C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was a British writer, literary scholar, and lay Christian apologist who became the most widely read popular defender of orthodox Christianity in the twentieth century. Born in Belfast, he spent his academic career at Oxford and later Cambridge, while producing an extraordinary range of works spanning literary criticism, apologetics, fiction, and children's literature. His BBC radio broadcasts during World War II, later collected as Mere Christianity, distilled core Christian belief in accessible, rational prose and reached millions of listeners across the English-speaking world. Works such as The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, and the Chronicles of Narnia extended his influence far beyond academic theology into popular culture and children's imagination. Though deeply formed by Anglican practice and medieval literature, Lewis deliberately wrote in a transdenominational register, defending what he called "mere Christianity" — the shared core of historic Christian faith — rather than any particular confession.