The BBC hosted C.S. Lewis's wartime radio talks that later became Mere Christianity.
Lewis delivered a series of talks for BBC radio between 1941 and 1944. The broadcasts explained and defended basic Christian beliefs for a general audience during the Second World War. Their conversational style helped make complex theological ideas accessible to listeners who were not specialists.
The talks were later revised and collected in book form. The resulting work, Mere Christianity, was published in stages and then as a single volume. Lewis organized the material around themes including morality, Christian belief, and the meaning of conversion. The book does not present the distinctive doctrines of one denomination; instead, it aims to describe what Lewis regarded as common Christian belief.
The radio broadcasts made Lewis widely known beyond academic and literary circles. The BBC's role is sometimes confused with later adaptations, recordings, or American broadcasts, but the original wartime talks were made for the British Broadcasting Corporation.