Lewis on how he saw himself as a Christian apologist
If only there were someone with a richer talent and more leisure, I believe [our culture’s theological] ignorance might be a help to the evangelisation of England: any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under cover of romance [fiction] without their knowing it. (Collected Letters, 2, July 9, 1939, 262)
The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world . . . . Yet the glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying Him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life” (“Christianity and Culture,” 1940; reprinted in Christian Reflections, 10 and 14).
My [apologetics] are praeparatio evangelica rather than evangelium, and attempt to convince people that there is a moral law, that we disobey it, and that the existence of a Lawgiver is at least very probable and also (unless you add the Christian doctrine of the Atonement) imparts despair rather than comfort . . . [Being an apologist is a job] one dare neither refuse nor perform. One must take comfort in remembering that God used anass to convert the prophet [see the story of Balaam’s ass in Numbers 22:24-31]: perhaps if we do our poor best we shall be allowed a stall near it in the celestial stall. (Collected Letters, 2, May 15, 1941, 484-85).
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. (“Is Theology Poetry?” 1945; reprinted in The Weight of Glory, 140)
Foolish preachers, by always telling you how much Christianity will help you and how good it is for society, have actually led you to forget that Christianity is not a patent medicine. Christianity claims to give an account of facts—to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.” (“Man or Rabbit,” 1946; reprinted in God in the Dock, 108-09).
Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbours was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. . . .
I hope no reader will suppose that "mere" Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions-as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.
It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling.
In plain language, the question should never be: "Do I like that kind of service?" but "Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?"
When you have reached your own room, be kind to those Who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.(“Preface” to Mere Christianity, 1953)
Most of my books are evangelistic, addressed to tous exo [those outside]. It would have been inept to preach forgiveness and a Saviour to those who did not know they were in need of either . . . When I began, Christianity came before the great mass of my unbelieving fellow-countrymen either in the highly emotional form offered by revivalists or in the unintelligible language of highly cultured clergymen. Most men were reached by neither. My task was therefore simply that of a translator—one turning Christian doctrine, or what he believed to be such, into the vernacular, into language that unscholarly people would attend to and could understand . . . [A finely shaded style] would have been worse than useless. It would not only have failed to enlighten the common reader’s understanding; it would have aroused his suspicion . . . One thing at least is sure. If the real theologians had tackled this laborious work of translation about a hundred years ago, when they began to lose touch with the people (for whom Christ died), there would have been no place for me. (“Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger,” 1958; reprinted in God in the Dock, 183)
Don W. King