BOB ABERNETHY: November 29th marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late C. S. Lewis, one of the most influential and beloved Christian writers in this century. Lewis, who was British, wrote 38 books, from the best-selling children's book, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, to MERE CHRISTIANITY, one of the most widely read explanations of the Christian faith. Our critic, Martha Bayles, recently traveled to England to examine Lewis's legacy.

MARTHA BAYLES: I am one of 800 Americans who have come to Oxford, England, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of its famous former resident, the writer C. S. Lewis.

Unidentified Man #1: Well, I flew all the way from Honolulu to be here in England, and the reason is because when I became a Christian at the age of 15, never having gone to church before then, C. S. Lewis became my early mentor, and reading so many of his books really was a foundation of my Christian faith.

BAYLES: Lewis is renowned for his children's stories, "The Chronicles of Narnia," and for his literary scholarship done here at Oxford's venerable Magdalen College. But those works are eclipsed by his "Christian Apologetics," a series of short books that are eloquent, lucid, emotionally honest, and hugely influential.

Born a Protestant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Lewis rejected the religion of his boyhood, which he later called "the dry husks of Christianity," for its hatred of Catholicism. A brilliant student, he was wounded in World War I and returned to Oxford and agnostics.

C. S. Lewis loved a good argument, and he had a lot of them. One of the most famous took place here on Addison's Walk at Magdalen College. It was after that argument that Lewis became a believing Christian.

Lewis began the evening talking about myth with two friends, one of them J.R.R. Tolkien, author of LORD OF THE RINGS. They argued for hours about whether some myths were true. And back in his room at 3 a.m., Lewis wrote to another friend, "I have just passed from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ." He joined the Church of England and for years attended services here at Holy Trinity in the village of Headington Quarry. But Lewis did not just write for his fellow Anglicans; his message crossed national and denominational borders.

Thomas Howard, professor of English at St. John's College in Massachusetts, explains Lewis's American appeal.

Professor THOMAS HOWARD (St. John's College, MA): Yes. I think it started with Lewis's book MERE CHRISTIANITY, in the earlyish to middish '40s, and the evangelicals who had been typecast by Hollywood, the stage, novelists, everybody else, as sort of Appalachian ignoramuses found an articulate, incandescent intellect.

BAYLES: A key destination for Americans is Lewis's home, called The Kilns, because it was originally a brick works. Stanley Mattson is the director of the C. S. Lewis Foundation, which organized this festival and has run a tremendous volunteer effort to restore The Kilns.