The Reluctant Convert

A quote by C.S. Lewis who died on this day 50 years ago. I will always be grateful for the writings of this literary giant from the Emerald Isle. Perhaps like most other atheists, he was reluctant to accept the concept of a higher power because to him that would mean subservience and a kind of intellectual suicide. However, as he recounts in his partial autobiography 'Surprised by Joy': I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

He was living proof of the fact that belief in Christianity is not intellectual suicide, indeed to the contrary. One of my favourite quotes is: I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. With such clarity of thought and precision of expression, surely C.S. Lewis' writings have shed much sunlight on many aspects of the Christian faith over the decades, intellectually and practically. Along with many others, I fondly remember him today.

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