Dear Friend,
Greetings! We hope you are enjoying these cooler autumn days and that the upcoming holiday season will be a blessing for you and your families.
We regularly pray for our friends, supporters, and speakers. If you have a prayer request, simply reply to this email and let us know.
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We are excited to announce our May 2024 C.S. Lewis Writer’s Conference! We currently have an email waitlist where you can sign up for informational updates and notification on an official website as soon as it’s up and running. Read below for dates, details, and the waitlist sign-up link.
We would like to highlight other upcoming events in 2024 and 2025, along with several new books from friends of our community.
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Please partner with us today by making a gift towards our upcoming programs and outreach.
Join our community in encouraging and equipping Christians to live out their faith in the world of ideas and the arts.
Your gift will support the work and ministry of the C.S. Lewis Foundation and the regular preservation and upkeep of C.S. Lewis’s beloved home, “The Kilns.”
Thank you!
Steven Elmore President
The C.S. Lewis Writer’s Conference
May 2 – 4, 2024
Join us at Glen Eyrie, amid the dramatic backdrop of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, for the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s first Writer’s Conference co-hosted by Cultivating Oaks Press!
Our keynote speakers include:
- Lancia E. Smith, Publisher and Executive Director of Cultivating Oaks Press
- Steve Laube, literary agent and President of The Steve Laube Agency
- Sally Clarkson, best-selling author and co-founder of Whole Heart Ministries
- Jonathan Rogers, author of The Wilderking Trilogy and host of The Habit Membership and podcast
We currently have an email waitlist where you can sign up for informational updates and receive a notification once the conference’s official website and registration are up and running.
2024 – 2025 Upcoming Events
We have several important dates on our calendar for 2024 and 2025. Please be sure to mark your own calendars for one (or all!) of these events:
- May 2 – 4, 2024: The C.S. Lewis Writer’s Conference: Cultivating a Writer’s Life (Colorado Springs, CO)
- July 20 – August 3, 2024: The C.S. Lewis Summer Seminars (Oxford, England)
- November 1-3, 2024: The C.S. Lewis Conference & Faculty Forum, co-hosted by The C.S. Lewis Study Center (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA)
- July 24 – 30, 2025: The C.S. Lewis Summer Institute (Belfast, Ireland)
From Friends of our Community
Several friends of our community have recently released books about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, while another is about to launch a play about these two authors. Here are some brief descriptions about each project:
~ A Narnian Vision of the Atonement: A Defense of the Ransom Theory by Charles Taliaferro: How can we have redemption or atonement (at-one-ment) with God? Ancient Christians proposed a ransom theory, according to which God pays the ransom for us through heroic self-sacrifice so we can be liberated from the power of the demonic, sin, and death. This theory is widely rejected by philosophers and theologians, yet C. S. Lewis boldly portrays atonement in precisely such terms in his seven-volume The Chronicles of Narnia. In this book, philosopher Charles Taliaferro defends the integrity and beauty of redemption in these stories and offers a Narnia-inspired Christian theory of atonement.
~ Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway: Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” and declared, “I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories).” Yet he insisted his writings were not allegories, and Middle-earth is loved by millions who do not share his religious beliefs. How were his faith and his fiction related? Holly Ordway answers that question biographically, focusing on Tolkien’s spiritual development, a dramatic story that previous accounts of his life have left largely unexplored.
~ The Major and the Missionary: The Letters Of Warren Hamilton Lewis And Blanche Biggs by Diana Pavlac Glyer: After the death of his brother, Warren Lewis lived at The Kilns in Oxford, edited his famous brother’s letters, and did a little writing of his own. Then he got a letter from a stranger on the far side of the world. Over the years that followed, he and Blanche Biggs, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, shared a vibrant correspondence. These conversations encompassed their views on faith, their politics, their humor, the legacy of C. S. Lewis, and their own trials and longings. Their letters paint a colorful portrait that illuminates not only the particulars of distant times and places, but the intimate contours of a rare friendship. Lewis and Tolkien: Set in Oxford, England in the autumn of 1963 at the famous “Rabbit Room” of the Eagle and Child Pub, this play centers around C.S. Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) and J.R.R. Tolkien (who wrote The Lord of the Rings). Filled with humor, rousing debate, and reconciliation, the two men learn the true value of their friendship with a little help from a few pints of beer and the energetically curious barmaid, Veronica. Starring Philip Crowley as Lewis and Michael Beattie as Tolkien. Tickets on sale now for October 27 – December 3.
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Please enjoy one of our newest videos, a recording of our webinar with David Bentley Hart, “Baseball, Enchantment, and Children’s Literature.”
While you’re watching this recording, please subscribe to our channel to get automatically notified whenever we add a new video. And if you like one in particular, feel free to click the “like” button as it’ll trigger YouTube to recommend the video to others! For more information on our in-person events and online webinars, please visit www.cslewis.org. We hope you can join us in celebrating faith, reason, and imagination in the company of friends.
Donate to the C.S. Lewis Foundation
Inspired by the life of C.S. Lewis, we invite you to partner with us to equip and encourage Christians to make a difference by being salt and light to the culture around them. Know that your generous contribution will be given directly in support of programs, both at home and in the field, with the vision to restore a vital Christian presence throughout the world of learning and the culture at large.