The interview was first published in the September and October issues of Decision Magazine in 1963. It has been reprinted in God in the Dock.
The following is part 1 of an edited transcript of Dr. Wirt's remarks to the Society.
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| Sherwood Wirt's photo of C. S. Lewis |
I took a picture of C. S. Lewis. My artist drew a picture from it. I asked Lewis to step over to the window, and that picture was probably one of the last that was ever taken of him. Notice he has two sweaters and a coat on. This was taken in May, 1963. This was the way he actually looked. In the second issue we used an early picture of him. The reason my artist wanted to use it was because Lewis's back was there, and he says in that part, "I ride with my back to the engine."
I'll read the introduction I originally wrote to the interview, because it is not in the God in the Dock piece.
I drove to Cambridge, England, on May 7 to interview Mr. Clive Staples Lewis, author of The Screwtape Letters and one of the world's most brilliant and widely read Christian authors. I hoped to learn from him how young men and women could be encouraged to take up the defense of the faith through the written word.
It was quickly evident that this interview was going to be different from any that I had ever been granted. I found Mr. Lewis in a wing of the brick quadrangle at Magdalene College, Cambridge University, where he is professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature. I climbed a flight of narrow, incredibly worn wooden steps, knocked at an ancient wooden door with the simple designation, "Prof. Lewis," and was shown in by the housekeeper.
Passing through a simply furnished parlor, I came into a study that was quite Spartan in appearance. Professor Lewis was seated at a plain table upon which reposed an old-fashioned alarm clock and an old-fashioned inkwell. I was immediately warmed by his jovial smile and cordial manner as he rose to greet me; he seemed the classic, friendly, jolly Englishman. He indicated a straight-backed chair, then sat down, snug in his tweed jacket and two sweaters, and we were away.I said that a little bit later I decided to shift toward more open ground because the mettle of the man I was interviewing was evident. Well, the truth was that a terrible feeling came over me as I sat down. I have never forgotten it. I suddenly realized to my horror that I was over my depth, and for really the only time in my life that I have ever interviewed someone, I felt that I was in the wrong ball park. I had no business being there because I was not on the man's level intellectually, culturally, or any other way.
I had never felt that way before. I've interviewed President Eisenhower, and I've met Mr. Nixon, and Mr. Ford, and I've interviewed Eddie Rickenbacker, and Van Cliburn, and leaders of the church. None of these people threw me. But this man was different because he was a first-class intellectual and also a theologian. I am neither. I think of myself as a journalist--a reporter with some smattering of culture that I've picked up in various schools, but I realize it's pretty thin. I'm not trained in philosophy, and so when I sat down and started asking this man questions, I realized that he was going to have to lower himself to communicate with me. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.
Nevertheless, I had written out my questions, thank God, and I remember that while I said he was jolly as I came in--very friendly, big smile--once we sat down he was serious. He sat there quietly and smoked. He smoked incessantly. He would smoke a cigarette, then he'd put it out, then pick up his pipe, then he'd smoke that and put it down and light another cigarette. And through the blue haze he waited for my next question.
I would state the question and then he would answer it. I was working with pencil and paper because my tape recorder broke down. I had to make the best of it. I had to make up my mind whether to go into town and ask him to delay the interview for an hour. I just felt I couldn't do it. It would be like asking the President to postpone an interview. So I went with what I had. He didn't seem to like mechanical things anyway.
I would ask him to repeat his answer. And the thing I remember is that he would repeat it exactly the way he said it the first time. He didn't improve it one bit. This shook me because I thought some of his statements could be improved. For example, he said that a person who doesn't face up to the claims of Christ is guilty of inattention and bad thinking. Well, I would have put it differently. I would have used another term, a biblical expression. But when he repeated it, he said the same thing. So I respected his wishes and put it down just the way he said it.
This went on for an hour and a half, much longer than the usual interview. After that I noticed he was getting restless. You can tell the signs. And so I left. I drove back to London, to Shirley House, our Billy Graham office there, and went right to a typewriter, sat down, and typed the whole thing. I put in everything I could remember. So not much time elapsed, and I think I got the essence of it. Then the staff in London mailed a carbon back to Mr. Lewis, and he sent it back unchanged--without a single change. I never expected that. Anyway, he did approve it.
I have been gratified to see that it was picked up in a lot of magazines, and to see it beautifully edited in God in the Dock with footnotes. For, example, I hate to confess this to you, he mentioned Aslan, and I had never heard of Aslan.
That was another problem. My reading was limited to just a few of his books. I think I'd read That Hideous Strength, The Great Divorce, The Case for Christianity, The Screwtape Letters--a half dozen of his books. So, when I got to Cambridge, about an hour early, I went to a bookstore and got all of his books out and tried to get some kind of grasp as to what it was all about. I was so unprepared for this thing.
I had just come from Paris, from the Billy Graham Crusade, and had been completely absorbed in trying to write that story, and so did not properly prepare. And yet I got in where angels fear to tread, and who would have suspected that in two months he would have a fatal heart attack and four months after that he would be dead? In fact, the second part of the interview came out in October, and he died November 22nd. So, we published it just before his death. He was already completely unreachable as far as sending it back for corrections, trying to get additional information, or anything like that. It was just too late. So, that's the story.
At the close of the interview I asked him if he would step to the window. I didn't think the picture would turn out, but I was too bashful to ask him to come down by the steps.
One thing I didn't put in the interview is that he did make a remark at the beginning of the interview about the fact that he didn't necessarily hold the same view of scripture that Billy Graham did. I'm sharing that with you because later on he attacked the religious liberals vigorously, as you saw in the interview, for their position. He certainly held a high view of scripture, but whether it was exactly what we believe, verbal inspiration, I don't want to go into. I think we just have to accept him the way he is. (COMMENT: For example, he would consider the book of Job myth--not factual but nevertheless pure truth.) I think he said something like that to me about Job or Jonah. But his concept of myth was not the same as Union Seminary's.
You know, he and Dorothy Sayers and Ronald Knox used to get together and play games. They would try to figure out, using the principles of form criticism and biblical criticism, where Sherlock Holmes was born and whether he ever went to college. And I remember they found a scene in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories where he walks his dog past Oxford University, and they reasoned on the basis of typical historical criticism that he must have gone to Oxford. They had a lot of fun with that sort of thing.
Well, I got a letter from C. S. Lewis. I wrote to him in my brashness from Minneapolis--I think it was about in February of 1963, and said, "Could you let me interview you for Decision magazine?" and "Would you prefer that I send you the questions, or would you prefer that I come in person?" I got back a letter. It was on just a little piece of paper, and it was hand written with a quill pen, a steel pen. "Dear Mr. Wirt, I shall be happy to answer any questions if I know the answers, and I'd much rather do it by word of mouth than by pen." signed C. S. Lewis. The letter is now in Clyde Kilby's collection in Wheaton. You wouldn't believe it, but that same afternoon Billy Graham called me. That almost never happens. He called to tell me something or other. So, I said, "By the way, I just got a letter from C. S. Lewis saying that I can interview him in person." And Billy said, "Fine. You can do that during the Paris Crusade." That was the first I knew that I was going to Paris. So that little note was very gracious and friendly toward Billy Graham and the Association.
(The written content and photo in this post are copyright of the Sherwood Wirt Estate and The Portland C. S. Lewis Society.)
