Here’s the fourth regular show from my 90 second YouTube channel. The purpose is to help people briefly learn about significant events in the life of C.S. Lewis.
Note the text version of the show is below, WITH footnotes!
First BBC Radio Talk by C.S. Lewis (August 6, 1941)
Mere Christianity is, after the Narnia stories, Jack’s most well-known work. Are you aware it all began as a short series of radio talks on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)? In 1941 (over a decade before this classic apologetic work was released) Jack stepped up to the microphone on Wednesday, August 6th from 7:45 to 8:00 p.m. and gave the first talk.[1]
Selecting Jack to speak on the radio was definitely an unusual choice. He wasn’t well-known for anything at the time. He was approached by letter from Dr. James W. Welch (Director of Religious Broadcasting for the BBC) almost three months before the first correspondence from Screwtape made its debut in serialized form. Welch had been impressed with how Jack articulated himself in The Problem of Pain and hoped he would be willing to speak on the air.
“Common Decency” was the internal title given to the first talk from the series that was then known as “Right and Wrong: A Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.”[2] The debut talk was later called “The Law of Human Nature” when released in print.[3] Jack doesn’t introduce Christianity in this material, but lays a foundation for it, by getting people to acknowledge that we believe one “ought to behave in a certain way.”[4]
[1] See https://www.discovery.org/a/519/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Mere Christianity; pg. 7 (2009; Kindle Edition)
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Books mentioned in this episode:
- Mere Christianity
- The Problem of Pain
- The Screwtape Letters
- C.S. Lewis Goes To Hell: A Companion and Study Guide to The Screwtape Letters
- The Misquotable C.S. Lewis