Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis asks the compelling question, “What is the beating heart of C.S. Lewis’s writing?” With sales exceeding 200,000,000, a billion-dollar film industry, and a bookshelf of critical, philosophical, and popular works, C.S. Lewis is both the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and a leading Christian voice. Given the sheer diversity and characteristic unity of Lewis’s writing, what holds all of this together?</jats:p> <jats:p>In The Spiritual Imagination, Dr. Brenton Dickieson reveals C.S. Lewis’s cross-shaped, or cruciform, spiritual imagination. Lewis believed that “death is at the root of the whole matter”—that God’s self-surrender in Christ is a hopeful and evocative pattern for a healthy spiritual life. By reconsidering him as a spiritual theologian, Dr. Dickieson uncovers a six-point “Logic of Cruciformity” in Lewis’s apologetics, embedded in story form throughout his other works. Lewis’s spiritual imagination is reflected in U-shaped, comedic, eucatastrophic patterns that appear in his character development, plotlines, and even in the shape of his stories. With the “upsidedownedness” of childlike wonder, Lewis reveals what Dr. Dickieson calls a “Theology of the Small,” filled with “sacred paradoxes” and offering an imaginative and transformative invitation to spiritual life.</jats:p>