{"id":12904,"date":"2025-04-14T15:06:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=12904"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:06:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:06:47","slug":"the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_12907\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12907\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12907\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-12907\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: The Museum of the Bible | Right: Aronsyne \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Museum of the Bible announced in early March that it would be featuring an exhibit on the faith journey of one of the world\u2019s most well-known Christian authors and apologist, Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis. While Lewis may be well-known for his children\u2019s book series, <em>The Chronicles of Narnia, <\/em>in particular, <em>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>, his journey as a staunch atheist to one of the most consequential Christian apologists of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century may be less-known. \u201cWe are excited for people to see this extraordinary exhibit because it highlights the transformative power of the narrative of the Bible on the life and work of the beloved author of the Narnia series and one of the most famous Christians of the 20th century,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.museumofthebible.org\/newsroom\/museum-of-the-bible-to-host-exhibit-on-c.-s.-lewis\">said<\/a> Dr. Bobby Duke, chief curatorial officer at Museum of the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>Entitled \u201cC. S. Lewis and the Myth That Became Fact,\u201d the exhibit focuses on how Lewis perceived the story of Christ and his resurrection as a myth, \u201cbut he later grew to believe it as \u2018the true myth.\u2019\u201d The exhibit features first editions of Lewis\u2019s works, original artwork from <em>Narnia <\/em>illustrator Pauline Baynes, and references to Lewis\u2019s time with fantasy author and fellow Christian, JRR Tolkien, as well as their friend Charles Williams. Williams, Lewis, and Tolkien were part of the literary group, the Inklings, which meant for decades during Lewis\u2019s life. Tolkien played a major role in leading Lewis to Christ. In 1931, Tolkien and their mutual friend Hugo Dyson, confronted Lewis on his view of Christ as a myth. \u201cNow what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn\u2019t mind it at all: again, that if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself . . .\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/blogs\/evangelical-history\/85-years-ago-today-j-r-r-tolkien-convinces-c-s-lewis-that-christ-is-the-true-myth\/\">Lewis would later write<\/a>. \u00a0\u201cI liked it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: again, that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels\u2026 Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The title of the exhibit comes from an essay Lewis wrote on the \u201ctrue myth\u201d of Christianity in 1944 entitled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cslewisinstitute.org\/resources\/reflections-july-2022\/\">Myth Became Fact<\/a>.\u201d \u201cThe heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact,\u201d wrote Lewis. \u201cThe old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens\u2014at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The exhibit will be open until February 14, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Museum of the Bible announced in early March that it would be featuring an exhibit on the faith journey of one of the world\u2019s most well-known Christian authors and apologist, Clive Staples Lewis, better known as C.S. Lewis. While Lewis may be well-known for his children\u2019s book series, The Chronicles of Narnia, in particular,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":12907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Museum of the Bible\u2019s new exhibit explores C.S. Lewis\u2019s powerful journey from atheism to faith and the \u201ctrue myth\u201d that changed his life.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Museum of the Bible\u2019s new exhibit explores C.S. Lewis\u2019s powerful journey from atheism to faith and the \u201ctrue myth\u201d that changed his life.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-14T19:06:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display","description":"The Museum of the Bible\u2019s new exhibit explores C.S. Lewis\u2019s powerful journey from atheism to faith and the \u201ctrue myth\u201d that changed his life.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display","og_description":"The Museum of the Bible\u2019s new exhibit explores C.S. Lewis\u2019s powerful journey from atheism to faith and the \u201ctrue myth\u201d that changed his life.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2025-04-14T19:06:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html","name":"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","datePublished":"2025-04-14T19:06:47+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-14T19:06:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"The Museum of the Bible\u2019s new exhibit explores C.S. Lewis\u2019s powerful journey from atheism to faith and the \u201ctrue myth\u201d that changed his life.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2025\/04\/CS-Lewis_credit-Left-The-Museum-of-the-Bible-Right-Aronsyne-commons-wikimedia-org.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Left: The Museum of the Bible | Right: Aronsyne \/ commons.wikimedia.org"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2025\/04\/the-myth-that-became-fact-c-s-lewiss-faith-journey-on-display.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u201cThe myth that became fact.\u201d C.S. Lewis\u2019s Faith Journey on Display"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12910,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12904\/revisions\/12910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}