Evocative, Audience Centered) offers a framework for explaining why his message resonates with such power for so many people. Having high tea (literally) with Lewis who loved tea (he liked the Typhoo brand), liberally sweetened with several spoons of sugar, would have been a delight. He told Walter Hooper, “You can’t get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”136 Those who had that pleasure of having tea with Lewis speak of those cherished moments as indelibly memorable. Lewis was not only a scintillating conversationalist but an especially attentive listener. But since we cannot visit with Lewis personally, we can glean from his writing and speaking how he would have communicated (HI TEA) with us over a nice “cuppa” and a biscuit.
When C. S. Lewis died, on the same day at almost the same hour as President John F. Kennedy—November 22, 1963, he left a legacy that continues to inform, persuade, and inspire. This book argues that Lewis’s continued popularity, professional acumen, and his skill as a Professor of Communication stem in large part from an application of his principles and practices as a communicator. In a ←25 | 26→nutshell, C. S. Lewis holistically and intentionally crafted strategies to transpose his ideas and evoke appropriate emotions from his readers and listeners while keeping his focus on the most important aspect of communication—the audience.
Notes
1. C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 6.
2. C. S. Lewis, Letter to Thomasine, December 14, 1959, Collected Letters III, 1108.
3. See: Mark A. Pike, Mere Education: C. S. Lewis as Ethical Teacher for Our Time (Cambridge, England: Lutterworth Press, 2013); N. H. Keeble, “C. S. Lewis, Richard Baxter, and ‘Mere Christianity,’ ” in Christianity and Literature 30, 3 (Spring 1981): 27–44.
4. Richard Baxter, Church History of the Government of Bishops, 1680. Also see, Keeble, “C. S. Lewis, Richard Baxter, and ‘Mere Christianity,’ ” 27–44.
5. For a detailed discussion of some of Lewis’s communication miss-steps see: Bruce R. Johnson, “C. S. Lewis and the BBC’s Brains Trust: A Study in Resiliency,” VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review 30 (2013): 67–92.
6. Stephanie L. Derrick, The Fame of C. S. Lewis: A Controversialist’s Reception in Britain and America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Samuel Joeckel, The C. S. Lewis Phenomenon (Mercer: Mercer University Press, 2013).
7. Greg Albrecht, “The Enduring Legacy of C. S. Lewis,” Plain Truth Magazine (Summer 2012).
8. As quoted in: Mark Oppenheimer, “C. S. Lewis’s Legacy Lives on, and Not Just through the Wardrobe,” The New York Times (March 5, 2011), A18.
9. Oppenheimer, “C. S. Lewis’s Legacy.”
10. James T. Como, Remembering C. S. Lewis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 33.
11. Como, Remembering C. S. Lewis. Also see: Steven Erlanger, “The Chronicles of C. S. Lewis Lead to Poet’s Corner,” The New York Times (November 20, 2013). https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/21/books/the-chronicles-of-c-s-lewis-lead-to-poets-corner.html, accessed February 3, 2019.
12. The Daily Mail, London, England “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Is Voted UK’s Favorite Book,” (August 7, 2019). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7335205/The-Lion-Witch-Wardrobe-voted-UKs-favourite-book.html?fbclid=IwAR1pNubfey5DCIloCjGViPtK1Y3n4JGNrOfzN_AQUvpJYo4CM8Gx0PwxcTg
13. The Great American Read https://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/home/ accessed February 4, 2019.
14. Thomas M. Lessl, “The Legacy of C. S. Lewis and the Prospect of Religious Rhetoric,” Journal of Communication and Religion 27, 1 (2004): 117–137.
15. David Briggs, “Henri Nouwen Tops Clergy’s Reading Lists,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (October 4, 2003). http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/995088/posts accessed August 26, 2019.
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16. Briggs, “Henri Nouwen.”
17. Briggs, “Henri Nouwen.”
18. Christianity Today, “Books of the Century” (April 24, 2000). https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/april24/5.92.html
19. See: Joseph Pearce, Monaghan: A Life (Charlotte: TAN Books, 2016); Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006).
20. Christianity Today, “Books of the Century.”
21. Charles W. Colson, Born Again (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 1976), 130.
22. Colson, Born Again, 130.
23. Charles W. Colson, “The Conversion of a Skeptic,” Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis, ed. Mary Anne Phemister and Andrew Lazo (Friendswood: Bold Vision Books, 2017), 93.
24. See: Phemister and Lazo, Mere Christians.
25. See: Albrecht, “The Enduring Legacy of C. S. Lewis.”
26. For a discussion of less flattering
