C.S. Lewis died on November 22, 1963, just seven days shy of his 65th birthday on November 29th.

Today is the 49th anniversary of his passing, the same day that President John F. Kennedy and writer Aldous Huxley died.

In “Living the Legacy” of C.S. Lewis, we at the Foundation don’t seek to idolize the man or merely to memorialize him, but rather we see Lewis as a model of someone who lived as a Christian in higher education and who used his imagination and intellect in the service of Christ. Among many other qualities, he was ever-seeking, charitable, humble, and joyous.

Three areas Lewis often wrote and spoke about that particularly resonate with our mission are “Mere Christianity,” scholarship, and creativity. Who else has been able to so successfully write and lecture about topics as seemingly divergent as as science fiction, children’s fantasy fiction, scholarly nonfiction, and Christian nonfiction? If often amazes people that the writer of the Narnia series is the same person as the author of Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, and the scholar who wrote Preface to Paradise Lost and The Discarded Image.

Whether it’s the planned C.S. Lewis College, our Summer Institute at Oxbridge, the programs of The Study Centre at The Kilns (Lewis’s beloved home), or our conferences/retreats, we at the C.S. Lewis Foundation seek to infuse faith, creativity, and scholarship into all of our programs. We invite you to explore the ways you can do the same in your own life.

Over the next two years, to celebrate the ongoing legacy of C.S. Lewis and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death in 1963. the C.S. Lewis Foundation will present a series of events in the United States and England.

We will host events in San Diego (CA), Houston (TX), Oxford (UK), and Cambridge (UK). The first event in the series will be the C.S. Lewis Summer Conference in San Diego, June 19-23, 2013. Taking place at the University of San Diego, the conference will feature a wide range of noted C.S. Lewis scholars and performing artists. The theme is “Living the Legacy: The Vision, Voice, & Vocation of C.S. Lewis.”

In the fall of 2013, in Houston, the series will expand to include a commemoration of Lewis’s friend and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, who died 40 years ago in 1973. Both men were members of the famed literary group the Inklings. The theme of the event – “The Forge of Friendship: Tolkien, Lewis, & the Creative Impulse” – will explore the close friendship between these two men and how it influenced their lives, careers, and writing. The C.S. Lewis Regional Conference will take place in November 2013.

The culminating event of this celebration of Lewis’s life and legacy will be the 2014 C.S. Lewis Summer Institute. Also known as “Oxbridge,” this event is held every three years at distinguished colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, England. The conference will explore important contemporary themes with renowned scholars from the arts and sciences, leaders in ministry and the major professions, and literary, visual and performing artists. The ninth Summer Institute will take place in late July 2014, on the theme “Volumes of Vision: Human Excellence in the 21st Century?”

We have also just added two Summer Seminars at The Kilns for next summer as well as planning a potential Bus Tour of Lewis related sites in England, Wales, and Ireland.

For further information and for updates on the plans for these events, visit http://www.cslewis.org/programs/50thcelebration. For a list of events and dates, visit http://www.cslewis.org/programs/50thcelebration/list-of-events/