Phillips, Justin. C.S. Lewis in a Time of War.

McAnany, Emile G.

Phillips, Justin. C.S. Lewis in a Time of War. NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002. Pp. xi, 324. ISBN 0-0608-8139-9 (hb). $21.95.

This book is about C.S. Lewis the broadcaster. Most readers will recognize Lewis as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia (the inspiration for a recent film) or of a series of Christian apologetic books by an Oxbridge don from the 1940s and 1950s. This is a book about the little recognized work of Lewis as a BBC series broadcaster during World War II. The author is a former BBC radio journalist who combined interests in both journalism and Christian apologetics to dig out records of Lewis' wartime broadcasts from 1941 to 1944. He combines a brief biographical sketch of Lewis with an in-depth analysis of the prolonged interchange between Lewis and members of the BBC religious broadcasting staff from 1941 until a final broadcast in 1955. In doing so, Phillips sketches out the beginnings of a new approach to religious broadcasting in the UK beginning with the talks of Lewis that led to one of his most popular religious books, Mere Christianity.

In the course of early chapters, the author gives important BBC background as it entered WWII. The chapters focus on religious broadcasting and not so much on the better known general broadcast history of the BBC. Phillips reminds us that pre-WWII religious content was abundant and "permeated weekly programming like a river," but that it consisted almost exclusively on "broadcasting services, talks, and church music. Its contributors almost invariably men of the cloth ..." (p. 21). Many things changed abruptly on September 1, 1939 as Britain entered the war. Religious broadcasting was no exception. The remainder of the book emphasizes a major theme that post-WWII religious broadcasting at the BBC and elsewhere in the Anglophone world would downplay in-house traditional content like services and develop content by a wide variety of religious people who addressed Christianity's relevance to the larger secular world. In this transition C.S. Lewis was a critical figure.

Lewis was by the beginning of WWII a well known Oxford don who had taken on the task of Christian apologist in speaking and writing. His first more serious theological work, The Problem of Pain, was published at the beginning of the war and spoke to an England under siege of the Blitz from fleets of Nazi bombers. The new religious broadcasting head saw in the popularity of Lewis' writings and talks someone who could reach beyond the narrow confines of Anglican services and sermons to a wide variety of people who sought strength in their Christian beliefs. In a series of brief chapters, Phillips uses correspondence between the BBC and Lewis to detail the development of the first several series of talks that Lewis gave, beginning in late summer 1941 at a high point in the Blitz. Even though Lewis had been a popular speaker, he had never done a radio talk, and the author shows how he had to adjust his style and delivery to a different medium. The first series met with success and was followed soon after by a second and ultimately two more series. The second series was later published as Mere Christianity and became a popular book as well. By 1944, Lewis' major job as an Oxford professor and other writing commitments took him away from radio and his work for the BBC trailed off over the next decade.

Phillips provides a careful history of a small and unrecognized part of the C.S. Lewis' biography, but more important, he illuminates the beginning of a new phase of religious broadcasting for the BBC and many who followed its lead. The book is carefully researched, using primary sources and provides a detailed context of the war and the BBC's wartime role as well as a useful insight into Lewis' own life during this period. There are both appendices and a detailed index.

--Emile G. McAnany

Santa Clara University