#43—The life of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, with George Marsden [MIPodcast]

Maxwell Institute Podcast

Christianity, Education, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2016

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

C. S. Lewis died in 1963 on the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Before the decade was over, few expected his works to last. “We think Lewis’s star has risen and is about to set,” said one Catholic publisher. “His day is over. No one will be reading C. S. Lewis twenty years from now.” Even Lewis believed his apologetic works would soon go out of style. He’d be surprised to learn that over 3.5 million copies of Mere Christianity have sold since 2001. It’s one of the most beloved Christian books of the twentieth century, and it wasn’t originally intended to be a book at all. In this episode, award-winning Christian historian George M. Marsden tells the story of Mere Christianity‘s birth and explains its tenacious popularity since its publication in 1952. Marsden recently wrote the biography of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity for Princeton University Press’s “Lives of Great Religious Books” series. Special Episodes—“Lives of Great Religious Books” This ongoing series of MIPodcast episodes features interviews with authors of volumes in Princeton University Press’s impressive “Lives of Great Religious Books” series. Leading experts examine the origins of books like the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, and Augustine’s Confessions. They trace shifts in the reception, influence, and interpretation of these landmark texts. By looking at other religious texts from a variety of perspectives—worthwhile in their own right—we come to understand other faiths better, as well as our own. About George M. Marsden George M. Marsden is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History Emeritus at The University of Notre Dame. He specializes in American religion and culture, evangelicalism, and the role of Christianity in higher education. His critically-acclaimed books include The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford University Press, 1997), The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (OUP, 1994), and the Bancroft award-winning biography of Jonathan Edwards. His new book is called C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Blair Hodges. You've heard of C.S. Lewis's book
0:06.2	Mir Christianity. Maybe you've even read it. Perhaps you bought one of the 3.5 million copies
0:11.7	that have sold since 2001. It's one of the most popular Christian books of the last century.
0:16.6	But what you might not know is that mere Christianity, the book, was almost an afterthought in
0:21.8	C.S. Lewis's work. In fact, it wasn't originally intended to be a book at all. In this episode,
0:26.9	you'll learn more about the origins and the life of mere Christianity than you ever knew from
0:31.4	George M. Marston. He's an award-winning historian of American religious history. In this episode,
0:36.7	we discuss his new biography of Mere Christianity.
0:39.3	It's the latest volume in Princeton University Press' Lives of Great Religious book series.
0:44.3	You can help support the Maxwell Institute podcast by reviewing it in iTunes or taking our survey at bit.le. dot lee slash m i podcast survey questions or comments about this and other episodes of the maxwell
0:55.8	institute podcast can be sent to m i podcast at b yu dot ed u george m marsden is a historian
1:05.0	of christianity in american culture his recent book is a biography of c s lew Lewis's Mere Christianity. It's part of Princeton University
1:12.3	Press's Lives of Great Religious Book Series. Thanks for joining us today, George.
1:16.5	My pleasure. Now, you're a distinguished scholar of Christianity, but you're also a Christian yourself.
1:21.9	And at the beginning of your book, you talk about how writing a book like this isn't a detached
1:26.2	academic exercise. So I'd like to hear
1:28.7	a few thoughts about the relationship between your faith and scholarship and how that works in the
1:33.3	academy today and how that impacted this recent book. Well, first, I think there is not any really
1:39.9	detached scholarship. All books are written from a particular point of view.
1:47.6	And so I make a point throughout my career of saying that I'm writing from a Christian
1:56.2	perspective and other people can write from other perspectives.
1:59.7	But rather than acting as though there's some sort of neutral, more scientific, objective position,
	...

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