C. S. Lewis and Anglicanism.

What has C.S. Lewis to do with Christmas? Well, nothing really-except that C.S. Lewis was the most influential Christian apologist of the 20th century, and Christian apologetics began on that starry Bethlehem night when shepherds abiding in the fields and keeping watch over their flocks by night discovered that the glory of the Lord was shining round about them, and heard the voice of an angel proclaim: "Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Some years ago the distinguished American novelist Walker Percy remarked how many converts to the Roman Catholic Church had been influenced by the writings of C.S. Lewis: "Books and readings figure here largely as one might expect, and the writers one might expect, from Aquinas to Merton, turn up. But guess who turns up most often? C.S. Lewis! Who, if he didn't make it all the way, certainly handed along a goodly crew."

The paradox is that C.S. Lewis himself never converted to Rome; he lived, and died (in 1963) a lifelong Anglican. In 1999 Joseph Pearce published a book called Literary Converts, a study of the stampede to Rome of (mostly) English authors and intellectuals in the twentieth century; men like G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Malcolm Muggeridge; I reviewed Literary Converts when it came out and I nominated it as the best Christian book of that year. (Editor: see also the contrasting new review on page 40.) Who better, then, than Joseph Pearce to explore the mystery of why C.S. Lewis chose not to follow the path he influenced so many others to take? In CS. Lewis and the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press), Pearce tries to find the answer.

Unfortunately despite Pearce's diligent research, and his insightful and balanced reflections, the answer finally eludes him. Pearce's answer to the paradox, namely that Lewis was never able to shake off his virulently anti-Catholic Belfast upbringing--I consider unconvincing. It may be part of the explanation but it is not the most important part.

I propose a simple answer: in the 1940s, '50s and early '60s, when Lewis' influence was at its zenith, it was still possible to regard the Church of England (particularly in its high church or Anglo-Catholic manifestations) as part of that "one holy, catholic and apostolic church" that all Christians who recite the creed profess to believe in.

Today, such a belief requires self-deception, or at least wilful blindness. In his time Lewis was spared the spectacle of the Anglican Church apologizing itself into near bankruptcy; the spectacle of Bishop Michael Ingham devising rites for same-sex unions; and the spectacle of New Hampshire Bishop Vicki Gene Robinson abandoning his wife and children to take up with a homosexual lover. In short, in C.S. Lewis' time, the Anglican Church was not yet the self-parody it has become.

Walter Hooper, Lewis' confidante, editor and biographer, sometime Anglican priest and most assiduous keeper of the Lewis' flame, in 1988 converted to Catholicism. He believes that Lewis would do likewise were he alive today.

And so do I. Lewis' longtime friend, Christopher Derrick, said in 1996: "It's difficult to imagine what Lewis would make of today's Church of England. The Church of England is such a pathetic ghost nowadays. You can't agree with it or disagree with it. There's just nothing there."

If C.S. Lewis were alive today, he would almost certainly be a Roman Catholic. That is the short answer--and, I believe, the most convincing--to the Lewis paradox.

Dr. Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario.