C.S. Lewis on War and Enemy Love

Drawing from their current book project, The Odious Necessity: C.S. Lewis on War and Warrior Virtue, Marc LiVecche and Eric Patterson will speak on Lewis and his reflection on the nature of war, chivalry, the chivalric ideal of the just warrior, and enemy love. After spending some time in Narnia and other Lewisian locales, they\’ll examine whether Lewis\’ ideal of the just warrior is actually possible in combat.

Marc LiVecche (PhD, University of Chicago) is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar on Ethics, War, and Public Life for Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He is also a non-resident research scholar at the U.S. Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics. He has taught in university classes in the United States and Europe–including a few adjunct gigs at Wheaton, and, most recently, at the US Naval Academy. He is the author of The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury (OUP, 2021) and Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of the Bombing of Hiroshima (forthcoming). Marc lives with his wife and children in Annapolis, Maryland. 

Eric Patterson is President of the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington, DC and scholar-at-large at Regent University. He has served as a White House Fellow assigned to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as an Air National Guard commander for over twenty years, and twice worked at the U.S. Department of State\’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. His extensive work on war, peace, and security includes dozens of academic and popular articles and twenty books, including Just War and Christianity: A Concise Introduction (2023), Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History (2019), and Ending Wars Well: Order Justice, and Conciliation in Post-Conflict (2012).This event is free and open to the public and will take place in the Wade Center Bakke Auditorium, located at 351 E Lincoln Ave. in Wheaton, IL on the northwest corner of campus at the intersection of Washington St. and Lincoln Ave. Parking is located in the visitor lot on the east side of Washington St. For more information, contact the Wade Center at wade@wheaton.edu or 630.752.5908.