What was the name of the radio talks that helped form C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity?

The radio talks that helped form C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity were called Broadcast Talks.

Lewis delivered the original talks for BBC radio during the Second World War. The first series, broadcast in 1941, was titled Broadcast Talks; later series were called Christian Behaviour and Beyond Personality. The talks were eventually revised and collected as Mere Christianity.

The book was not written as one continuous manuscript from the beginning. Its chapters developed from spoken broadcasts intended for a broad British audience, including listeners who might not attend church or read academic theology. Lewis aimed to explain shared Christian beliefs rather than defend one denomination’s distinctive doctrines.

The later book’s title is therefore not the original title of the first radio series. Mere Christianity appeared in book form in 1952, while the broadcasts came earlier. This publishing history helps explain the work’s conversational style and its emphasis on a common Christian core.