2025 Plenary Talk | 49:06 | All Grade Levels, Culture & Faith, General Classroom, Literature
Summary
C.S. Lewis wrote extensively about the old geocentric model of the cosmos. He knew that it was not scientifically “true”, but valued it nonetheless for aesthetic and historical reasons, describing the seven heavens as spiritual symbols of permanent value that were especially worthwhile in his own generation. This talk examines how Lewis ingeniously used those spiritual symbols in his best-known works, the seven Chronicles of Narnia.
Speaker
Michael Ward is an associate member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, a professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University, and a distinguished visiting professor at Hillsdale College. Professor Ward is the author of the best-selling and award winning Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press) and of After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic). He co-edited The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis (Cambridge University Press) and presented the BBC television documentary, The Narnia Code. On the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis’s death, Dr Ward unveiled a permanent national memorial to him in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, London. He has a keen interest in cinema, co-authoring Popcorn with the Pope: A Guide to the Vatican Film List (Word on Fire), playing the role of Vicar in the film The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis, and handing a pair of X-ray spectacles to Agent 007 in the James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough. In real life, Ward is a Catholic priest who assists at Holy Rood Church, Oxford, alongside his academic work. His website is www.michaelward.net
Additional Materials
The Association of Classical & Christian Schools presents Repairing the Ruins, the ACCS annual conference, copyright ACCS. You may make additional copies of this recording for use by your school but please do not sell any copies of the recording, or post it on the internet.
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