Dr. Michael Ward is Associate Member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hillsdale College. Professor Ward is the author of the best-selling and award-winning Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (Oxford University Press), and of After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic). He co-edited The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis (Cambridge University Press) and presented the BBC television documentary, The Narnia Code. On the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis’s death, Dr. Ward unveiled a permanent national memorial to him in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.
Website: www.michaelward.net
Plenary (Keynote) Presentations
Plenary — The Heavens are Telling the Glory of God: C.S. Lewis, Narnia, and the Planets
As a medievalist, C.S. Lewis’s mindset was steeped in the old geocentric model of the cosmos. He knew that it was not scientifically “true”, but valued it nonetheless for aesthetic and historical reasons, describing the seven heavens as spiritual symbols of permanent value that were especially worthwhile in his own generation. This talk examines how Lewis ingeniously used those spiritual symbols in his best-known works, the seven Chronicles of Narnia.
Track Plenary — Spiritual Symbols According to C.S. Lewis: What They Are, Why They’re Needed, How They Work
We will explore Lewis’s theological imagination and show how the ability to make and understand different metaphors for religious experience is necessary both for a healthy spiritual life and for vibrant religious education.