Book Description

From May 31 to June 3, 2018, the 11th biennial Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends convened at Taylor University to consider “The Faithful Imagination.” Many of the essays and creative pieces collected in this volume explore the conference theme, focusing on the imaginative roots and shoots of these authors, all of whom, in their different ways, refused to envisage the imaginative life apart from faithfulness to truth. From considerations of the philosophical/theological roots of the imagination as theorized in Coleridge, MacDonald, Barfield, and Sayers, the essays branch out to look at the specific influences of family, war, love, trees, Belfast, death, romanticism, the Bible, and even hiking on the idiosyncratic imaginations of Lewis and Friends.

“The Faithful Imagination uncovers the life experiences that seasoned C.S. Lewis’s imagination: from the educational backgrounds of his parents to the devastation of their deaths; from his exhilaration with British trees to his despair in French trenches; from his assessment of Dorothy Sayers’s theology to his response to Joy Davidman’s sonnets. Adding new flavors are scholars who pair Lewis with unlikely authors, such as H.P. Lovecraft and L.M. Montgomery. The Faithful Imagination will not only satisfy but delight many palates.”
Crystal Downing, Co-Director of the Marion E Wade Center, Wheaton College and author of Writing Performances: The Stages of Dorothy L. Sayers.

"We live in a world that desperately needs more of the Inklings' wit, wisdom, and winsomeness. The Faithful Imagination contains something for everyone and represents one of the few new places where such things can be found."
Devin Brown, Professor of English at Asbury University and author of A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis

“There is magic when diverse minds delight in shared discovery – that is how the Inklings came to be, and it is how their legacy shall continue, as one sees and reads in this unique collection. The Lewis & Friends Colloquium is a rare learning environment, a taste of which is found in these pages. Fantastic fare indeed!”
Kirsten Jeffrey Johnson, co-editor of Informing the Inklings: George MacDonald & the Victorian Roots of Modern Fantasy.


Edited by: Joe Ricke & Rick Hill
Essays 
For the complete Table ​of Contents and Preface, click HERE


Table of Contents

​Preface: “A Balcony Perspective” by Ashley Chu

​Foreword: “Across the Threshold” by Crystal Hurd

​I. Essays on C. S. Lewis

​“Bookish, Clever People”: Exploring the Family
Influences of C. S. Lewis
by Crystal Hurd

​When Lewis Suggests More Than He States
by Devin Brown

​Lewis Underground: Echoes of the Battle of Arras
in The Narniad
by Vickie Holtz Wodzak

​C. S. Lewis’s Moral Law Apologetic and
Modern Evolutionary Biology
by Daniel F. Ippolito

​The Five Deaths of C. S. Lewis
by Jennifer Woodruff Tait

​Surprised by Walking: C. S. Lewis’s “Channel of Adoration”
by Kyoko Yuasa

​Faith Awakened in the Woods of Narnia
by Jim Stockton

II. Lewis and . . .

​C. S. Lewis’s Assessment of George MacDonald’s Writings
by Marsha Daigle-Williamson

​“Good Death”: What C. S. Lewis Learned from Phantastes
by Edwin Woodruff Tait

​C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman Disagree about a Phoenix
by Joe R. Christopher

​A Difference of Degree: Sayers and Lewis on the
Creative Imagination
by Gary L. Tandy

FOR COMPLETE LIST CLICK LINK ABOVE​

includes 20 colloquium photos
Joe Ricke is Professor of English and Director of the Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis and Friends at Taylor University. Ashley Chu is the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Taylor University.