Week I ~ July 7 through 13, 2007
Week II ~ July 15 through 21, 2007
Week III ~ July 28 through August 3, 2007

Weeks I & II: "C.S. Lewis and the Truth of Imagination"
Seminar Leader, :  Dr. Malcolm Guite

The poet Keats was convinced of "the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination."  Lewis was both a brilliant writer of works of imagination and also a brilliant reader and interpreter of other people's work. What did he believe about myth and imagination? What kinds of wisdom and truth telling can we find in his fiction and poetry and in the work of the poets and imaginative writers who influenced him?

In the course of this week, we will explore Lewis' ideas about, myth, allegory, story telling and poetry, and share what he himself learnt from some of his great predecessors, from Dante to George McDonald, as well as from some of his great friends, such as Owen Barfield and JRR Tolkien.

For a course outline for weeks I and II, please download the PDF document by clicking here.

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Week III: "C.S. Lewis: Man of Reason and Imagination"
Seminar Leader:  Dr. Jerry Root

C. S. Lewis was a man whose vision of reality was such that he sought to adjust the scoliosis of his soul to the plumb line of Reality. When his childhood faith could not account for his early suffering he rejected it; and when his atheism was no longer robust enough to account for the world the way that it was, he rejected it and returned to Christianity. But, Lewis’s faith was not static; the truth of it was not to be denied; nevertheless, Lewis understood that truths we know can be plumbed more deeply, applied more widely in the face of new challenges, and can also be understood in relation to other truths.
Thus, Lewis’s faith developed over time. Something of his own pilgrimage can be seen when Lucy, in Narnia, observes, “Aslan, you’re bigger!” He responds, “No child I am not but every year you grow you will find me bigger.” So it was with Lewis; his commitment to objective reality, another way to say, Natural Revelation,” led him in his own development. This became twined with Scripture, or Special Revelation, after His conversion.

Our Kilns seminar sessions will look at books that reveal Lewis’s spiritual, intellectual and imaginative development. Our studies will begin with the Abolition of Man, a book where Lewis explains, explicitly, his objectivist commitments and how these marked his thinking and his sentiments. The rest of the books will be considered in the chronological order in which he wrote them. These are: Dymer; The Pilgrim’s Regress; Surprised by Joy; A Grief Observed; and Letters to
Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Each book sets forth significant bench marks in Lewis’s development that are sure to invigorate the thinking of seminar participants as we explore Lewis, and in the process, come to understand ourselves better as well.

Dr. Jerry Root

Adjunct Professor of Christian Formation and Ministry, Wheaton College, Illinois. Dr. Root is Co-Editor of The Quotable C.S. Lewis and author of many scholarly articles on Lewis. He has been reading Lewis for 32 years, teaching college and graduate courses on Lewis for 22 years, and has lectured on Lewis in many countries and on three continents. He served as Resident Fellow at the C.S. Lewis Study Centre at The Kilns in Oxford during the summers of 2002, 2003, and 2006. Previously a pastor of three congregations over 23 years, Root clearly exudes a pastoral heart that has deeply enriched the lives of all who have studied with him in the intimate setting of The Kilns..

To register, please click here.