Friday, October 27, 2023

It is the 27th of October 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Stay with me, friends. As you might know, today I am in beautiful San Diego, California, for the Here We Still Stand conference- the hardest ticket to get in Christian conferencing. And, you might know that while you can’t come, you can livestream at 1517.org. And another thing, you might know that the theme for this year is C.S. Lewis, and I have been tasked with giving his biography or something like that. And, as I have various plates spinning, tomorrow on the Weekend Edition, you are going to get something like a biography of C.S. Lewis that will augment my talk. All of this to say, I was delighted in my customary search of dates to find that today, the 27th of October, is the birthday of author A.N. Wilson. If you are into C.S. Lewis, it might ring a bell.

A.N. Wilson, born on this day in 1950, has written some 50 books and, by his account, over a million words for newspapers. In the British literary scene, he is well known- an Oxford grad and acquaintance of both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Tolkien, among many others.

He would become famous, or infamous, for his biography of C.S. Lewis 1990’s “C.S. Lewis: A Biography”.

While some reviews from the standard literati praised the book style, those with a firm grasp on the life and other biographies of Lewis, not to mention Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy, were critical. One review called it “humorous, light in tone, deftly written… but has the unfortunate condition of not being terribly accurate”. One review called it the “best ‘bad’ biography.” Another, calling attention to the considerable amount of psycho-history employed by the author, called it “Surprised By Freud.” Kathryn Lindskoog, a Lewis scholar, wrote:

“The good news is that Wilson is dramatic, entertaining, and nimble-witted, a writer who lightly tosses words and ideas into the air for the fun of seeing what he can do to please the public while skewering anyone handy. The bad news is that when illusion is more fun than reality, Wilson chooses illusion. He claims to be smashing two images of Lewis, but in fact, he is smashing three. And he sets up a brand new Lewis image of his own, one that makes him look very clever at Lewis's expense.”

But a questionable biography of this weekend’s star attraction wouldn’t be enough for me to tell you about A.N. Wilson. What’s more interesting than his tenuous take is his own life.

He was born in Staffordshire on this day in 1950. He would attend Malvern- the “public” which for Americans means “private” school- where he had a similar bad time to Lewis. At Oxford, he married a scholar nine years his senior and had a self-confessed horrible marriage. His life is tragic in many ways- what must be the first of his memoirs, 2022 “A.N. Wilson Confessions: A Life of Failed Promises” lays much of this out. For instance, he was secretly baptized by his mother to the anger of his atheist father. He had considered a career in the ministry before his love affair and career as a provocateur. In his biography, he wrote of his earlier self that he was “so thrustingly ambitious, so full of himself, so unfaithful, not only to his wife but to his own better nature.”

In a 2009 article, he admitted that by the age of 38- about the time he was working on the Lewis biography he had become a “born-again atheist.” He wrote of this time around 1989 of  “the inner glow of complete certainty, the heady sense of being at one with the great tide of fellow non-believers.”

In an article in 2009, he wrote, “My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting.” He has since returned to the faith. His memoir was light on the subject, but in that 2009 article, he wrote of his conviction:

“No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena – of which love and music are the two strongest – which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true.”

His story is remarkable, from a would-be priest or African missionary to Oxford Cad, self-confessed knave to reluctant convert. The most recent editions of his Lewis biography have some edits, but it would be curious to see him take another crack at the life of Lewis. A.N. Wilson, born on this day in 1950, is 73 years old today.

The last word for today is from C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity- we have his Weekend Edition tomorrow, and then I promise a moratorium.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 27th of October 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by my favorite Puddleglum, Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by who can be a little Eustace Scrubb himself, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be OK.