ukraine, Israel. But the stories present in a very subtle way the importance of a Christian understanding of the world, and even more importance of an understanding of Christ and the figure of the Lion. And these stories are a kind of end-run around objections or a complete focus on the present and have a tremendous resonance. So, in the kind of situation you describe, when people are interested in helpful reading, they don't want to go to someone who's telling them how they should think about matters in the present. They want to go to someone who's trying to connect them to a deeper and more foundational and more stable understanding of the world. And and Lewis, it's not the only one, but Lewis certainly falls into those categories. And again, just the the the clarity of thought and expression are so unusual that um they draw interest and and often commitment from readers. What's been your favorite? We uh my wife and I read the Narnia tales probably five or six times to our kids, so I I I probably have to say those. As a historian, I really like his long and detailed book called The Oxford History of English Literature, the 16th century, excluding drama. It's not exciting in the in the way that uh uh like the Great Divorce or the space ransom trilogy is, but there's wonderful writing on uh figures like William Tyndale, Thomas More. There's terrific passages about how uh the language of the King James Version reflects in some ways Shakespearean language. I mean it's a it's a real treat for historians, but but I I think for for uh reading to come back to, I've actually gone back to read Dinarnia Tales long after our children are out of the household because they're you can tell they're written from the early 50s now, but there's just so much good sense and so much decision making by the characters that reflects an awareness of the morality of the universe that they really become captivating.

Brian Stiller:

And Mark, what does that do for you and your thinking and your own spiritual quest?

Mark Noll:

I do think that Lewis has a way, often, certainly not everything he wrote, but but often to bring you back to first principles. Uh I remember uh when when we had a uh a special chapel service at Wheaton College on the afternoon of 9-11, 2001, and our provost Stan Jones read at length from Lewis's sermon, Learning in Wartime, in which uh Lewis tried to say, we we have every reason in the world now, this was 1940, 1939, to be worried about how events are developing in Europe in the war, but there's also real good reasons for staying focused on what you're trying to do in an academic institution. It was his way, our provost and Lewis' earlier, are of saying, look, the events of the world are going to be disorienting, they're going to be disruptive, but we need to focus in, retain a grasp on what's most important. And I do think uh in a singular way, Lewis's entire body of work try to get people to remain focused on what was most important.

Brian Stiller:

And if you were doing a podcast with C.S. Lewis today, what one question would you want to ask him?

Mark Noll:

I think maybe I'd ask him what he gained by his practice, and he's mentioned this several times in his life, what did he gain by his practice of not not reading the daily newspaper? And that uh that kind of I I think he if we if he could we could talk to him today, the the the corresponding question would be, what what what is gained if you just don't look at your phone? And I think what Lewis would say is, I don't read the daily newspaper, not because things are unimportant that are going on day by day, but because the permanent truths, the permanent needs of human beings are always more important than the day-to-day diversions that call us away from these most important things. I think that's what I'd like. I think that's what he would say, but I I would like to ask him that question.

Brian Stiller:

Okay, Mark, let's let's land on a conversation with the what where would a person who is not that familiar with Lewis, where do you think, what should be their first, second, and third books to read?

Mark Noll:

I do think if someone is interested in um a logical presentation of basic Christianity, mere Christianity is still a very important book to read. And and um over the time, there's been there've been some really nice books. George Morrison at that uh wrote a very fine book on the biography of mere Christianity. And he could point out how a number of uh uh influential people, uh, Chuck Colson, uh Francis Collins, others have found this to be a um brief but compelling understanding of uh of the Christian faith. For uh the literary-minded, I think that at least the first two, maybe all three, of what are called the the space trilogy or the ransom uh trilogy, out of the silent planet. So the protagonist goes to Mars, Paralandra, the protagonist goes to Venus, and the plot is what would the world be like if Eve had resisted the devil, Satan in the Garden of Eden. So that's an amazing. And then uh um uh the third one, that hideous strength is set on earth, they're more complicated. But these are really intriguing ways of telling stories not focused on Christian faith, but communicating uh not focused on the detail of the Christian faith, but focusing on the kind of universe of the Christian faith. And then then for anyone who uh would like to see how imagination can uh draw people without even seeming to try toward an understanding of the Christian faith, then I think the Lion Witch in the Wardrobe, and then the six books that followed, and the Darnia Tales would be would be my recommendation.

Brian Stiller:

And I'd like to add one the problem with pain for those who struggle with the existential issues of uh of personal living.

Mark Noll:

Brian, I think that the I I would agree with you that the problem of pain is a masterful uh response to the question why does God allow suffering? People should, however, if they read that, also read in in uh tandem with that a book that Lewis wrote later after his wife, uh Joy Daveman died, called A Grief Observed, which is which is much less, I would say, rational, but much more emotionally powerful about someone who's experienced great loss. So those combination of those two books really make a strong intervention in what we all experience in one way or at some times in our lives, about our our asking, oh God, why did this happen to me? Why did this happen to so-and-so? And those are passionate and powerful works.

Brian Stiller:

And Mark, on that we end a very rich conversation on C.S. Lewis and his enduring legacy and the value that he brings as a Christian witness to us in any aspect of life. So thank you. Thank you for joining me on Evangelical 360 today, Mark.

Mark Noll:

It's been my privilege. Thank you.

Brian Stiller:

Thanks, Mark, for joining me today. Your mind in canvassing our past helps us see today with greater clarity. And on the matter of this extraordinary writer, C. S. Lewis, our understanding of him and his value to us has been broadened. And to you, friend. Thanks for being a part of the podcast. Be sure to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest, be sure to check the show notes for links and info. And if you haven't already received my free ebook and newsletter, just go to BrianStiller.com. Thanks again. Until next time. Don't miss the next interview. Be sure to subscribe to Evangelical 360 on YouTube.