Common Places

A lecture and Q&A session by Davenant Teaching Fellow Joseph Minich entitled "C.S. Lewis as Sage of Modernity: The Rhetoric of Miracles." Navigating what we call "modernity" remains a challenge for Christians. Indeed, defining modernity remains contentious. Are we currently in modernity? Or late-modernity? Or postmodernity? What kind of human life is possible in any of them? If the world at large remains confused about these questions, it is little wonder that the church is also. Yet we are not without guides as we find ourselves in the dark woods of modernity. The great Protestant scholar and writer C.S. Lewis stands above as one of the faithul Christian's chief companions in understanding and navigating the modern world - perhaps nowhere more so than in his book "Miracles". In this lecture, Dr. Joseph Minich argues that Lewis’ rhetorical approach to his contemporaries in "Miracles" — whether they be Christians or non-Christians — is radically shaped by his reading of modernity. Yet rather than view moderni