What book grew out of C.S. Lewis’s BBC radio broadcasts about Christian belief?

Mere Christianity grew out of C.S. Lewis’s BBC radio broadcasts about Christian belief.

Lewis delivered the first series of broadcasts in 1941, during the Second World War. He gave additional talks in 1942 and 1944. The broadcasts were intended for a broad British audience and explained central Christian ideas in accessible language rather than presenting a detailed case for one denomination.

The talks were later revised and collected as a book. The title Mere Christianity refers to the shared core of belief Lewis believed was held across historic Christian traditions. The finished book was published in 1952.

The work is often confused with The Problem of Pain, another Lewis book about Christianity, or The Screwtape Letters, a fictional series of demonic letters. Those books were not the direct book collection of the BBC broadcasts. Mere Christianity became one of Lewis’s most widely read works of Christian apologetics.