{"id":36,"date":"2005-11-29T08:19:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-29T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=36"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:40:10","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:40:10","slug":"today-is-jacks-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"Today is Jack’s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>We recently marked the 42nd anniversary of C.S. Lewis’ death<\/a>, but today is the 107th anniversary of his birth. Dr. Bruce Edwards<\/a>, Professor of English at Bowling Green State University<\/a> and a renowned Lewis expert, has an excellent birthday tribute to Lewis at his site, Further Up and Further In<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m excited that the upcoming screen adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/a> is bringing renewed interest in Lewis and his works. I recall fondly teaching a Sunday school class a few years back on The Screwtape Letters<\/a>. My particular denomination is not exactly well known for its intellectual rigor and interest in British authors, so I was a little concerned that no one would show up. Not only did they come, but there were so many that there wasn’t a classroom big enough to contain everyone and we had to move it to the church foyer and set up chairs.<\/p>\n

As I looked around, I noticed several older members who had copies of the book, probably dating from the late 50s or early 60s, with creased covers and yellowing, dog-eared pages. I suddenly realized that there were at least some in the Church of Christ<\/a> who were reading Lewis long before they were able to discuss his work openly in a Sunday school class. They had “come out of the closet” (or maybe I should say wardrobe!) and were eagerly satisfying at long last their hunger for richly layered discussion and an exploration of the role of the arts and the imagination in discipleship.<\/p>\n

I’m hoping (and expecting) that the upcoming movie will kindle this desire in a new generation and maybe even fan the flames in a few other “closet” Lewisphiles. In any case, “Happy Birthday Jack!” We are all better for having known you.<\/p>\n

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We recently marked the 42nd anniversary of C.S. Lewis’ death, but today is the 107th anniversary of his birth. Dr. Bruce Edwards, Professor of English at Bowling Green State University and a renowned Lewis expert, has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,22,33,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cs-lewis","category-christianity","category-churches-of-christ","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9154,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/9154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}