Alan Snyder
@alansnyder.bsky.social
History professor at Christian universities for 35 years. Author of 6 books. Most recent ones on C. S. Lewis, who has been my research and writing focus for the past decade.
Christians' message is of infinite importance. We need to engage the culture with that message in a way that speaks to the culture. Lewis’s approach—our faith present in everything we say & do, spoken in the vocabulary of our audience, is the best approach. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
October 17, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Christians' message is of infinite importance. We need to engage the culture with that message in a way that speaks to the culture. Lewis’s approach—our faith present in everything we say & do, spoken in the vocabulary of our audience, is the best approach. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
What does C.S. Lewis have to say about how Christians should influence the culture? Read here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
October 16, 2025 at 11:35 AM
What does C.S. Lewis have to say about how Christians should influence the culture? Read here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
I’m teaching a class at my church in which I attempt to help those who attend to see how the Lord wants us to respond to our culture. I find myself going back to what C.S. Lewis wrote. I call it “The Lewis Model.” What he said in his day still applies today. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
October 15, 2025 at 12:11 PM
I’m teaching a class at my church in which I attempt to help those who attend to see how the Lord wants us to respond to our culture. I find myself going back to what C.S. Lewis wrote. I call it “The Lewis Model.” What he said in his day still applies today. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/10/15/t...
God seeks to use the academically inclined to help all Christians in their relationship to the culture & non-Christian views. "Good philosophy must exist," C.S. Lewis argues, "if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/19/b...
September 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
God seeks to use the academically inclined to help all Christians in their relationship to the culture & non-Christian views. "Good philosophy must exist," C.S. Lewis argues, "if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/19/b...
I’m teaching a course at church: Being Christian in a Non-Christian Culture. What is the Church & its mission? How are Christians to interact with the culture? What is the proper relationship between Church & State? What has happened to the Christian witness? ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/19/b...
September 19, 2025 at 11:28 AM
I’m teaching a course at church: Being Christian in a Non-Christian Culture. What is the Church & its mission? How are Christians to interact with the culture? What is the proper relationship between Church & State? What has happened to the Christian witness? ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/19/b...
The Romanian Lewis conference also highlighted "Many Times & Many Places" with a “book launch” at the university bookstore. All the copies we brought with us sold immediately. If only we could have packed more. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
September 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
The Romanian Lewis conference also highlighted "Many Times & Many Places" with a “book launch” at the university bookstore. All the copies we brought with us sold immediately. If only we could have packed more. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
November 2023 saw us going to Romania for the Lewis and Inklings conference held there. I was able to speak on one of the chapters in our book "Many Times & Many Places" during the opening panel of the conference. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
September 3, 2025 at 11:19 AM
November 2023 saw us going to Romania for the Lewis and Inklings conference held there. I was able to speak on one of the chapters in our book "Many Times & Many Places" during the opening panel of the conference. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
Writing an academic book is rarely a path to financial reward. While monetary rewards are always welcome, knowing that one has contributed valuable information for others to ponder is a reward particularly gratifying for those who labor in academic circles. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
September 3, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Writing an academic book is rarely a path to financial reward. While monetary rewards are always welcome, knowing that one has contributed valuable information for others to ponder is a reward particularly gratifying for those who labor in academic circles. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
Two years ago, this book was published. Thesis: C.S. Lewis not only was a masterful apologist for Christian faith, a wonderfully imaginative writer of fiction, & a superb analyst in his primary field of literature, but he was an accomplished historian as well. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
September 2, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Two years ago, this book was published. Thesis: C.S. Lewis not only was a masterful apologist for Christian faith, a wonderfully imaginative writer of fiction, & a superb analyst in his primary field of literature, but he was an accomplished historian as well. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/09/02/a...
Dorothy Sayers has now become my second-most favorite British author. She is the co-subject with C.S. Lewis in an upcoming VII article, but that’s only a beginning of my interaction with her in the next year. Here's a summary. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/07/26/p...
July 27, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Dorothy Sayers has now become my second-most favorite British author. She is the co-subject with C.S. Lewis in an upcoming VII article, but that’s only a beginning of my interaction with her in the next year. Here's a summary. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/07/26/p...
Summer is time off from teaching, but not for preparation. I’m constantly preparing but the absence of teaching during this time allows greater concentration on what I’ll be doing over the next year. Much of it has to do with C. S. Lewis & Dorothy L. Sayers. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/07/26/p...
July 26, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Summer is time off from teaching, but not for preparation. I’m constantly preparing but the absence of teaching during this time allows greater concentration on what I’ll be doing over the next year. Much of it has to do with C. S. Lewis & Dorothy L. Sayers. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/07/26/p...
God’s love—His Agape—takes the risks of rejection & pain. “Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us,” we are told in 1 John 4:10. “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give,” Lewis says. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
June 14, 2025 at 11:26 AM
God’s love—His Agape—takes the risks of rejection & pain. “Herein is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us,” we are told in 1 John 4:10. “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give,” Lewis says. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
C.S. Lewis: There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything & your heart will certainly be wrung & possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
June 14, 2025 at 11:24 AM
C.S. Lewis: There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything & your heart will certainly be wrung & possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
The Greek word is one that most people have at least heard before: Agape. This is the essence of God’s love. Everything He does is done out of Agape. It is pure love. It’s also something we rarely achieve without God’s help. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
June 14, 2025 at 11:21 AM
The Greek word is one that most people have at least heard before: Agape. This is the essence of God’s love. Everything He does is done out of Agape. It is pure love. It’s also something we rarely achieve without God’s help. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/14/t...
Walking tours with friends was one of C.S. Lewis’s greatest enjoyments, staying at an inn after a long day’s walk. “Those are the golden sessions,” he writes. “When our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
June 7, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Walking tours with friends was one of C.S. Lewis’s greatest enjoyments, staying at an inn after a long day’s walk. “Those are the golden sessions,” he writes. “When our slippers are on, our feet spread out towards the blaze and our drinks at our elbows." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
C.S. Lewis on Friendship: "Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
June 7, 2025 at 11:40 AM
C.S. Lewis on Friendship: "Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers." ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
C.S. Lewis in "The Four Loves."
June 6, 2025 at 7:39 PM
C.S. Lewis in "The Four Loves."
"The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'” C. S. Lewis provides great insight into the love called Friendship in his "The Four Loves." Read about it here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
June 6, 2025 at 11:22 AM
"The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'” C. S. Lewis provides great insight into the love called Friendship in his "The Four Loves." Read about it here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
"The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'” C. S. Lewis provides great insight into the love called Friendship in his "The Four Loves." Read about it here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
June 6, 2025 at 11:20 AM
"The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'” C. S. Lewis provides great insight into the love called Friendship in his "The Four Loves." Read about it here. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/06/06/t...
As C.S. Lewis notes in "The Four Loves," whenever we take one of these loves and make them the center of our lives divorced from Charity, they have a tendency to transform into demons. That can occur with Affection. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
May 31, 2025 at 12:19 PM
As C.S. Lewis notes in "The Four Loves," whenever we take one of these loves and make them the center of our lives divorced from Charity, they have a tendency to transform into demons. That can occur with Affection. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
C.S. Lewis writes of someone who lives for her family. This might sound quite innocent but her devotion to the family is her way of controlling them so she will feel useful. She goes out of her way to provide things—even things they don’t really want. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
May 30, 2025 at 11:59 AM
C.S. Lewis writes of someone who lives for her family. This might sound quite innocent but her devotion to the family is her way of controlling them so she will feel useful. She goes out of her way to provide things—even things they don’t really want. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
C.S. Lewis spends part of the chapter on Affection noting dangers in what should be a positive love. As he notes in "The Four Loves," when we make a love the center of our lives without Charity, it transforms into a demon. That can occur with Affection. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
May 30, 2025 at 11:52 AM
C.S. Lewis spends part of the chapter on Affection noting dangers in what should be a positive love. As he notes in "The Four Loves," when we make a love the center of our lives without Charity, it transforms into a demon. That can occur with Affection. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/30/w...
C.S. Lewis in "The Four Loves": “Dogs and cats should always be brought up together,” said someone, “it broadens their minds so.” Affection broadens ours; of all natural loves, it is the most catholic, the least finical, the broadest. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...
May 24, 2025 at 10:59 AM
C.S. Lewis in "The Four Loves": “Dogs and cats should always be brought up together,” said someone, “it broadens their minds so.” Affection broadens ours; of all natural loves, it is the most catholic, the least finical, the broadest. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...
Almost anyone can become an object of Affection,” C.S. Lewis notes. One can also include “the ugly, the stupid, even the exasperating.” A the key ingredient for Affection to become manifest, according to Lewis, is that its objects have to be familiar. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...
May 23, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Almost anyone can become an object of Affection,” C.S. Lewis notes. One can also include “the ugly, the stupid, even the exasperating.” A the key ingredient for Affection to become manifest, according to Lewis, is that its objects have to be familiar. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...
The first of the “four loves” that C. S. Lewis explains in his book with that title is Affection. The family is where affection may begin, but Lewis extends it further. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...
May 23, 2025 at 12:16 PM
The first of the “four loves” that C. S. Lewis explains in his book with that title is Affection. The family is where affection may begin, but Lewis extends it further. ponderingprinciples.com/2025/05/23/t...