Though he held his atheism withrncomplete conviction, Lewis-the-youthful-rnpersecutor-of-Christians seems to bernentirely a creation of his later years. Hisrnheathenism was a rhetorical ploy to put arnhuman face on his uncompromising andrnunconditional apologetics. As his friendrnand confessor, Austin Farrer, was laterrnto say, the persona Lewis as authorrnchose for himself invited the reader torn”look and see that such a man as I amrncan become an orthodox Christian.”rnThus he made himself not only thernrhetorical enemy of Christ, but the actualrnenemy as well.rnWe must abandon the Damascanrnroad drama that has become sornindissolubly attached to Lewis’s name.rnThose who berate him really cannotrnclaim the intellectual turncoat who gavernup on the grim new world rigor of modernrnatheism in order to speak comfortablyrnto the masses; and those who lovernhim cannot prove the wizard of dialecticsrnwho with sheer force of logicrnbrought the toughest Babylonian to hisrnknees.rnThe essays collected by Schakel andrnHuttar are a good indication of the highrnlevel of discussion achievable once bothrnpolitical correctness and hagiography arerndismissed. Their title could not havernbeen better chosen: word and story,rnphilology and literature—these werernLewis’s towering strengths. But the collectionrndemonstrates this fact by examiningrnhis work not only in these fieldsrn—whether the Narnia sagas or the (ageless)rnstudies in medieval and Renaissancernliterature, the novels or the Studiesrnin Words—but in his Christian apologetics,rnwhere Lewis also employed therntools of the literary artist and scholar.rnFar from being a mere logic chopper,rnLewis defended his faith in the explicitlyrntheological writings by resurrectingrnancient meanings and by distilling ancientrnstories. He once reminded an audiencernof fledgling priests that whenrnthey used the word “dogma” the connotationrnfor most of their congregationrnwould be “an unproved assertion deliveredrnin an arrogant manner.” This wasrnhis method in a nutshell. The Abolitionrnof Man reconverted multitudes to traditionalrnmorality by exposing the ideologyrnof high school English textbooks;rnhis history of the word “world” incorporatesrnsome of his finest theology; and hernwent to war against Hume largely by analyzingrna myth.rnNone of this detracts in any way fromrnthe power of his arguments. It is to sayrnthat he was far more interested in sheddingrnlight on the world than in the endlessrntit-for-tat of philosophical debate.rnIndeed, and as he would be the first tornremind us, the verb “to demonstrate”rnin its Latin root means “to point outrnclearly” and therefore has far more torndo with “shedding light” than it doesrnwith the forcing of assent by unanswerablernargument. Thus, he chose signpostsrn—metaphors, allegories, narrativesrn—to circumscribe the majesty ofrnGod, bringing Him to bear upon ourrnlate and confused modernity with thernclarity of good writing and the correctrnuse of words.rnBut if the diary dismisses a personarnit also confirms a fact, one for which thernvilifiers would trade the persona withoutrnhesitation. To the dismay of Lewis’srnadmirers, his biographers have persistedrnin stating that up until the time he wonrna faculty fellowship and moved into hisrnpermanent rooms at Magdalen College,rnhe had a live-in love affair with a womanrntwice his age. To make matters worse,rnthe woman was the mother of a closernfriend whom Lewis had promised torncare for should the son not return (asrnhe did not) from the First World War.rnWhat of it? He did not then believe,rnand he would neither ape the forms ofrnmatrimony nor sow his wild oats (he wasrnfaithful to her throughout) before “settlingrndown.” The diary makes it clearrnthat after moving on to Magdalen hernvisited his former lover every day andrnwas her sole provider in her final years.rnWhen he did find a world to embrace—rnor rather when it embraced him—hernacted again in complete disregard ofrnconventions: he married late in life arnwoman with a terminal cancer and lovedrnher to the end. • srnLIBERAL ARTSrnTO WORMWOODrn”Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together insidernhis head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false,’ but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical,’ ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary,’ ‘conventional’rnor ‘ruthless.’ Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make himrnthink that materialism is true Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s thernsort of thing he cares about.”rn”The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Oncernyou have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind ofrnworldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him thanrnprayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms), the more securely ours. I could show yourna pretty cageful down here.”rn”The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what otherrnpeople say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patientrnabandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books. I havernknown a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions.”rn—from The Screwtape Letters by CS. Lewis.rn32/CHRONICLESrnrnrn