Dr. Joel Heck comes onto the show to talk about his different books and the Chronologically Lewis project.
S6E47: “No Ordinary People” (Download)
If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast platform, such as iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, and many others…
For information about our schedule for Season 5, please see the our season roadmap, containing a list of all the episodes we plan to record together, as well as “After Hours” interviews with special guests.
Finally, if you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts such as access to our Pints With Jack Slack channel and branded pint glasses, please join us on Patreon for as little as $2 a month.
Show Notes
Introduction
Drop-In
Quote-of-the-week
There are no ordinary people… it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Biographical Information
Dr. Joel Heck is currently serving as the Interim President for Concordia Lutheran Seminary. He is a retired pastor and professor and former Executive Editor of Concordia University Press. He is the mind behind the Chronologically Lewis project and is the author or editor of sixteen books, including No Ordinary People: Twenty-One Friendships of C. S. Lewis.
Guest Biographical Information
Chit-Chat
–
Toast
- David was drinking a New Glarus Spotted Cow beer
- His guest was drinking a coffee
Discussion
01. “Background”
Q. Would you mind telling us about your history and work with C.S. Lewis?
- Owen Barfield
- New York C.S. Lewis Society Newsletter – CSL
- Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (Volume III)
- Dr. Heck’s photo tours
For Barfield’s conversion to Anthroposophy marked the beginning of what I can only describe as the Great War between him and me. It was never, thank God, a quarrel, though it could have become one in a moment if he had used to me anything like the violence I allowed myself to him. But it was an almost incessant disputation, sometimes by letter and sometimes face to face, which lasted for years. And this Great War was one of the turning points of my life.
Surprised By Joy (Chapter 13)
02: “Irrigating Deserts”
Q. So let’s talk about some of your Lewis-related books… You’ve written a book about Lewis and Education, called “Irrigating Deserts”. Would you mind telling us a little about it?
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts
The Abolition of Man (Men without Chests)
03: “The Personal Heresy”
Q. In 2008, you were involved in editing A Personal Heresy. Would you mind telling us about that work and your role in bringing it to print?
04: “From Atheism to Christianity”
Q. In 2017, you wrote about the story of Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. Lewis wrote about it in Surprised By Joy, so what motivated you to write a book about it?
In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England
C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (Chapter 14)
05: “No Ordinary People”
Q. One of your more recent books was No Ordinary People: Twenty-One Friendships of C.S. Lewis. Would you mind telling us about it?
- Crystal Hurd
- Sarah O’Dell
- Austin Farrer
- A. K. Hamilton Jenkin
- Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood’s End)
- Sister Penelope (Fr. Walter Adams)
- Alec Vidler
- Hugo Dyson
- Dom Bede Griffiths
06: “The Lion that Roared”
Q. What can you tell us about your children’s book, The Lion that Roared?
07: “Chronologically Lewis”
Q. There’s one last topic I’d like to address before we wrap things up, would you please tell us more about your project, Chronologically Lewis?
- Dr. Diana Glyer
- August 25th: Maureen and Jack interview two black pigs
- Josiah Peterson
- Rob Koons
- The Intellectual History of Oxford and Cambridge during the Lewis Years
