A Deeply Protestant Lewis?
A Challenge to C. S. Lewis
By Peter Milward, S.J.
Cranbury, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995.
(138 pages; $29.50, cloth)
reviewed by Adam Schwartz
As the centenary of C. S. Lewis’s birth approaches in 1998, there likely will be a proliferation of books, articles, and conferences attempting to assess his significance. A substantial body of scholarship on his life and writing already exists, much of it biographical or dealing with his work as an apologist or fictionist. Peter Milward’s short book, though, seeks to “redirect Lewis scholarship away from an excessive attention to biographical details,” in the hope of promoting critical study of his former teacher’s ideas, particularly Lewis’s scholarly work, through the prism of his mentor’s religious beliefs: “I am for the first time surveying the academic writings of Lewis all together and exposing his deep commitment to the Protestant position.” Yet Milward’s analysis is deeply flawed. Although offering occasionally acute challenges to Lewis’s academic efforts, Milward’s exclusion of his fiction prevents a holistic appraisal of the topics he addresses. Moreover, his attribution to Lewis of what J. R. R. Tolkien called “the Ulsterior Motive” not only illuminates some areas of Lewis’s thought but also becomes a reductionist analysis at times, ultimately leading to a serious misreading of Lewis’s attitude toward modernity.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Adam Schwartz is Assistant Professor of History at Christendom College.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on C. S. Lewis from the online archives
18.3—April 2005
on Being a Free Narnian & the Joy of Subordination by Donald T. Williams
33.2—March/April 2020
Lewis, Chesterton, et al. Against the Frauds, Experts & Revisionists by Vigen Guroian
more from the online archives
14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
21.10—December 2008
Early Christian Teaching on the Incarnation & Redemption by Patrick Henry Reardon
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
