This was in a Facebook post. I don't know the author, but I needed to pass it on.
One night in 1931, J.R.R. Tolkien convinced his friend C.S. Lewis that Christianity was true. The argument Tolkien used? "It's a myth—but it actually happened."
September 19, 1931. Oxford, England.
C.S. Lewis was thirty-two years old, an English professor, a brilliant literary scholar, and—crucially—an atheist.
Well, not quite an atheist anymore. In 1929, after years of studying philosophy and literature, Lewis had reluctantly admitted to himself that God existed. He later described himself as "the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
But admitting God exists and accepting Christianity are two very different things.
Lewis believed in God. But he couldn't accept Christ. He couldn't believe in the resurrection, in God becoming human, in the core claims of Christian theology.
It all seemed like mythology to him. Beautiful mythology, perhaps, but mythology nonetheless—no different from the dying and rising gods of ancient pagan religions.
On the night of September 19, Lewis took a walk with two of his colleagues from Oxford: Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien and Lewis were close friends despite their religious differences. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Lewis was an unconvinced theist who found Christianity intellectually and emotionally unsatisfying.
They began talking about myth.
Lewis loved mythology—Greek, Norse, Celtic. He found the old stories of dying and rising gods deeply moving. The tales of Balder, Osiris, Adonis—sacrificial gods who died and were reborn—touched something profound in him.
But when he encountered the same story in Christian gospels—God sacrificing himself, dying, rising from the dead—Lewis felt nothing but skepticism.
Tolkien asked him why.
Why did Lewis find the pagan myths beautiful and meaningful, but dismiss the Christian story as just another myth?
Lewis tried to explain. The pagan myths were literature, art, symbolic truth. The Christian claims were supposed to be historical fact—and that made them unbelievable.
Tolkien wouldn't accept that answer.
The conversation carried deep into the night. They walked the grounds of Magdalen College, talking, debating, questioning. At some point Dyson joined them, and the three men talked until nearly four in the morning.
Tolkien posed a question that would change everything: What if Christianity is both? What if it's a myth—but a myth that actually happened?
Human beings have always told stories of dying and rising gods, Tolkien argued, because those stories reflect something true about the universe, something built into human consciousness by God himself. We keep telling the same story—sacrifice, death, resurrection—because we're trying to express a truth we can't quite grasp any other way.
The pagan myths are beautiful and moving, Tolkien said, because they're shadows of the real thing. They're humanity groping toward a truth that hadn't been revealed yet.
And then it was revealed.
The story actually happened. In history. In Palestine. God became human, lived, was sacrificed, died, and rose again.
The myth became fact.
That's why Lewis found the pagan myths moving—because they were pointing toward something real. They were echoes of a truth that would eventually enter history.
"The story of Christ," Lewis later wrote, describing this revelation, "is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened."
That night, walking the grounds of Oxford, C.S. Lewis became a Christian.
Not because someone proved Christianity logically. Not because he had a mystical experience. But because his friend helped him see that the story he'd always loved—the myth that had always moved him—wasn't just a beautiful fiction.
It was the story the universe had been telling since the beginning. And once, it happened for real.
On September 20, 1931, C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity.
The transformation was complete. The reluctant theist became one of the most influential Christian apologists of the 20th century.
Lewis wrote "The Screwtape Letters," "Mere Christianity," "The Problem of Pain," "The Great Divorce." His books have sold hundreds of millions of copies, translated into dozens of languages, read by people of every faith and no faith.
During World War II, his radio broadcasts on BBC were a source of strength and comfort to the British people enduring the Blitz. His clear, logical explanations of Christian theology—accessible to ordinary people, free of jargon and sentimentality—helped millions understand and embrace faith.
His "Chronicles of Narnia" books introduced Christianity to children through fantasy and myth—doing for a new generation exactly what Tolkien had done for him: showing that the greatest story could be both myth and truth.
All because one night, J.R.R. Tolkien asked his atheist friend: What if the story you love is actually true?
Think about the friendship here. Tolkien, a devout Catholic, spent hours arguing with his atheist friend—not attacking, not condemning, but helping Lewis see something Lewis couldn't see on his own.
He met Lewis where Lewis actually was: a literature professor who loved mythology but couldn't accept Christianity.
So Tolkien used what Lewis loved—myth, story, literature—to build a bridge to what Lewis couldn't yet believe.
He didn't tell Lewis to stop loving pagan mythology. He helped Lewis see that his love for those myths was actually pointing him toward Christ.
That's extraordinary evangelism. Meeting someone in their doubt, using their own loves and interests, helping them see truth through what already moves them.
And it worked.
The atheist who became "the most dejected and reluctant convert" to theism became one of Christianity's most eloquent defenders.
The man who found Christian claims intellectually embarrassing wrote books that make Christianity intellectually compelling.
The professor who couldn't believe the resurrection wrote children's books where Aslan dies and rises again—myth and truth woven together.
All because one September night, Tolkien wouldn't let him dismiss Christianity as "just mythology."
"Yes," Tolkien said. "It's mythology. But it's true mythology. It's the myth that actually happened."
And Lewis believed him.
September 20, 1931. C.S. Lewis became a Christian.
Millions of readers—believers, doubters, seekers—have been grateful ever since.
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