A very important person died 50 years ago this Friday. I refer of course to Clive Staples Lewis.

Although you will hear much this week about another death that happened on Nov. 22, 1963, I predict history will remember Lewis as the most important person to depart this life on that day.

Better known by his initials C.S., Lewis was the most effective and popular Christian apologist of the last century, possibly of any century. Nor has his popularity waned since his death. Lewis’s books continue to sell millions of copies every year.

An apologist writes apologies. In the classical sense, an apology is a defense or explication of something, not an expression of regret. I can think of no one, ancient or modern, who makes so honest, robust, and charming a case for Christian faith as C. S. Lewis.

As a young man, Lewis was an atheist. He came to Christianity unwillingly, but once he surrendered to what Francis Thompson would have called the Hound of Heaven, he worked through the implications of his faith without flinching.

Lewis taught medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford and later at Cambridge, but is today remembered mainly for his Christian writings. They embrace several genres.

Best known are Lewis’s seven children’s books (also popular with adults like me) called “The Chronicles of Narnia.” These tales are not overtly religious. They address Christian themes without naming them. Believers and nonbelievers alike enjoy them.

Lewis’s other fiction includes “The Great Divorce,” a novella about people in hell who are offered the opportunity to relocate to heaven but choose to remain where they are, and “The Screwtape Letters,” correspondence ostensibly from the devil to his nephew on earth as the nephew seeks to effect the damnation of a human soul.

Both works are psychologically nuanced and delightful reads. Lewis also wrote three adult fantasy novels, known as his “space trilogy.”

“Mere Christianity” began as a series of radio talks in the 1940s and can sound dated in places (no one in those days felt a need for “inclusive language”). But “Mere Christianity” remains, after 70 years, the most straightforward, readily understood explanation of Christian belief in print. Lewis eschews technical theological jargon and seems always to find the right analogy or illustration to make otherwise difficult ideas comprehensible.

My favorite Lewis book is “A Grief Observed,” written late in his life, after the shattering loss of his wife to cancer. Here the previously self-assured apologist wrestles with doubt and despair, emerging with a strengthened but tempered faith. And there’s lots more.

C. S. Lewis’s continuing popularity may seem hard to explain in an increasingly secular world where traditional religious belief often appears impotent or irrelevant. But I think that’s why so many people are drawn to Lewis. He offers something they have lost, addressing an emptiness in their souls that cries out to be filled.

Everything C. S. Lewis wrote is drenched in the transcendent. It’s often unstated, but always implied. Whether he’s writing straight theology or a fictional work about life on another planet, a higher reality is always present and must be dealt with. Call it another dimension, an unseen presence, or God, it is beyond our power to analyze or control. Lewis sees mystery as built into human life, and to discount it is to become mired in superficialities, or worse.

Throughout history, most people have acknowledged the transcendent. That’s true in most other cultures today as well. In Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East today, the reality of the unseen world is not questioned. People may differ on how to come to terms with it, but it’s there. It’s part of the air people breathe. No one denies it.

Only in the “developed” West is belief in the transcendent seen as optional. Do you believe in God? Some do, some don’t. It’s debatable. But we’re the only people in the world for whom that is true. Far from being more advanced than other cultures, we have wandered off course into an intellectual and spiritual backwater.

But somewhere deep within, we know we’ve lost our bearings and we long to return home. C. S. Lewis speaks to the wandering, homesick soul.

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.