Following my remark about C.S. Lewis’s Christian apologetics in

yesterday’s column, to wit:

“While they are comforting and persuasive if you are already a

Christian, I doubt any unbeliever was ever converted by them…”

A well-nigh transfinite number of readers emailed in to offer Chuck

Colson as a counterexample. I dutifully posted a link to Colson’s

experiences on The Corner.

That provoked a reaction from several other readers, who pointed out

that the pre-Lewis Colson can’t fairly be called an unbeliever, so he

isn’t really a counterexample at all, and my original doubt can stand.

This kind of thing can go on for ever, but I’d at least like to take it

a little further, as I have always thought that the function of

religious–not just Christian–apologetics was to supply comfort and

reassurance to the already-religious, not to convert the Heathen.

(Though I will certainly allow cases like Colson’s, in which the reading

of apologetics caused a person to re-commit to his faith in a major and

significant way.)

So come on, Lewis-ophiles, rise to the challenge. Give me an instance

of a real unbeliever — an Andrew Stuttaford or a Michael Blowhard — who became a Christian

as a result of reading Lewis.