INTRODUCTION
Welcome to my NEW series devoted to clarifying whether or not C.S. Lewis wrote something you’ve seen quoted in a book and/or shared on social media. Each WEEK you’ll see a modestly created graphic that summarizes the results of the examined quote/passage. Usually, at least TWO quotations are examined that were asked by members of my Confirming C.S. Lewis Quotations Facebook group. However, below I’m only presenting one in this debut.
Unless there is a reason to make an exception, none of the quotes in this series are covered in my book, The Misquotable C.S. Lewis. If you wonder what I’ve explored in that book, then you should consider visiting the central online location I created before that book came out where you can find almost all of the quotations.
1.1 – “C.S. Lewis observed…”
“C. S. Lewis observed that almost all crimes of Christian history have come about when religion is confused with politics. Politics, which always runs by the rules of grace, allures us to trade away grace for power, a temptation the church has often been unable to resist.”
The first passage under the spotlight is not actually claiming to be a quotation from Lewis. Instead, it is clearly meant to present a paraphrase or summary of his thoughts. However, sometimes this is where falsely attributed quotations come from; that is, a well-meaning person will not pay careful attention to the fact that quotation marks are not used and unintentionally share it as though Lewis wrote it. Additionally, some may wonder whether or not when Lewis is not quoted directly if he is being presented accurately.
The quotation in question is found in Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? which was first published in 1997. Some may wonder why he did not use an exact quote but choose to summarize Lewis. The most common reason to not directly quote an author is either because the point being made is better presented in paraphrase form, or there is a question of whether or not permission is needed to quote a lengthy passage. Meaning, the copyright holder might charge a fee for the use of a lengthy quote.
