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The C. S. Lewis Society Newsletter
C.S. Lewis Society Book and Film Club of the Bay Area:
 The next meetings of the C.S. Lewis Society Bookclub of the Bay Area will be on Wednesday, May 2 and 16: Saint Francis of Assisi, by G.K. Chesterton; leader/moderator, José Yulo, Ph.D.
G. K. Chesterton's Saint Francis of Assisi is the popular biography of a beloved Christian saint and founder of the Franciscans, told by an equally beloved author and storyteller. It is an accessible, interesting and compelling story of a man known more by legend than fact. In this brilliant reflection on the poor friar of Assis (1181-1226), Chesterton unfolds the life and times of Francis, from his conversion as a young man to his receiving of the stigmata at the end of his life. While many modern biographers stumble in their effort to grasp the essence of Francis, Chesterton shows that Francis's entire life, his prayer, his poverty, his asceticism, his love of creation, and all his eccentricities flowed from his profound love for Christ and all men. In Chesterton's colorful prose, Francis shines with the splendor of sanctity and calls each of us to the same intense and animating love for God and His people. The enigma that is Francis of Assisi is one with which we should be intimately familiar. Upon first glance our age seems incredibly dissimilar to the time in which Francis lived; however, closer examination will reveal a similar zeitgeist. G. K. Chesterton takes us into the life of Francis not by giving us a list of facts, dates, and accomplishments, but rather by taking us into the mind and heart of the man. As with any person, mere facts cannot truly tell the story that only knowing the person can tell. With this book one feels as though he has come to know Francis, rather than just know about him.
R.S.V.P. or inquire with questions, please phone 510-635-6892 or send email to info@lewissociety.org. The meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m. and refreshments will be served.
Your Gift Now Will Help Share the Joy!
 With so much going on now for 2012, we invite you to join with us as a Member of the C.S. Lewis Society with a tax-deductible contribution and participate in the Society while supporting our unique, very timely and far-reaching Christian educational program. And with your gift now of $100 or more, you can receive a FREE book or DVD!
DVD: God, Nature and Modern Science:
The DVD is available based on our seminar featuring two top scholars. This very timely program examines the relationship between science and religion and offers thoughtful insights and discussion of such issues as origins, design, free will, evolution, materialism, transcendence, and much more. Moderated by David J. Theroux, the program features Paul D. Ashby (Staff Scientist, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Edward B. Davis (Professor of the History of Science, Messiah College). Copies may be ordered for $19.95 per copy postpaid.
 C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters on Stage was a fabulous success in Sacramento, March 3rd!
Based on C.S. Lewis's bestselling novel, the sensational, stage production of The Screwtape Letters, starring Max McLean, was performed twice at the Community Center Theater in the Sacramento Convention Center Complex! This masterpiece of religious satire by C.S. Lewis entertains and uplifts people with its hilarious, sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, the highly placed assistant to his demonic “father below.”
About C. S. Lewis:
In its November 7, 2005 issue, Time magazine noted the following about the world-renowned Oxford/Cambridge scholar and best-selling author C.S. Lewis:
“In 1947, a Time cover story hailed Lewis as ‘one of the most influential spokesmen for Christianity in the English-speaking world.’ Now, 58 years later (and 42 years after his death, in 1963), he could arguably be called the hottest theologian.”
Indeed, C. S. Lewis’s books sell at an astounding rate worldwide, and in his extensive and immensely popular work, he very effectively champions objective truth, goodness, natural law, literary excellence, reason, science, individual liberty, personal responsibility, and Christian faith. In his professional writings, Lewis was a literary critic, novelist, poet, essayist, and man of letters. His work captures a grandeur, precision, wit, imagination and insight seldom matched by others, and in the process, he articulately critiques the materialism, reductionism, scientism, collectivism, nihilism, statism, and de-humanization of the modern era.
C. S. Lewis Graphics
For background information on the images to the left, please click here.
Books, Films, CDs and More:
Of his many works, Lewis is probably best known for his book series, The Chronicles of Narnia, which have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and are now the subject of a major new series of films. With the enormous success of the first of these new Narnia films, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the next film, Prince Caspian, is scheduled for release in mid-2008, with Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" planned for a 2010 release and The Silver Chair scheduled for release in 2011. In addition, other novels by Lewis are being made into films, including The Screwtape Letters which is underway, and efforts are being pursued for a film based on The Great Divorce.
And with the significant increase in sales for Lewis’s books (many of which are also available on CD)—which were already selling 6 millions copies annually—many people are discovering Lewis for the first time while others are rediscovering the unique magic and relevance of his work.
The scope of Lewis’s work is quite remarkable, including philosophy and theology—The Abolition of Man, Christian Reflections, Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, The Problem of Pain, Miracles; literary history and criticism—The Discarded Image, The Allegory of Love, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century; fiction—The Screwtape Letters, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces; autobiography—Surprised by Joy, A Grief Observed; current affairs—God in the Dock, Present Concerns; poetry—Narrative Poems, Poems; and much more.
Your Invitation to Join the C. S. Lewis Society of California:
As a result, we welcome those who may be interested in C.S. Lewis to become a Member and participate in the program of the C. S. Lewis Society of California. The Society is interested in events, articles, interviews, publications, and other developments that advance deeper understanding of the life, works, and ideas of C. S. Lewis and others who are addressing the enduring philosophical, cultural, historical, literary, theological, social, and economic issues of mankind.
“For the last thirty years of his life no other Christian writer in this century had such an influence on the general reading public as C.S. Lewis.”—The Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Lewis gives us permission to admit our own doubts, our own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are part of the soul’s growth.”—Madeleine L’Engle, author, A Wrinkle in Time and other books
“I read Lewis for comfort and pleasure many years ago, and a glance into the books revives my old admiration.”—John Updike, novelist and poet
“Rarely is so much learning displayed with so much grace and charm.” “Lewis combines a novelist’s insights into motives with a profound religious understanding.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Lewis, perhaps more than any other twentieth-century writer, forced those who listened to him and read his works to come to terms with their own philosophical presuppositions.”—Los Angeles Times
"C. S. Lewis was a genius."—Thomas S. Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, State University of New York Upstate Health Science Center
“Lewis’s words appear often in my Mitford stories—where would the Christian thinker be without Lewis? He is pivotal.”—Jan Karon, author of The Mitford books
“Lucid, urbane, modest, and humorous. . . Lewis writing on the aspect of fiction called Story has to be listened to, since he was himself a superb story-teller.”—Anthony Burgess, author, playwright, and composer
“If wit and wisdom, style and scholarship are requisites to passage through the pearly gates, Mr. Lewis will be among the angels.”—The New Yorker
“A powerful, discriminating and poetic mind, great learning, startling wit, and overwhelming imagination. ”—Saturday Review
“Somebody pointed me towards C.S. Lewis's little book called Mere Christianity, which took all of my arguments that I thought were so airtight about the fact that faith is just irrational, and proved them totally full of holes. And in fact, turned them around the other way, and convinced me that the choice to believe is actually the most rational conclusion when you look at the evidence around you. That was a shocking sort of revelation, and one that I fought bitterly for about a year and then finally decided to accept.”—Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Human Genome Research Institute; author, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
“Learned, brilliant and lively, Lewis was always an artist with words, whether as a professional academic writing for colleagues in his own field; as an author of novels, fantasies and tales for children; or as a composer of didactic expositions, apologetic discussions, and journal and newspaper articles by the bushel, all seeking to commend and consolidate Christian faith. He was fastidious and fair-minded (while sometimes satirical), probing and thoughtful, logical and magisterial, orthodox and arresting, and clear and compelling. . . . In short, he was never less than a first-class read. . . . The two lobes of our brain, left for the logical and linear and right for the romantic and imaginative, were both thoroughly developed in Lewis, so that he was as strong in fantasy and fiction as he was in analysis and argument. There is always a didactic dimension to his spiritual-life writing, just as there is always a visionary dimension to his apologetics. The combination made him in his day, and makes him still, a powerful and haunting communicator in both departments.”—J. I. Packer, Board of Governors' Professor of Theology, Regent College
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