C.S. Lewis first broadcast his wartime Christian talks on BBC radio in 1941.
The BBC began broadcasting Lewis’s talks in 1941, during the Second World War. The talks were addressed to a broad British audience and presented basic Christian ideas in clear, conversational language. Further broadcasts followed in 1942 and 1944.
The scripts were later revised and collected in book form as Mere Christianity. That book is distinct from the original broadcasts, even though it grew directly from them. Lewis’s radio work helped make him widely known beyond academic and church audiences.
The year 1941 is sometimes confused with 1944 because the final series was broadcast then, or with 1952, the year the collected book was published. The earliest BBC series began in 1941. The broadcasts were not a single continuous lecture but several series of talks delivered over wartime radio.