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Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016 Volume 9 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Ninth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on Article 10 C.S. Lewis & Friends 5-29-2014 Lewis in the Dock (Part 2): A Brief Review of the Secular Media's Coverage of the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis's Death Richard James Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation James, Richard (2014) "Lewis in the Dock (Part 2): A Brief Review of the Secular Media's Coverage of the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis's Death," Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016: Vol. 9 , Article 10. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol9/iss1/10 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings 1997-2016 by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume IX A Collection of Essays Presented at the Ninth FRANCES WHITE EWBANK COLLOQUIUM on C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS Taylor University 2014 Upland, Indiana Lewis in the Dock (Part 2): A Brief Review of the Secular Media’s Coverage of the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s Death Richard James James, Richard. “Lewis in the Dock (Part 2): A Brief Review of the Secular Media’s Coverage of the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s Death.” Inklings Forever 9 (2014) www.taylor.edu/cslewis Lewis in the Dock (Part 2); A Brief Review of the Secular Media’s Coverage of the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s Death Richard James In 1999, I presented a paper here at published in syndication or reposted on this colloquium on the secular print media's someone’s blog were only counted once. response to the 1998 C.S. Lewis Centenary Celebration. In 2014, it seems only natural to Six Syndicated Columnists Who Wrote do a similar paper on the secular media's About C.S. Lewis coverage of the 50th anniversary of Lewis's and the 50th Anniversary of His Death death which also included the dedication in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey of a I begin my review of the responses memorial stone in his honor. The number of with six syndicated columnists. Four of these articles again abounds, even more than in – Cal Thomas, Michael Gerson, Ross Douthat, 1998. and Eric Schulzke are weekly news This paper will consider articles by columnists. The other two – Sarah Pulliam syndicated literary, news and religious Bailey and Terry Mattingly focus more on the columnists from secular newspapers and religious side of the news. All six are periodicals; internet postings by public TV published in both national and regional and secular cable news websites; print, audio secular news outlets. and video coverage by the BBC; plus, one Thomas, also a broadcast journalist, article posted on Aljazeera and another one writes for the Tribune Media Services and is that is a large multi-color section in a published in over 500 newspapers. Gerson, Delaware newspaper. Therefore, I will not be possibly better-known as a former speech sharing any reports or opinions from any writer for President George W. Bush and as a non-secular sources, any Lewis-related political commentator on the “PBS conferences or any news site or blog who are NewsHour” and “Face the Nation”, has a themselves directly promoting the life and twice-a-week op-ed column for the works of C.S. Lewis. Washington Post Writers Group. Ross When we seek merely to consider the Douthat, formerly a senior editor at The number of reports made by the secular media Atlantic, has, since 2009, been a regular op-ed about both the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s columnist for the New York Times. Columnist death and his being honored at Poets’ Corner, Eric Schulzke, writes on national politics and I found, in my own search on the internet and policy for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. through library accessible databases, close to Sarah Pulliam Bailey, formerly online editor 200 separate secular accounts plus that many for Christianity Today, is a national more that are non-secular or directly correspondent for the Religion News Service connected to C.S. Lewis. Those articles (RNS), covering faith, politics and culture. Terry Mattingly, a journalism professor, Lewis in the Dock (Part 2) · Richard James writes [quote, unquote] “On Religion”, a Schulzke reviews their basic beliefs, weekly column for the Universal Syndicate how each died and also includes several which appears in about 350 newspapers. quotes from their biographers and friends, When we focus on the headlines of noting that “their three divergent paths each of these columnists, three of them – remain compelling models to millions of Thomas, Schulzke, and Douthat - chose to skeptics and seekers alike.” He ends by highlight each of these famous men dying on stating that the same day, November 22, 1963, fifty years ago. “reasonable minds may differ in In Thomas’s opinion “Lewis remains weighing the spiritual paths of perhaps the 20th century’s most towering Huxley and Lewis. Few, it seems, are intellectual practitioner of the Christian asking the same question about John faith”. From an older generation, Thomas F. Kennedy.” views Mere Christianity as “perhaps his most - Schulzke, Eric. influential work”. He closes stating that “50 years ago today, Kennedy, Huxley and “some people long for another C.S. Lewis followed different paths to the grave”. Lewis, but the original should suffice Deseret News (Salt Lake City) (November 22, for at least another 50 years.” 2013) - Thomas, Cal. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86559 1037/50-years-ago-Kennedy-Huxley-and- “Kennedy, Huxley and Lewis“. The Chicago Lewis-followed-different-paths-to-the- Tribune (November 15, 2013) grave.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns- 201311151030--tms--cthomastq--b- and The Steuben Courier Advocate (NY) a20131115-20131115,0,381216.column http://www.steubencourier.com/article/201 31121/NEWS/311219990/10122/ and World Radio LIFESTYLE https://soundcloud.com/world-news- group/the-influence-of-c-s-lewis ) and Peoria Journal Star (IL) http://www.pjstar.com/article/20131121/N and Louisville Courier Journal EWS/311219991/10940/LIFESTYLE http://www.courier- journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013 Douthat suggests that “pausing amid 311170035 [November’s] Kennedy-anniversary coverage to remember the two British-born writers and Bowling Green Daily News offers a useful way to think about the J.F.K. http://www.bgdailynews.com/opinion/com mythos as well.” His observes that “the mentary/kennedy-huxley-and- impulses driving the Kennedy nostalgists are lewis/article_1574dd54-f0b0-5eeb-acd6- the same ones animating Lewis’s Puddleglum 63bfb1aaddb7.html (from The Silver Chair) and Huxley’s Savage (a character at the end of Brave New World). All and Omaha World Herald three viewpoints, he writes, have a desire http://www.omaha.com/article/20131126/ NEWS08/131129110/1677 “for grace and beauty, for icons and heroes, for a high stakes dimension and Townhall to human affairs that a consumerist, http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/ materialist civilization can flatten 2013/11/14/kennedy-huxley-and-lewis- and exclude.” n1745883 - Douthat, Ross. Lewis in the Dock (Part 2) · Richard James “Puddleglum and the Savage”. New York and Knoxville News Sentinel Times (November 23, 2013) http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/nov http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opini /30/terry-mattingly-50-years-after-death-cs- on/sunday/douthat-puddleglum-and-the- lewis-is/?partner=yahoo_feeds savage.html and Evansville Courier & Press and Anchorage Daily News http://www.courierpress.com/news/2013/n http://www.adn.com/2013/11/24/3194234 ov/29/50-years-after-death-cs-lewis- /ross-douthat-even-jfk-skeptics.html popular-ever/ and St. Paul Pioneer Press and Abilene Reporter News http://www.twincities.com/columnists/ci_24 http://www.reporternews.com/news/2013/ 607269/ross-douthat-kennedy-puggleglum- nov/29/50-years-after-death-cs-lewis-is-as- and-savage?IADID=Search- popular-as/ www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com Gerson turns to Lewis as what he calls and News and Observer (Raleigh) “our guide to the good life”. To do this he tells http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/11/28 us that Lewis does two things: first, his /3413249/jfk-lewis-huxley-calculating- writings help us to deal with what Lewis calls comfort.html “the poison of subjectivism”, helping us realize the need and importance of an Writing on Lewis’s 115th birthday and “objective standard of good”; and second, his looking back fifty years to the date of his writings also help us realize that death and to the honors he received at Westminster Abbey this past year, Mattingly “our deepest, unsatisfied desires for states that “the entire Lewis canon is as joy, meaning and homecoming are popular as ever” noting that “researchers not cruel jokes of nature. They are struggle to total the numbers” that are meant for fulfillment.” And for Lewis somewhere over 100 million copies sold, just this was found in Christianity. for the Narnia books. Yet on the other hand, - Gerson, Michael. he writes that “C.S. Lewis, our guide to the good life”. ”many academics and liberal Washington Post (November religious leaders still see Lewis as 21, 2013) “far too popular to be taken http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ seriously.” michael-gerson-cs-lewis-our-guide-to-the- - Mattingly, Terry.
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