The Famous Atheist at Oxford
C.S. Lewis was the most famous atheist at Oxford University. As a professor of medieval literature, he prided himself on rational skepticism. God, he believed, was a myth for the weak-minded.
But conversations with his colleague J.R.R. Tolkien began to chip away at his certainty. Tolkien challenged Lewis's assumption that Christianity was just another myth by pointing out that this particular myth actually happened in history.
The Steady Unrelenting Approach
One evening in 1931, Lewis sat in his room at Magdalen College and felt, as he later wrote, "the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet." He knelt and admitted that God was God, calling himself "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
The Greatest Communicator
From that conversion, Lewis went on to write some of the most influential Christian works of the 20th century: "Mere Christianity," "The Screwtape Letters," and "The Chronicles of Narnia." His BBC radio broadcasts during World War II reached millions.
The professor who tried to outthink God became one of Christianity's most articulate defenders. The skeptic who dismissed faith became faith's greatest communicator to the modern mind.
