C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton: Soul Friends Thomas Merton, like C.S. Lewis and Simone Weil, has not always been best served by his most ardent admirers. It is a welcome thing that—in all these cases—we have so much material to help us see them actually developing ‘informal’ their ideas, testing out thoughts without feeling they have to take full responsibility for them. The trouble comes when those admirers, rather overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material, feel obliged to defend everything their heroes wrote, formal and informal, so that the fallible and multi-coloured humanity of the writer becomes a bit fixed and frozen. 1 Rowan Williams I think that Thomas Merton could easily be called the greatest spiritual writer and spiritual master of the twentieth century in English speaking America. There is no other person who has had such a profound influence on those writing on spiritual topics, not only on Catholics, but non-Catholics, as Merton. The only contender be the enormous popularity of C.S. Lewis. I think that they are very different kinds of persons who led very different kinds of lives. They both were greatly shaped by the English literary tradition, both of them were excellent writers, and both of them out of very deep experience. 2 Lawrence Cunningham I Separate Solitudes
C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton: Soul Friends Thomas Merton, like C.S. Lewis and Simone Weil, has not always been best served by his most ardent admirers. It is a welcome thing that—in all these cases—we have so much ‘informal’ material to help us see them actually developing their ideas, testing out thoughts without feeling they have to take full responsibility for them. The trouble comes when those admirers, rather overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material, feel obliged to defend everything their heroes wrote, formal and informal, so that the fallible and multi-coloured humanity of the writer becomes a bit fixed and frozen. 1 Rowan Williams I think that Thomas Merton could easily be called the greatest spiritual writer and spiritual master of the twentieth century in English speaking America. There is no other person who has had such a profound influence on those writing on spiritual topics, not only on Catholics, but non-Catholics, as Merton. The only contender be the enormous popularity of C.S. Lewis. I think that they are very different kinds of persons who led very different kinds of lives. They both were greatly shaped by the English literary tradition, both of them were excellent writers, and both of them out of very deep experience. 2 Lawrence Cunningham I Separate Solitudes