Vanauken:

Apart from Lewis, we read G. K. Chesterton, who with wit presented in The Everlasting Man and other works a brilliant, reasoned case for the faith. And Charles Williams, theologian and novelist, who opened up realms of the spirit we didn’t know existed, was tremendously important to us both. Graham Greene showed—terribly—what sin was, and what faith was—also terrible. Dorothy Sayers made Christianity dramatic and exciting, and attacked complacency and dullness like a scorpion. We had read T. S. Eliot for years, but now we began to see what he was really saying in Ash Wednesday and the Four Quartets—and it scared us, rather. His description of the state of being a Christian lingered in our minds: ‘A condition of complete simplicity/(Costing not less than everything).’ Everything!

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The Author

Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, First Things, Books & Culture, National Review, Comment, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. He is a contributing editor with Plough and a contributing writer at the Dispatch. He lives in his hometown of Lincoln, NE with his wife and four children.

The Author

c.s. lewis

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dorothy sayers

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G. K. Chesterton

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Mere Orthodoxy