Will Vaus

Here is Part 2 of my 100 Huntley Street Interview about The Professor of Narnia: The C. S. Lewis Story .

Here is the first part of my interview about The Professor of Narnia: The C. S. Lewis Story from 100 Huntley Street.

For many readers of C. S. Lewis this blog will be old news. Furthermore, this is a blog I never before planned to write. That is not because I lack an opinion about the book pictured above, Planet Narnia, but simply because I saw no point in adding my voice to the many others in the world who have already commented far more intelligently than I could about this book. So why am I writing this blog? First of all, as I travel around and speak about Lewis and his work in various places around the United States I have started to have people ask me my opinion about Planet Narnia. Secondly, I read a blog about Planet Narnia today, written by C. S. Lewis scholar Dr. Devin Brown, that got me thinking about writing my own blog. (You can read that other blog here: http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2009/05/planet-narnia-spin-spun.html .) At first I was just going to comment about Dr. Brown's blog post, but then I realized my comments were too long to be contained in a blog comment. ...

I will be a guest on 100 Huntley Street, Canada's longest running daily TV talk show, on Thursday morning, May 21. Hopefully all of you, my readers in Canada, and those who receive 100 Huntley via satellite TV in the USA, will tune in to watch the interview. For more information click here: http://crossroadstv.ca/television/huntley/upcoming-guests

June 26-27 I will be in Oxford, England for the second premiere of "Perelandra the Opera" based upon the C. S. Lewis book by the same name. I will be presenting a paper at the Perelandra Colloquium in connection with the new premiere of the opera. My paper will be about the dedicatees of Lewis's original book, namely "Some Ladies at Wantage". For more information about Perelandra the Opera and the two day international colloquium click here: www.perelandraproject.org .

Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C. S. Lewis has now been published in Korean by Knowledge and Love Press, an imprint of Revival and Reformation Press. Strange it is to look at the cover of a book I know I wrote and not even be able to discern my own name in print!

In case you missed the news: A. N. Wilson has come back to faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. That's right. The same A. N. Wilson who wrote a biography of C. S. Lewis (much deplored for its factual errors and Freudian twist on Lewis's life) is now a Christian, for the second time. You can read the full story, in his own words, here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169145/Religion-hatred-Why-longer-cowed-secular-zealots.html or here http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism . I think Wilson's articles show that no one is beyond the grace of God, the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who never stops reaching out, in love, in order to bring us back to himself.

My talk on C. S. Lewis: The Professor of Narnia, from my visit to Christ Church at Grove Farm, has now been uploaded and posted on my web site. You can listen to it here: http://willvaus.com/c__s__lewis_talk .

Last night I spoke at Christ Church at Grove Farm outside of Pittsburgh, PA. What a delightful group of people! I have known the pastor of CCGF, John Guest, for twenty years. It hardly seems possible. But in all that time this was my first visit to the church. For anyone reading this blog who does not know him, John is a brilliant evangelist, pastor and great all-around speaker who grew up in my favorite place--Oxford, England--and came to faith in Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham, just like my father. Only John Guest was not involved in organized crime before his conversion--let's make that clear! John graciously wrote a glowing endorsement of my book, My Father Was a Gangster . My presentation last night was on--what else?--C. S. Lewis: The Professor of Narnia. There was a good crowd present. They asked a host of excellent questions and I sold lots of books! Thanks to all the warm and welcoming staff and friendly people of CCGF who made my visit to Pittsburgh a m...

Yesterday I had the truly wonderful blessing of visiting Redeemer Classical School in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was invited by Jeremiah Forshey to speak to his 8th grade literature class about C. S. Lewis's novel, Till We Have Faces, which his class just finished reading. Mind you, I went to this speaking engagement wondering what 8th graders could possibly get out of reading a book I read for the first time in college and didn't even understand then. I was delightedly astonished at the intelligent and engaging conversation I had with these middle school students about C. S. Lewis, mythology, TWHF and The Four Loves: storge, philia, eros and agape. I left that encounter having received far more than what I was able to give. Wow! Three cheers for classical Christian education!!! Then yesterday evening I gave a presentation on Lewis's life and works to some of the parents, faculty and board members of Redeemer Classical School. We too had a very enjoyable conversati...

You can listen to an Easter Weekend Interview I did for radio station KTLO by clicking here: http://www.ktlo.com/listentott.php and then clicking on Friday. Or listen on my web site here: http://www.willvaus.com/the_professor_of_narnia . Enjoy!

Occasionally I post items on this blog that have nothing to do with C. S. Lewis or Narnia. Now is such an occasion. This is a music video done by my brother, Steve Vaus . . .

This past week I was in the Los Angeles area speaking about C. S. Lewis's life and work. I addressed the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society (some of whom are pictured above). The topic was: My Journey with C. S. Lewis . I also gave presentations on Lewis's life and work to a class at Azusa Pacific University and to English classes at Western Christian School in Covina, California. Interest in Lewis's life and work is indeed alive and well in Southern California. To learn more about the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society click here: http://www.socalcslsoci.org/ . If you are interested in having me speak about C. S. Lewis at your school or group meeting you may e-mail me at: will@willvaus.com .

KC: Your father's story was recounted in Time and Life and a movie was made out of it. How much did the media's involvement in his story affect your pursuit of a ministry grounded in communication? WV: I don't think it did at all. But again, I think it comes back to gifting. God showed me early in my life that I had gifts in this area. It took a while for me to recognize or see the writing gift and seriously think about using that. The public speaking came more immediately and was more immediately obvious. I think there is an overlap between gifts and talents. I'm not sure they're identical, but spiritual gifting is often rooted in very human, natural talents, and some of that may very well be genetic. I had a father who was a great communicator. He wasn't really a writer like I am, though he wrote some books with help from other folks. He didn't have the patience to sit down and write a book--he was much more fast-paced than me and went aroun...

KC: I think a lot of people that will probably be reading this interview are Taylor students that are aspiring to be writers. Something interesting I found while I was researching Lewis a little bit was that only four people showed up to his first lecture in the university. WV: And he went from four to four hundred. KC: Right; he became very popular. A lot of writers, even if we do have success eventually, are going to have a lot of failure at first. Did you have a time where you were discouraged with trying to get your works published, or do you have any advice for student writers who are discouraged? WV: I was spoiled in that the first work I tried to get published was published relatively quickly. It took me a number of years to write Mere Theology. Once I had it all together, I started looking for a publisher in 2001 and it was published in 2004. I didn't realize it at the time but that was pretty incredible--the first time out of the chute--to get something publis...

KC: I was just wondering why you'd write a book as opposed to just communicating through speech. WV: A number of years ago, when I was in seminary, I tried to meet different successful people in ministry that I had contacts with through my father. One of the people I sat down with was Norman Vincent Peale. He wrote one of the most successful books of an earlier generation, sort of a motivational book--what today we would call "self help," but there weren't very many self-help books back then. It was informed completely by Christianity because he was a Christian minister. It was called The Power of Positive Thinking , and he had many books that followed after that. He started Guideposts magazine, based in part on what he saw being done with Reader's Digest, only more Christian and spiritual in content. It goes to millions in circulation worldwide. Well, I sat down and asked him what advice he would have for a young man like me going into the ministry. ...

KC: With Will Vaus Ministries, you communicate through teaching, preaching, and writing. How is writing as a ministry unique of those three? WV: Well, writing informs all of them for me. For a long time now, I've written out my sermons. I don't read them word for word like Jonathan Edwards did. He was one of the few people who could get away with that. I write it out in full. I didn't when I first graduated from seminary because I was so tired of that pedantic way of dealing with things, so I'd just jot out my outline and preach from my outline. But then I found when listening to tapes of myself, I was not speaking as well as I was capable, in terms of articulation and grammar. So I thought the only solution to this is to go back and write a manuscript. Then I found out through preaching over many years to a local church congregation how important stories are. When you're an evangelist, you can have your set of great stories and go around and get a lot ...

KC: Since we're talking about fiction, Lewis talked about "smuggling" Christian ideas into fiction. Do you think that approach can be as effective a tool for your ministry as non-fiction? WV: Perhaps more effective. Lewis foresaw the coming of postmodernism. He saw it in his students at Oxford in the forties. He foresaw that there was coming a time when people wouldn't have patience to follow a rational argument for Christianity. Compare today: even many people who aren't postmoderns don't have patience to sit down and read the first section of Mere Christianity . It's pretty amazing to think that, in 1941, this series went out over BBC radio. The story is told of a publican (a bartender) who, when Lewis's program came on the air, turned up the volume on the radio and told everyone at the bar to "be quiet and listen to this bloke; he has some good things to say!" We can't even conceive of something like that happening today o...

(Photo of the entrance to Glendalough, a former monastic community in Ireland, by Ethan Harrison, student at Taylor University.) Here is the second installment of my Parnassus interview. . . . KC: To what extent can writers of fiction write on something they don't know? How much credibility belongs to the imagination? WV: (Referring to a current work of fiction in progress I answered. . . .) Well, I can write about Irish children, but it is going to take me a lot more research to make sure I'm right on with certain things. Irish children are probably going to have to come into this story, at least peripherally. So, I'll need to make sure I get those little bits right in terms of how they speak and how they are dressed so as to make it realistic to whatever the time period is--probably a fairly recent time period. You mentioned the role of personal experience, imagination and research in your sample questions, but personal experience could include books that I...

This past November, the Taylor University Center for C. S. Lewis Studies invited me to deliver a presentation on Lewis's life and works. During my visit to Taylor I was interviewed by Kelli Conners, on the staff of Parnassus, Taylor's journal of literature and the arts. Throughout the interview we discussed the various elements and techniques Lewis used as a Christian writer impacting a secular world and how Lewis's philosophy, in turn, has influenced my own literary career. That interview is now re-produced here. (For more information about Parnassus click here: http://www.taylor.edu/academics/acaddepts/english/parnassus.shtml .) Kelli Conners: First, I have a few questions about the writing process in general. When you sit down to write, how much of a plan do you have? Is it something where you know where a piece is going, or is it a sentence-by-sentence process? Will Vaus: A sentence at a time sounds good. Each book is so different. When I wrote Mere Theology ,...