C. S. Lewis is one of Christianity’s most respected voices: whether as a fantasy writer whose stories have reached hundreds of millions or as an apologist and lay theologian who may be the most quoted Christian today. But what made the C. S. Lewis we all know and love? A film from the Fellowship for Performing Arts (FPA) tastefully and compellingly presents Lewis’s journey from convinced atheist to the titan of the Christian faith that he is today.

There is little doubt that C. S. Lewis will go down as one of the most influential Christian writers and minds of all time — certainly of the past few hundred years. Lewis is especially well known for writing the legendary Chronicles of Narnia, the seven-book high fantasy series which is among the most impactful book series of the last hundred years. In terms of sheer numbers (and depending on who is counting), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) alone is in the top eight, top ten, or top fifteen best-selling books of all time. It trails only religious texts like The Bible, The Qur’an, The Book of Mormon and The Little Red Book, masterpieces like A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Alice in Wonderland (1865), and modern sensations like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone (1997). The entire series has sold some 120 million copies.

Between 2005 and 2010, three of the Narnia books — The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader — were made into blockbuster films on the same scale as The Lord of the Rings (with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe outperforming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the North American Box Office).

While Lewis may not have penned the most popular books of all time, he can lay claim to being a major influence on those who did. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was rated the United Kingdom’s “most beloved book” in 2003, but famously, it was Lewis who pressed Tolkien to write the magisterial work.

The Screwtape Letters (1942), an ingenious novel-style devotional book, arguably popularised a new genre — “demonic epistolary fiction” — and has sold millions of copies around the world. The Fellowship of Performing Arts also has plans to adapt the book to film, with production to begin in 2027. In 2000, Christianity Today named Screwtape among its top 100 books of the century.

Not to be outdone, Lewis’s Mere Christianity (1952), adapted from Second World War BBC broadcasts, took the title of the “Book of the Century”. The short, systematic, and brilliantly accessible work of apologetics has been translated into thirty-six languages and sold over three and a half million copies globally.

In this video Gavin Ortlund shares about why he loves C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, and why it is a helpful and important book for Christians today.