The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University, where he later taught literature after service in World War I. In 1954, he was appointed to the chair of medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University, where he remained until his retirement. He died at the age of 64 on November 22, 1963.

Originally an atheist, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1929 and joined the Anglican Church. In the following decades, he became well known as a writer of Christian fiction and nonfiction. Lewis’s faith-based works began with the allegorical Pilgrim’s Regress in 1933 and continued with Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, Miracles, and others. He also became much beloved for his series of children’s fantasy books, The Chronicles of Narnia, based on Christian allegorical themes, as well as adult works of fantasy such as the Space Trilogy and The Great Divorce.

During World War II, Lewis began giving addresses on theological topics on the radio and in churches and university settings. Invitations to present sermons, lectures, and informal talks continued in the years after the war until 1956, when Lewis delivered his last sermon. Lewis’s talks spread his fame as a spokesman for Christianity capable of communicating with a wide audience on urgent moral and spiritual issues of the mid-20th century. A number of Lewis’s books grew out of his talks and lectures, including Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man, and The Weight of Glory. Although his tone and approach differ somewhat throughout the collection depending on each essay’s intended audience, the work as a whole embodies Lewis’s approach to apologetics: one rooted in accessible language, occasional humor, and personal candor.