It’s About The Journey
What We Do
Share, Learn, & Enjoy
Monthly Meetings
Each Chapter meets monthly from January through June. We meet in person or virtually on the Zoom platform. Check your Chapter for the meeting location, dates, and times.
Special Events
Pacific Inklings Festival. Once a year in Springtime.
December Christmas Celebration
Chapter specific events
Membership Perks
Access to in-person or Zoom meetings with a wide variety of speakers and topics about Lewis and his work.
Subscription to our newsletter
Invitation to attend special events (some require admission fees).
Newsletter
The Roar and The Bleet is our aggregate newsletter. Stay abreast of the latest events, movies and new books about Lewis, his life, works and their relevance in today’s culture.
A few things about SCCSLS
Community & Education Since 1974
Formed in 1974 under the direction of Paul F. Ford with the purpose of creating a place to share literary study and encourage continued accessibility of all of C.S. Lewis’s works.
Our Mission
We, the Founding members of The Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, conscious that, as Lewis says, “There are no ordinary people,” together resolve that our society has as its purposes;
1. To bring together those in our local area who share for C. S. Lewis special esteem and deep, active, and abiding interest in his life, writings, and ideas;
2. To meet and discuss all aspects of the life works of C. S. Lewis. and any issues and problems of today on which his thought may shed light;
3. To encourage others to read and study C.S. Lewis, knowing that his writings offer real insight and wisdom which can guide us on our pilgrimage through this life;
4. To encourage scholarship regarding the life and writings of C. S. Lewis and work toward eventual definitive edition of the writings of C. S. Lewis;
5. To encourage publishers and booksellers to keep the works of C. S. Lewis readily available to the public;
6. To found and maintain a repository for the works by and about C. S. Lewis and to encourage libraries of all kinds to maintain a collection of his works;
7. To establish and maintain contact with others throughout the world who share our deep, active, and abiding interest in the life, writings, and ideas of C. S. Lewis.
Our Story
1974
Established
Paul Ford, at the time, was a brilliant, young theology scholar who decided to pursue a vocation as a Benedictine monk at St Andrew’s Priory in Valyermo, California. There, he was “Brother Peter,” and he gave workshops on C.S. Lewis, which were widely attended and inspirational.
Brother Peter was and is a gifted speaker. There was a demand to have such meetings on a monthly basis, so the Southern California CS Lewis Society was born. Our summer week at St Andrew’s Abbey (no longer a priory) became a regular fixture. Monthly meetings moved from site to site; Hollywood Presbyterian was home for a while. Eventually, the Society held meetings at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena and stayed there for many years. The Divinity students at Fuller were the first and most enthusiastic members of the Society.
Brother Peter, meanwhile, decided at the end of his novitiate that he was not to be a monk after all and left St Andrew’s Abbey for lay life. He married and pursued a doctorate in Theology at Fuller. There he served many years as the Society’s founding director, and he still is. Paul Ford is our George Washington, so to speak. After his graduation, he began to teach at St John’s Seminary in Camarillo and teaches there still.
chapters
San Gabriel Valley Chapter
St Luke’s Episcopal Church
122 S California Ave
Monrovia, CA 91016-2948
Meetings are held on the 3rd Wednesday of each month
except for June, July, Aug & Dec.
Contact: Hope Langevin <[email protected]>
Orange County Chapter
Vanguard University
55 Fair Dr
Costa Mesa, CA 929626
Meetings are held on the 4th Tuesday of each month
except for June, July, Aug & Dec.
Contact: Jim Prothero <[email protected]>
Inland Empire Chapter
California Baptist University
8432 Magnolia Ave
Riverside, CA 92504
Meetings are held on the 4th Thursday of each month
except for June, July, Aug & Dec.
Contact: David Isaacs [email protected]
S.C.C.S.L.S
“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
C.S. Lewis
