This month sees the centenary of the birth of C.S. Lewis, regarded as the greatest popular apologist for the Christian faith of the 20th century. Here, Professor Jim Packer gives his own assessment of the great man.
Clive Staples Lewis of Ulster (born in Belfast, 1898), of Oxford (fellow of Magdalen College, 1925-1954), and of Cambridge (Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature, 1954-1963), is looked upon as an old and helpful friend by many of today's Christians.
Countless copies of his Mere Christianity and Screwtape Letters have resourced the past half-century's evangelism and nurture, countless copies of A Grief Observed have helped bereaved believers, and countless copies of the Narnia stories have enriched half a century's children. Conservative Christians everywhere - centrists and mainliners, as I would call them - see Lewis as one of God's best gifts to our era, and it is proper that we should make much of him in this centenary year of his birth.
