C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church

by Joseph Pearce

There are many Protestants and Catholics who have been deeply affected and spirituality changed by the writings of C.S. Lewis, including many converts to Catholicism who credit C.S. Lewis for playing a significant role in their conversion. But the ironic and perplexing fact is that Lewis himself, while "Catholic" in many aspects of his faith and devotion, never became a Roman Catholic. Many have wondered why. Joseph Pearce, highly regarded literary biographer and great admirer of Lewis, is the ideal writer to try to answer that question. The relationship of Lewis to the Roman Catholic Church is an important and intriguing topic of interest to both Catholics and Protestants. Pearce delves into all the issues, questions, and factors regarding this puzzling question. He gives a broad and detailed analysis of the historical, biographical, theological, and literary pieces of this puzzle. His findings set forth the objective shape of Lewis's theological and spiritual works in their relation to the Catholic Church. This well-written book brings new insights into a great Christian writer, and it should spark lively discussion among Lewis readers and bring about a better understanding of the spiritual beliefs of C.S. Lewis.

Genres: Religion, Catholic, Biography, Nonfiction, Theology, History, Christianity

220 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Joseph Pearce (born 1961) is an English-born writer, and as of 2004 Writer in Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida; previously he had a comparable position, from 2001, at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is known for a number of literary biographies, many of Catholic figures. Formerly aligned with the National Front, a white nationalist political party, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1989, repudiated his earlier views, and now writes from a Catholic perspective. He is a co-editor of the St. Austin Review and editor-in-chief of Sapientia Press.

Reviews

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

ENGLISH: The main question posed by this book is the following: Why did C.S.Lewis never become a Catholic, when his writings have pushed many people, both unbelievers and Protestants, to become members of the Catholic Church? My answer to this question is the following: What if God God needed him as a mere Christian to attract Protestants and drag them to the Catholic Church?

ESPAÑOL: La pregunta principal que plantea este libro es esta: ¿Por qué C.S.Lewis no se hizo católico, cuando sus escritos han empujado a muchas personas, incrédulas y protestantes, a hacerse miembros de la Iglesia Católica? Mi respuesta a esta pregunta es esta: Quizá Dios lo necesitaba no católico, precisamente para que atrajera a los protestantes y los empujara hacia la Iglesia Católica.

[Ben De Bono · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this back to back with Christopher Derrick's similarly titled C.S. Lewis and the Church of Rome. The danger of reading multiple books on the same subject so close together is that can you can easily feel as though you've just read the same book twice. Despite a certain amount of natural overlap between the two, I'm please to report that this is not the case of Derrick and Pearce's books on this subject. On the contrary, the different takes the two authors use on identical material makes them imminently complementary. Despite their being written twenty years apart with no collaboration by the authors, they feel like two parts of a whole. Neither seems complete without the other.

Derrick's book is fairly critical and combative toward Lewis as it attempts to show fundamental contradictions in his thought on Catholicism and an unwillingness to resolve these inconsistencies. Pearce discusses this as well but his tone is more scholarly. The book follows a mostly chronological progression through Lewis' life giving it greater breadth than Derrick's work. While it too inevitably demonstrates inconsistencies in Lewis' thought, its purpose is primarily to describe rather than comment.

Far from contradicting Derrick's points, this approach strengths them. Pearce gives additional context that only add to the weight of Derrick's critiques. The two books thus become mutually dependent - in a sense - and create a wonderful portrait of Lewis' interactions with Catholicism.

After reading both books I've come to the conclusion that this is a sorely neglected aspect of Lewis' thought and life. In part, this is due to Lewis' own neglect of the question which, given the amount of material suggesting Catholic sympathies, he ought to have answered. Nevertheless, I'd love to see more authors take up this subject. Given that both Pearce and Derrick are Catholics, I think it would be especially interesting to see Anglican and Protestant scholars take on the subject. In lieu of that happening, however, audiences interested in Lewis' take on Catholicism will find themselves amply rewarded by reading both Pearce and Derrick's discussions on the subject.

[Pop · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m impressed with Joseph Pearce. He obviously has read every book Lewis wrote, his diary, his letters and an uncountable number of books by others commenting on how Lewis led them to become Catholics. I suspect the book would be tedious to read in text but was quite enjoyable to listen to. The reader was very good.

That said, I don’t think Lewis would recognize the Roman Catholic Church of 2020 and probably beyond as it seems to me where our Pope Francis is trying to take the Roman Church, where climate change is more important than “abortion”, that same sex marriage is OK. JMHO.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this with skepticism. Everyone wants a piece of C.S. Lewis, I thought, so now Joseph Pearce is going to tell us that Lewis was almost a Catholic?

I, a catholic Christian — but not a Roman Catholic, read this book by a Catholic author and published by a Catholic publisher, looking in from the outside. As a dispassionate reader, I did find several facts, um, interesting. If I read this correctly, Pearce believes that Lewis's Ulster anti-Catholic bias was the hurdle that couldn't be navigated.

The most intriguing section to me was the appendix (which I listened to on audio, but wasn't in my paperback) cataloguing converts to Catholicism whose decision was impacted by and often directly attributed to reading C.S. Lewis.

Among that list (names I knew) are:

Walker Percy
Joseph Pearce
E. F. Shumacher
Father Dwight Longenecker (who wrote an introduction to this book)
Francis Beckwith
Sheldon Vanauken
Ross Douthat
Thomas Howard (Elisabeth Elliot's brother)
Bobby Jindal
Peter Kreeft
Lorraine Murray
Bernard Nathanson (former prominent abortionist)
Walter Hooper (C.S. Lewis's secretary)

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Tom Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much that is interesting about C. S. Lewis, and his relationship with the Church of Rome is no exception. I remember being absolutely bamboozled while reading The Great Divorce – this was precisely my Catholic Church’s teaching about what the soul may experience after death! Similarly, while reading Mere Christianity I was startled at the importance Lewis places on the sacramental aspects of Christianity, so often ignored or even denigrated and condemned by certain Protestant Evangelical groups.

Pearce goes through the life and works (and influences and relationships – he had many Catholic friends) of Lewis in an attempt to unravel the mystery of the man’s views on and interactions with the Church of Rome. The man identified as an Anglican – and yet his belief in Purgatory is explicitly condemned by the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. He was a Medievalist who thought that the traditional elements of Christianity were essential to it – yet he really refused to ever discuss or address the role of the Communion of Saints or the Blessed Virgin in the Christian life. How peculiar.
Joseph Pearce points out an oddity that I also noticed in one of my favorite books That Hideous Strength. He quotes another author writing on the same topic as this book:

Merlin is casting about for allies, for people he could expect to be crucially useful in his fight for Christendom; and as his enquiry proceeds progressively, he casts his net wider and looks higher. Can we get help from the king and his nobles? If not, can we get help from the priests and bishops? If not, can we get help from the Emperor? If not, can we get help from … ? But the obvious final and climactic question is not asked. Instead we get a pause, a brief silence which I take to be the silence of embarrassment, on Lewis’ part rather than Merlin’s … Almost any other novelist who found himself devising such a sequence, whatever his personal belief, would have considered it artistically right to make Merlin ask Ransom about the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. …There was something within Lewis that caused him to replace it, almost as though self-consciously, with silence …

The silence here is what is significant. Lewis could have put Ulster anti-Catholic rhetoric into the mouth of his angelically-guided Ransom in response to Merlin’s appeal to the Papacy. Instead Lewis leaves the question unasked and unasked, apparently too uncomfortable with the discussion to even address it. This in fact explains much of his work.
It would seem, upon conclusion of the book, that Lewis’ general public silence as regards Catholicism was due to two factors – Protestant prejudice, of which he was, to some degree, aware; and a perhaps too-strong desire for Christian unity that at times stopped him from converting to Rome, and sometimes stopped him from criticizing her in his public work.

(At the same time he wasn’t too concerned about Christian unity, because Lewis’ Mere Christianity definitely excludes some self-identified Christians from that unity – they would have to agree with his definition, or butt out).

I love C. S. Lewis, warts and all. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a clearer picture of his life (I read a biography last summer, which enriched this reading experience).

[Jane Lebak · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version narrated by Kevin Spalding, available through Audible and through Hoopla, which is not an option on Goodreads.

My advice? Get a different edition.

St Benedict Press's edition adds four (yep) introductions to the book. On audio, that means the first 54 minutes of a 7.5 hour production consists of intros that either say what Pearce is about to say or otherwise duplicates information in the book, plus they all echo each other. It felt self-indulgent to me and made me wonder if the press was maybe ashamed of the content of the book or thought Pearce wasn't being clear.

Actual content of the book? Perfectly clear. There is one objective to the book (study Lewis's complicated relationship to Roman Catholicism) and the book sticks to the topic and delves into it at a good level. There's an earlier edition of the book, so maybe get that one. Or just skip all four introductions and the acknowledgments.

The audiobook narrator mispronounces words at an alarming rate. Re-presentation is not the same as representation. Deitrich Bonhoffer is not Deitrich Bonhoofer. At times you can hear where they had the narrator re-record a word or two (or a place name) because the volume jumps for one or two words. The narrator doesn't indicate when he's quoting (he didn't indicate before the introductions WHO was speaking, or whether the introduction was Pearce's own) and occasionally he does a quote in a different voice than the narration...but not always. Really not cool.

So overall, a short book studying a very specific slice of the life of CS Lewis. Not recommended for someone who isn't already very familiar with CS Lewis, but recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about the complications of and limits to his public persona and his public theology.

[Jon Beadle · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for scholarship
4 stars for writing
2 stars for the argument

All in all, full of wonderful reflections on Lewis and his friends.

[Tara N · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very informative, but dry I have to admit.

[Stan Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author showed integrity in stating up front that he was Roman Catholic. I suppose he tried to be fair but the book would have been much better if written by someone who did not have a dog in this fight. I don't think the author intended it, maybe, but when reading the book one gets the feeling that a major theological struggle in Lewis' life was whether to be Catholic or Anglican. This just is not true. Lewis was nowhere close to becoming a Catholic. And some of the author's arguments come from Lewis' fiction which he clearly said he did not want people to mistake for hard nosed theology. Lewis used the famous illustration that when one becomes a Christian he enters a building with a hallway and many rooms on either side...the Christian should choose the room where he fits. The author states that there is one true room. A statement diametrically opposed to what Lewis believed. The author thinks Lewis would have converted to Catholicism as the Anglican Church became more liberal. This ignores the possibility of a breakoff conservative Anglican Church where Lewis would have been comfortable.
To his credit, we must say that the author has done excellent research and write with skill and clarity.

[Othy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Completely disappointing. Pearce's close-minded reading of CS Lewis' life attempts to argue that Lewis was too much a bigot and coward to do what, deep down, he "really" wanted (join the Catholic church). Pearce construes facts and influences to show Lewis is being surrounded by mostly strong Catholics, both dead and alive, though forgets such men as Charles Williams (among others) and ignores George MacDonald not being Catholic. Certain views Lewis held (such as small-government and appreciation for local labor) Pearce writes as being specifically Catholic (or Catholic influenced), forgetting that Lewis was a thinking, considerate person himself (that he couldn't consider such points on his own seems beyond Pearce). In the end, Pearce's depiction of Lewis is "interpretation heavy," and he seems to think that the only people who still read Lewis are Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants (where he gets this from, I really don't know).

I'm sure CS Lewis had his reasons for not becoming Catholic, and as I share some of them that I have gathered while studying him, I was hoping for an honest discussion...

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When C.S. Lewis began writing on Christian belief and practice in the mid-20th century, reviewers at the time took it for granted that he had joined the Catholic church, despite his Mere Christianity purposely avoiding controversial issues that divided Christendom. Despite that assumption, however, Lewis never converted to Catholicism, and often made pains to insist he was no papist –even as he took theological positions more in keeping with historic Christendom than protestant modernism. Joseph Pearce here offers a biography of Lewis focusing on his background and conversion, shifts to a study of Lewis’ theology that examines his overlap and differences with the Catholic church, and ends with Pearce’s suggestion that Lewis never fully escaped the anti-Catholic prejudice of his Ulster youth.

Although Americans may naively think of Lewis as an Englishman, he was born in northern Ireland and raised in what he’d later dismiss as “Puritania”, a Protestant enclave created by King James to assert authority in Catholic Ireland. Lewis’ autobiography suggests that his faith was shallow indeed in his youth, little more than praying to God to give him what he wanted, and the tragedy of his mother’s death overwhelmed it. In college, Lewis developed his critical thinking skills, explored philosophy and occult, and began developing friendships that would alter his life. During this period of exploration and debate, Lewis encountered the work of G.K. Chesterton, and that famed convert to Catholicism was instrumental in Lewis’ own reconversion. The final push, however, came from friendships Lewis developed around the same time, particularly with Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien — the latter a devout Catholic whose religion permeated the works he’d eventually create at Lewis’ urging. Lewis and Tolkien were alike not merely because of their interest in myth, but for their contempt for modernity: they rejected not only the shape of early 20th century society, but the conceits that drove it. After his conversion, Lewis was particularly concerned with the invasion of modernism into the church, and used works like The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce to mock clerics who were more concerned with what academics had to say about Christ than with what Christ had to say to the world. Theologically, Lewis’ views were often square with the Church’s: he rejected, for instance, the Manichean idea popular among Puritans and kindred protestant denominations that the body is irredeemable. Lewis pointed instead to God’s use of the material world to embody grace – through Christ and the Eucharist, most notably. His view of sin and the afterlife were far more Catholic than protestant, including a belief in Purgatory borne not not just by The Great Divorce, but by letters to his friends. Of the Sacraments, Lewis received all seven despite including only three in his Mere Christianity. Most interestingly, in one letter penned in the 1950s, Lewis hinted that he was considering conversion but never took the final step.

The only major departure Pearce could consistently find in Lewis’ writings from Church teaching was his emphatic rejection of Marian devotion, and relatedly, his skepticism about the large profile that saints play in the Catholic and Orthodox tradition. Pearce suspects that for Lewis, Marian devotion was a signal-flag for Catholicism, and that his ingrained prejudice against Catholicism was invariably triggered by it. This prejudice, Pearce suggests, hurt Lewis’ scholarship in other ways: his Discarded Image analyzing medieval literature neglects to mention the role Mary would have played in medieval culture. Although Pearce is successful in illustrating how formative Catholic sources were in Lewis’ adult faith, and how compatible much of Lewis’ beliefs were with Catholic doctrine, the core issues dividing protestants from Catholicism (the authority of the pope) are never directly addressed. Pearce ends the book with biographical listing of writers and other personalities who attribute their conversion to the Catholic church to Lewis, despite his own Ulsterian reservations.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second of two books I read recently with a Roman Catholic "bent." Pearce tries to answer the question of Lewis' professed Christianity: was he a "Catholic Protestant" or a "Protestant Catholic?" Though Catholic himself, Pearce does a pretty good job of maintaining a theological neutrality as he reviews Lewis' life (pretty good, by his own admission, some RC bias comes through). I found the book enjoyable to read for a variety of reasons. First, he treated CS a human being who discovered his own personal brilliance with considerable humility. Second, Pearce traced the significant impact of Chesterton, Tolkien, and George MacDonald (among others) upon his life. He revealed both their personal and spiritual impact upon Lewis. Thirdly, Pearce traces the writings of Lewis in such a way as to put both a chronological tag as well as an apologetic purpose and summary of many, if not most, of Lewis more popular and significant works. Pearce traces these developments with brevity and clarity; I found it very intriguing. I had my own preconceptions as to which side of the Catholic/Protestant argument of Lewis' life I would settle. However, after reading this work, I have a greater respect for Lewis as he trudged through his own spiritual heritage and conclusions; not all necessarily quite where I thought Lewis might land!

[Celeste Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very good. I love Joseph Pearce but always had a bit of trouble slogging through his dense writing- there's just so much to unpack! I took on this book one chapter a day, and that helped immensely. It really paints a new picture of C. S. Lewis that's real and human and relatable. This man was extremely intelligent, very well-read, and fascinated with the Christian faith. I liked how Pearce didn't pull punches when it came to Lewis's anti-Catholic views, which were instilled in him at childhood, but also showed how the friendship of Catholics later in life softened his stances. I've got several other Pearce books and those are coming up next.

[Andrew Stout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pearce offers a very interesting discussion of some of Lewis' views toward the Catholic Church, as well as a helpful analysis of the theological battles against modernism carried out by the Inklings. However, Pearce seems completely incapable of acknowledging that being influenced by and sharing a general outlook with traditional Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Dante (as Lewis clearly was) does not automatically make one a crypto-Catholic. This same irritating tendency shows up in Pearce's most recent books on Shakespeare and Catholicism.

[Kevin Estabrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the back cover: "Leaving no stone unturned, Pearce examines the historical, biographical, theological, and literary elements of Lewis's life to shed light on the beguiling question of Lewis's relationship to the Catholic Church".

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I held the book in one hand, and my iphone in the other to add so many of the references to my amazon wish list!

[Gary Beckmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it was well written. The research seems well done. Unfortunately, towards the end Mr. Pearces's biases come roaring out. Ah well, these type of inter-church struggles are one of the things that drove Lewis up the wall.

[Kara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and repetitive. I couldn't make it all the way through.

[Corwin Slack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very useful biographical information about CSLewis but rather chauvinistic and uncharitable about his reasons for not converting to Catholicism.

[Luke Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lewis has been influential in broadening my evangelical horizons to the more historical “mere” Christianity of his Puritania. The Puritania of my own upbringing led to the full embrace of Mother Kirk.

Like many, as Pierce describes, Lewis is invoked as influential to many Catholic converts in a way that Lewis himself did not participate in himself. Novelist Walker Percy calls Lewis Moses, who led others to the promised land that he did not enter into himself.

Lewis had quite the hold on the imagination of the evangelical Protestant homeschool world of my youth and undergraduate community. Despite passing references to the movement of Aslan, Lewis’ clarity, brilliance, and love of beauty cultivated the imagination with the stuff of the deeper magic.

There is much of Lewis that is scandalous to the evangelical imagination. Without his practical grandfathering in, his talk of confession, purgatory, and sacraments had been both alien and captivating to me but would have been tossed out of hand. As he spoke of disguising theology in science fiction and children’s stories, he snuck sacramental theology into the minds of young evangelical Protestants.

Pierce creates a very biographical picture of Lewis’ journey. He is able to demonstrate how the identity, familial, political and ethnic tensions that Lewis inherited as an Ulster youth impacted his lifelong interaction with the Church and Catholics in general.

The question of whether Lewis would have embraced the Church considering the increasing liberalism of the Anglican church that he spoke against in particular is an interesting but ultimately unknowable question.

Despite the fact that Lewis never became Catholic, his catholic imagination certainly inspired many to do so (myself included), and I think we have much reason to hope and expect:

He is now.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN ENLIGHTENING STUDY OF LEWIS’S RELATION TO CATHOLICISM, ETC.

Author Joseph Pearce wrote in the Preface of this 2003 book, “the contending parties who might take opposing views on the whole contentious subject of C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church fall into four distinct categories: First, there are those who despise both Lewis AND the Catholic Church… Second, there are those who admire Lewis but dislike the Catholic Church… Third are those who admire the Catholic Church but dislike Lewis… Finally there are those who admire both Lewis AND the Catholic Church… This book was written with the second and fourth groups in mind. I have written for those who share my love for Lewis, regardless of whether they share my love for the Catholic Church… I am a Catholic… My conversion was influenced largely by Chesterton and Belloc, though Lewis’s role was not insignificant. To a degree, therefore, my work is not merely a labor of love, but also an act of thanksgiving.” (Pg. xxviii) [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 175-page paperback edition.]

He points out, “There is… little doubt that the first twenty years of C.S. Lewis’s life were dominated by the influence of Puritania and by his desire to escape from it.” (Pg. 3) He continues, “Consciously or unconsciously, Lewis reacted against the more Puritanical strictures of Ulster Protestantism.” (Pg. 5) Later, he adds, “Returning to Oxford after the world, Lewis found his own immature atheism being tossed once more into the eclectic cauldron of competing ideas… Lewis was, however, becoming more sympathetic to Catholicism, or, at least, he was becoming more sensitive to prejudiced puritanical attacks upon the Catholic Church.” (Pg. 25)

He notes, “The effect on Lewis of reading ‘The Everlasting Man’ was staggering. Ever since discovering Chesterton, Lewis had continued to read his works… enjoying the charm of their goodness but refusing to be charmed by their Christianity… Lewis’s atheism had been shaken to its foundations y Chesterton’s book. It would be a further six years before, under the influence of another Catholic, he would finally accept the Christian faith as his own. There was, however, no going back to the naiveté of his youthful atheism. Life after ‘The Everlasting Man’ would never be the same.” (Pg. 29)

He observes, “Lewis was indebted to Tolkien for his final conversion to Christianity.” (Pg. 36) He continues, “For Lewis the friendship was even more important. Had he never met Tolkien, it is possible that his ‘long pilgrimage’ would never have reached its conclusion… Lewis was discovering that the old prejudiced notion that he should ‘never trust a Papist’ was a cankerous and cantankerous lie. Had he never trusted a Papist… he might never have met Christ. Certainly the path he had taken to ‘mere Christianity’ was very largely the Roman road along which guides such as Chesterton and Tolkien… had led him.” (Pg. 40-41) He adds, “It was hardly surprising that many people perceived that Lewis had become a Catholic… But Mr. Lewis, who was an Anglican, did not see it so.” (Pg. 57)

He comments, “In spite of Lewis’s apparent lack of understanding of the [Catholic] Church’s teaching [on Purgatory], he seems to have stumbled… on the Church’s true position… Lewis handles the whole question of heaven, hell and purgatory in a manner with which Catholics need not feel awkward.” (Pg. 108)

He states, “unlike Lewis, [Chesterton] answered ‘the very fascinating … question of what is the present seat of authority for the proclamation of that creed’ by his eventual reception into the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, the most striking difference between Chesterton and Lewis is the extent to which one pursued the ‘very fascinating question’ and the avoided it.” (Pg. 120) He continues, “The principal difference [between Lewis and Chesterton]… is a difference of principle. Chesterton placed at the center of his quest for the essence of Christianity, the Apostles’ Creed; Lewis placed at the center of his quest, the Book of Common Prayer… [Lewis] would evolve into a very Catholic sort of Protestant or, perhaps, a very Protestant sort of Catholic.” (Pg. 124-125)

He argues, “Lewis felt it difficult to broach the subject of the Church… or churches, for fear of opening the Pandora’s box of denominational differences and difficulties… Lewis’s own sacramental approach suggest that … the absence of any full discussion of the role of the Church must be seen as a sin of omission.” (Pg. 130-131) Later, he adds, “As Lewis approached the end of his life there is little doubt that he was continuing the ascent towards the ‘High Church’ principles of Anglo-Catholicism. There is also little doubt that the ascent was caused by his assent to those truly Catholic principles that represented not mere but more Christianity.” (Pg. 143) He notes that after Lewis’s heart attack in 1963, “his Anglo-Catholic friends arranged for an Anglican clergyman to administer extreme unction.” (Pg. 147)

He explains, “In his article ‘Priestesses in the Church?’ Lewis warned of the practical dangers of female ordination… there is little doubt that the issue has proved an explosively divisive force within the Church of England in the forty years since Lewis’s death. The issue was itself, however, merely symptomatic of a more prevalent problem within the Anglican communion---the debilitating theological disease of modernism.” (Pg. 157-158)

He summarizes, “As far as the present position of Lewis’s ‘mere Christianity’ is concerned, forty years after his death, it can be seen that its place within the Anglican church has become extremely tenuous… Mercifully perhaps, Lewis died thirty years before his fears about the ordination of women became reality… Since the Anglican church has decided to cut itself off from the Christian past by making the priesthood merely another ‘job’ and not a pre-ordained and masculine function instituted by Christ, where does it leave Anglicanism[?]… Having moved so far in the modernist direction since Lewis’s death, has Anglicanism become something less than ‘merely Christian’? If so, where would Lewis stand in relation to the Anglican church were he alive today?” (Pg. 161-162) He adds, “There is no doubt, however, that he would have felt strangely out of place in today’s Anglican church… The sobering truth is that even if Lewis had not chosen to leave the Church of England, the Church of England has chosen to leave him… Lewis, it seems, has been abandoned by his own church but embraced by Catholics and evangelical Protestants.” (Pg. 167-168)

This is a fascinating and enlightening study of Lewis, that will be of great interest to anyone studying Lewis and his theological ideas.

[w gall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written from the point of view that the Roman Catholic Church is unquestionably and obviously the true Faith, in this book we find C.S. Lewis criticized relentlessly for not recognizing this. As an Orthodox Christian. I can see the author's point in some of the specific weakness of Lewis' ecclesiology and stance toward the Saints. But the author uses the word "development" (of doctrine) in such a way that affirms Roman Catholic develooment while the developments of all other Confessions are bad. What then becomes of that which "has been once for all delivered to the saints?" Of course the answer is that this development is simply the clarification of that which has been once for all delivered in the face of new questions. This is declared not only by the Roman Catholics, but also by the Orthodox, whose answers are different. The author's smug tone can be detected throughout the book, on the basis of his unquestionable Roman Catholic faith. All non-RC Christians will take issue with this unquestionability. But it was interesting to discover C.S. Lewis from another point of view.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. It gave me a deeper understanding of Lewis’s religious upbringing and spiritual journey, as well as a deeper understanding of the Protestant/Catholic division, church history and doctrinal differences. There is much irony in Lewis’s clear struggle with inherent prejudices against the Catholic Church on one hand and his high church, orthodox beliefs on the other. Pearce does a very thorough job of sorting through all of Lewis’s writings and correspondence and presenting the relevant aspects in an organized and understandable way. Pearce also presents this information in an unassuming manner and hedges his arguments in a way that is reminiscent of Lewis’s own argumentative style, which I think Lewis would appreciate.

[Matthew C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pearce provides a wealth of insight into Lewis' history interacting with the Roman Catholic Church and its theological distinctives. A number of private letters of Lewis and his friends were valuable to understanding this man's ecclesiology.

Obviously this book has somewhat of a bias towards Catholicism and may be guilty of reaching too far when it (partly) blames Lewis' position on his Ulster prejudices. Pearce seems not to appreciate the positive reasons for Lewis remaining a Protestant, such as his very Reformed understanding of grace and the new birth evinced especially in his work on English Literature of the Sixteenth Century, a work that some have recognized as a reinforcement of his Protestant beliefs.

[James Murray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lewis was a fascinating and damaged individual.
Many, many books have been written about his spiritual journeys, this is one of a few that point to his obvious fascination with Church of Rome.
It should be clear to anyone who has read Lewis and or credible biographies about him, that his faith was a personal amalgamation of experience, hope, friendship, love and longing. Definitely a tortured soul, he was a searcher, like all of us.
I believe, that the "real Lewis," is found in the pages of the Narnian chronicles. Here is the most transparent account of his belief and the creation of a world that welcomes all.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

“C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church” was an excellent read. Brings together the life, Christianity, and writings of C.S. Lewis in an informative and readable book. The author has provided me with better understanding of the “big” differences between the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church thru the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. The introductions were very good in their respective in preparing the reader for the this highly readable book. This is an excellent source for additional reading references. Highly recommend. Experienced as an Audio book.

[Monique Amado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I had wanted to read this book for years, once I got it, it took me a very long time to get through it, mainly because of the author's uppity tone throughout, not that surprising, I suppose, considering his white supremacist past which also involved a heavy sense of superiority. Having said that, he's clearly a skilled writer and excellent researcher and, despite my experience with this particular book, I do still want, and intend, to read his autobiography about said white supremacy 'Race with the Devil', as well as 'Literary Converts' and his biography on Oscar Wilde.

[Patricio Bringas LC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un gran libro para entender la relación que uno de los autores cristianos más importantes del siglo pasado tuvo con la Iglesia de Roma. Cualquier lector que se acerque a este libro lo hará con una pregunta: ¿entró Lewis realmente en la Iglesia católica? y el autor sabrá guiarlo magistralmente no hacia una respuesta única y categórica, sino que le proporcionará los datos necesarios para que él mismo pueda hacer un juicio. Altamente recomendable para los fans de C.S. Lewis, sean católicos o no.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and thoughtful look at C.S. Lewis and his beliefs. Clearly, he was influenced by Catholicism but never could accept it. Although Pearce is Catholic, this comes off as a fair minded look at a complex, stubborn, and brilliant human being.

[Brace1737 · Rating 2 out of 5]

You have to be well-versed in the writings of C.S. Lewis to grasp the argument that Joseph Pearce makes in this scholarly study of Lewis's spiritual beliefs.