How Can You Communicate Your Faith Clearly?

Communicating our faith in today’s world can be more effective if we learn to combine reason and imagination in our presentations. C.S. Lewis once argued that “Reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.” When we communicate our faith to non-believers, we need to consider not only the clarity of our logic, but the place of imagery, symbols, metaphors or stories, to bring home our message. Lewis argued that we don’t really understand anything, even a word, unless we have a picture with which we can associate it. A phrase used by another author, the “rhetoric of sensation,” means that we don’t understand an idea until it has been made vivid to our senses. C.S. Lewis was a master at working in both mediums. He was able to write theology with graphic images and fiction with profound theological themes imbedded in the narrative. Many have pointed out that every major idea in Lewis’s thinking was expressed in the Narnian Chronicles. This lecture allows us to learn from the master, C.S. Lewis, the importance of reason and imagination for our presentation of the faith, and thus help us become more effective in engaging with non-believers about the faith.

Study Questions

1.  Why is C.S. Lewis still so well known when he thought his books would disappear from publication when he died?
2. How did imagination, reason and will work together in C.S. Lewis’s conversion?
3. How do other worldviews attempt to “baptize the imagination” in order to spread their views?
4. How is the gospel the “myth become fact”?
5. How are literature and love related?
6. Why is the division between adult and children’s stories problematic?
7. As we speak to people, how can the relationship between reason and imagination be helpful?

Download the Study Guide:

COPYRIGHT: This publication is published by C.S. Lewis Institute; 8001 Braddock Road, Suite 301; Springfield, VA 22151. Portions of the publication may be reproduced for noncommercial, local church or ministry use without prior permission. Electronic copies of the PDF files may be duplicated and transmitted via e-mail for personal and church use. Articles may not be modified without prior written permission of the Institute. For questions, contact the Institute: 703.914.5602 or email us.