Which BBC radio-talk title became the basis for C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity?

Broadcast Talks was the title of the first BBC radio-talk series that later formed part of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. The talks were broadcast during the Second World War, beginning in 1941.

Lewis was invited by James Welch, the BBC’s Director of Religious Broadcasting, to explain basic Christian beliefs to a general audience. The broadcasts were written for listening rather than for an academic readership, which helped give Lewis’s arguments their direct, conversational style.

The material was later revised and published in stages. Broadcast Talks became The Case for Christianity, while later series appeared as Christian Behaviour and Beyond Personality. These books were eventually combined and revised as Mere Christianity, first published in book form in 1952. The title Broadcast Talks therefore identifies the earliest published form, not the final umbrella title.