PWJ: S3E27 – AH – “After Hours” with Steven Beebe

At the conference which Matt and I attended last year in North Carolina, we met Dr. Steven Beebe. Dr. Beebe has just released his book, C.S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication so I sat down with Dr. Beebe to talk about it and why he regards C.S. Lewis as a master communicator…

S3E27: “After Hours” with Dr. Steven Beebe (Download)

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Time Stamps

00:42 – Dr. Beebe’s Bio
01:32 – Drink-of-the-week
02:12 – Quote-of-the-week
02:54 – Main Interview
58:30 – Closing remarks

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

For this week’s Skype Session I video-chatted with John, a member of our San Diego C.S. Lewis book club, since we never had a chance to discuss Part II of Till We Have Faces:

Show Notes

• For the drink-of-the-week, I was drinking Benchmark, Old 8 Brand Kentucky Whiskey and Dr. Beebe was drinking PG Tips tea.

• The quote-of-the-week came from “God In the Dock” collection of essays:

“When I began, Christianity came before the great mass of my unbelieving fellow-countrymen either in the highly emotional form offered by revivalists or in the unintelligible language of highly cultured clergymen. Most men were reached by neither. My task was therefore simply that of a translator – one turning Christian doctrine, or what he believed to be such, into the vernacular, into language that unscholarly people would attend to and understand”

C.S. Lewis, Rejoinder to Dr Pittinger (God in the Dock)

• I introduced Dr. Beebe:

Dr. Steven Beebe is Regents’ and University Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies. He served as Chair of the Department of Communication Studies for 28 years and Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication for 25 years. Dr. Beebe has been a Visiting Scholar at both Oxford and Cambridge University. He teaches courses that focus on communication skill development. He also teaches a course, both at Texas State and Oxford University, titled C. S. Lewis: Chronicles of a Master Communicator inspired by a manuscript he discovered, that was the partial opening chapter of a book that was to be co-authored with J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis called Language and Human Nature.

Bio of Dr. Beebe

• I asked Dr. Beebe to introduce himself and tell us how he got involved in communication.

• I then asked Dr. Beebe to tell us about how he first came into contact with C.S. Lewis. He told us about how he discovered a manuscript (The Manuscript, the Scholar and the Laundry), how he teaches a class on C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of a Master Communicator) and about how he has written a book, C.S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication.

• I read the blurb on the back of the book:

C. S. Lewis, based on the popularity of his books and essays, is one of the best communicators of the twentieth century. During his lifetime he was hailed for his talents as author, speaker, educator, and broadcaster; he continues to be a best-selling author more than a half-century after his death. “C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication” analyzes Lewis’s communication skill. A comprehensive review of Lewis’s work reveals five communication principles that explain his success as a communicator.

…and noted that he had endorsements from great folks such as Walter Hooper, Jerry Root, Michael Ward, Diana Glyer, Andrew Lazo, and Will Vaus.

• I then asked Dr. Beebe to talk us through the structure of his book and the five communication principles he identified in Lewis’ work:

Chapter 1
The Case for C. S. Lewis as Master Communicator

Chapter 2
The Making of a Master Communicator

Chapter 3
C. S. Lewis’s Big Ideas

Chapter 4
Principle 1: Effective Communicators are Holistic

Chapter 5
Principle 2: Effective Communicators Are Intentional

Chapter 6
Principle 3: Effective Communicators Are Transpositional

Chapter 7
Principle 4: Effective Communicators Evoke Emotions

Chapter 8
Principle 5: Effective Communicators Are Audience-Centered

Chapter 9
How to Communicate Like C. S. Lewis

• We discussed Dr. Beebe’s potential future projects, such as how these principles relate to God and how they relate to The Screwtape Letters.

• Dr. Beebe’s books are all available for purchase on Amazon, including the one discussed in this episode, C.S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication.