Exploring C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Dr. David Downing, co-director of the Wade Center and Lewis scholar, discusses C.S. Lewis’s spiritual fantasy, THE GREAT DIVORCE. The book explores what might happen if inhabitants of hell were allowed to visit the outskirts of heaven, with the option of staying. Most decide not to, as they prefer the sovereignty of Self over the chance of salvation. Lewis brilliantly dissects the actions and attitudes that cause people to move away from God, locking the doors of their spiritual prisons from the inside.
This lecture was given at the Marion E. Wade Center on November 1, 2019 as a precursor to the Ballet 5:8 performance of “The Space in Between.” Both events were part of the 2019 Muriel Fuller Celebration of the Arts.
David C. Downing is the co-director of the Marion E. Wade Center, along with his wife Crystal Downing. He has written four scholarly books on C.S. Lewis and also provided a critical introduction and more than 400 explanatory notes to the Wade Center Annotated Edition of C.S. Lewis's THE PILGRIM'S REGRESS, originally published in 1933 and reissued by Eerdmans in 2014. Downing grew up in Colorado, graduated from Westmont College, and earned his Ph.D. from UCLA. Prior to coming to the Wade, he served as the R.W. Schlosser Professor of English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
Wade Call number: CSL-Y / VR-135

[@mytubex2]

12k views with only 3 comments? Something ain't right here.

[@jmorra]

love the story about the crabby lady during grad school...wonderful talk, and as usual, deep but accessible! Or should I say solid?

[@RobertCassar]

Brilliant