Religion: Beyond the Wardrobe

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Colson and Warren represent what may be Lewis' most fascinating aspect: his posthumous migration from liberal to conservative icon. He was an Anglican whose natural first constituency was the old Protestant denominations. But by the 1960s the mainline's interest had shifted from core orthodoxies to social action. Screwtape, by contrast, advised that to damn a man, "get [him] at first to value social justice ... and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice."

Many mainline élites dropped Lewis, and his adult works might have gathered dust--were it not that Evangelicalism had just emerged dewy and hungry from the rigid chrysalis of Fundamentalism, eager for anyone, even a high-church Anglican, to popularize basic Christian tenets. Today it is Evangelicals who hold most of the Lewis conferences and write most of the Lewis books. They often present Mere Christianity to prospective converts or joyfully pass copies to those who are born again, along with a Gospel of John. Says Christian author Nancy Guthrie, whose new devotional The One Year Book of Hope (Tyndale) opens with a Lewis quote: "I used it because the sentiment was apt, but also because he's almost an inarguable voice" in her community.

To exchange the enthusiasm of one era's religious trendsetters for that of the next: that's a trapeze trick that would be the envy of many a living author. Lewis' fans hope the new Lion film will not only amuse kids but also attract more adults to his oeuvre, further extending a remarkable trajectory.