15 February 2015

C. S. Lewis BBC Broadcast 21 March 1944


"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither...

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain


We all want progress.  But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.  If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

During the height of World War II, the BBC carried a series of radio broadcasts by C. S. 'Jack' Lewis, the Oxford don and good friend of fellow author J. R. R. Tolkien.

The broadcasts, which were immensely popular, were later gathered into a book, titled Mere Christianity.

Mere Christianity is a book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1942 and 1944. The transcripts originally appeared as three separate pamphlets: The Case for Christianity (1942), Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1944). 

Below is the broadcast titled Beyond Personality, and it is the only surviving recording which we have.  All the tapes of the other broadcasts were reused during the war effort.