Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." -- Clive Staples Lewis (from Mere Christianity)
It takes nearly 50 pages for C.S. Lewis to hit the reader with a haymaker like that. But in those first 50 pages he's already pelted them with jabs of both the easily-digestible and the read-it-five-times-over sort, all while mixing in arguments for (and evidence of) a God of the universe that are so simple they're almost comical. But humor seems to be the furthest thing from the author's mind in this work, first published in 1952. In fact, Lewis, best known for his series of The Chronicles of Narnia books that captured kids' and adults' imaginations decades before a series of mediocre movies of the same name were given the green light, is nothing if not completely focused on explaining Christianity (as he understands it) to those outside the Christian faith, those completely immersed in it, and those that have just dipped their toes in the water. And he has challenges for readers in each of those camps.
As a one-time atheist and educator at one of the world's most prestigious universities (the book is based on transcripts from radio appearances made while teaching at Oxford in the early 1940s), Lewis is admittedly familiar with the arguments against the existence of a monotheistic God, and provides explanations and metaphor that help break deep and perplexing subject matter into fragments that are more easy to understand; fragments he had to learn to swallow when he made his conversion to Christianity. The fact that the words are essentially copied straight from their spoken form makes for a conversational tone of voice throughout, which in turn makes for a quick, enjoyable read.
Lewis starts off in the first of four "books" by removing himself from affiliation with any religion at all, and simply addresses human nature and how he believes a distinct "moral law" or "law of human nature" points to an established division between "good" and "bad" within all human beings, and that the division was not decided by man himself, so was therefore established by something greater than man. He goes on to make the point that if that argument nods to a Creator, then the fact that man knowingly (and repeatedly) breaks the "moral law" despite the fact that it's ingrained in our psyche exhibits the inferiority (and subsequent fall) of man.
In the second book, the author describes the foundations of the Christian faith (at which point he aligns his belief system with that of a Christ follower), citing the simultaneous simplicities and complexities that reinforce those beliefs for him. Here he pulls no punches, discussing atheism, Satan, the Christian "war metaphor," repentance, and Jesus as God and man. Book three is the heftiest portion of the entire work, within which Lewis addresses morality in more depth, calling out seven virtues: prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude (the "Cardinal" virtues), along with faith, hope and charity (the "Theological" virtues). It's in this book that we get Lewis' translation of Jesus' message when it comes to topics such as social justice, Christian marriage, capital punishment, sex, churchgoing, and prayer. In the fourth and final "book" of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis goes deeper into Christian theology, saving some of his greatest challenges and most heady thoughts for last.
Of all the books I've ever read (outside of the Bible itself), Mere Christianity may be the one book that I would memorize if I could. The aforementioned conversational tone teamed with arguments presented in an almost "scientific" way, makes the book feel like what I'd describe as "theology for the layman" (and not at all because I believe it's elementary...because I don't). I doubt I would ever present a case for Jesus as Lord to someone that would want to hear quotations from a seminary text or a theology book. The people I talk to about subject matter this important are people that want to hear me speak from my heart. And in this book, C.S. Lewis often says the things I want to say -- the things that are on my heart -- for which I can't find the words.
This is a book I would love to read on a yearly basis, and will never have far from me as a reference. I think it should be read by anyone who's ever wondered about a higher power in the universe, whether or not the book is put away after five pages or read five times in a row. Every human being that can read the English language should at least give it a try; it's a writing that's as relevant today as it was during World War II. And it further shows the relevancy of those texts written thousands of years ago on which it's based.
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