Today is C.S. Lewis' Birthday

The great writer, educator, medievalist, philosopher and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis was born on this date over 100 years ago in 1898.

Michelle Malkin's blog alerted me that today is the anniversary of his birth.

When I first became aware of C.S. Lewis' writings, I was captivated and enchanted by his supremely beautiful Christian allegory in his "The Chronicles of Narnia" series of books.

Since then, I have been fortunate to have read his other works and to appreciate him as a medievalist (my area of specialty) and as a great mind in Christian thought.

If you have not heard of him before, now is your opportunity to acquaint yourself with his works. If you have heard of him already, but perhaps only know him through the film or play "Shadowlands" now is also a good time to discover his writings further.

Here is a brief excerpt from an article titled "The Prophecy of C.S. Lewis" by Chuck Colson for www.townhall.com :

"The problem is not that modern evangelicals are less intelligent than Lewis. As Mark Noll explains in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, the problem is that our sharpest intellects have been channeled into biblical scholarship, exegesis, and
hermeneutics. While that is a vital enterprise, we rarely give the same scholarly attention to history, literature, politics, philosophy, economics, or the arts. As a result, we are less aware of the culture than we should be, less equipped to defend a biblical worldview, and less capable of being a redemptive
force in our postmodern society—less aware, as well, of the threats headed our way from cultural elites.

You and I need to follow Lewis’s lead. We must liberate ourselves from the prison of our own narrow perspective and immerse ourselves in Christian ideas “down the ages.” Only then can we critique our culture and trace the trends.

The best way to celebrate Lewis’s birthday is to be at our posts, as he liked to say—with renewed spirits and with probing and informed minds." [Emphasis mine.]

That is your task. Be at your posts with renewed spirits and with probing and informed minds. You've been told and NOW YOU KNOW.

Update: Steve and Robert over at The Llama Butchers have a nice tribute to C.S. Lewis as well titled "Happy Birthday, Sir!" Go check it out.