43rd anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis

While the world mourns the death of John F. Kennedy, Christians worldwide mourn the death of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis. Author of such notable and influential works such as Mere Christianity and the Screwtape Letters, Lewis provided me with a fresh look not only at the Scriptures but also at the philosophy in which I lived my life. Here are some very worthwhile quotes by him — others may be found at http://www.brainyquote.com .

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.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

And my favorite…

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Of note as well: philosopher Aldous Huxley along with JFK and C.S. Lewis passed away on the same day, November 22, 1963.

Praise God for the tremendous contribution Lewis made to evangelicalism and philosophy.