With their Christianity Latent: C. S. Lewis on the Arts

by David Naugle [1]
Introduction: Last Fall 2011 on sabbatical, I had the privilege of being a scholar in residence at the Kilns, C. S. Lewis’s old home in an outlying residential area called Risinghurst, just about three miles from Oxford and Oxford University. I didn’t know it when I arrived, but about three days into my time there, I found out I was staying in the room in which C. S. Lewis died. It was somewhat spooky, especially when I received an email from a friend which included this line, “Please say hello to C. S. Lewis’s ghost for me.”

There might be more to that, I thought, than he realized. Here’s the story of Lewis’s death, as I was told of it. On November 22, 1963, at about 4:00 p.m., Lewis’s brother Warnie served his brother his afternoon tea. About 5:30 p.m., about an hour and a half later, Warnie heard a crash, boom, bang coming from Lewis’s room. He rushed in, only to find Jack, as he was known to his family and friends, lying on the floor, unconscious. Scooping him up into his arms, Lewis remained unconscious and then died in his brother’s arms. Kidney failure, I understand, was the cause.

That would have been about 11: 30 a.m., North Texas time. About an hour later at 12:30 p.m., the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated on the streets of Dallas. I was in fifth grade and heard the word from my teacher, Miss Watkins. To be sure, the Kennedy assassination overshadowed the news about Lewis’s death.

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