Book Review - Mere Christianity
Great insights into basic Christianity and human thinking, with wonderful analogies, but has errors...
Book Information
Author
C. S. Lewis
Publisher
HarperSanFrancisco
Publication Date
2001-02
ISBN
0060652926
Recommendation
Artur Aleksandrov recommends this in some cases. See below.
Paperback, 227 pagesClive Staples Lewis has written a very thoughtful book about some core concepts of Christianity. The book covers a variety of subjects related to Christianity: what makes it special and and better than other beliefs and worldviews, what are the core values it teaches, the greatest sin and what makes it so terrible, the purpose and the spiritual state of human beings in light of the Christian faith, etc.
Understandably, Mr. Lewis speaks on the behalf of traditional Christianity, and as a consequence, makes some erroneous statements about the nature of God. Nevertheless, the lion’s share of the book is not in conflict with, but reinforces truths by explaining them from various angles and illustrating them with wonderful and useful analogies.
For example, he explains the harmonious coexistance of two Beings as one God by comparing the Father to the mind and the Son to the thoughts that spring from that mind. The mind is the source of thoughts, and thoughts are the active expression of the mind and exist for as long as the mind exists--they’re inseparable.
Mere Christianity helped me see the flaws of other beliefs, such as atheism, panthesim and dualism from a logical standpoint. But I found especially helpful the way the author explained the absolute evil of the greatest sin--pride. He gives some great spiritual tools for identifying pride in yourself. For instance, he writes that a good way to measure how much pride you have is by paying attention to how much you see and assume pride in others. The author offers much insight into the important area of Christian ethics. But beware, he gets some things wrong.
This being said, Lewis is free from the delusion that Christianity is all about following a set of rules. There are many systems of belief where people are required to just obey a set of rules, while maintaining their personal interests and motivations. The author correctly sees that Christianity teaches a complete change of being, and it’s founder, Christ, expects of his followers nothing short of perfection. How can a human being possibly attain that level? It takes the complete surrender of our whole life and being to Him. After submission, the Christian’s way to growth is to trust and imitate Christ.
He commented that becoming a better man is like putting a beautiful mask on your face (putting on Christ). At first the mask might seem unnatural for our face but when we wear it long enough, eventually our face takes the shape of the mask. The author offers many more inventive and interesting metaphors to help the reader grasp certain ideas.
Lewis wrote a great book replete with helpful illustrations and important truths and reminders about ourselves and God. I personally feel like that the literary creation of Lewis is a very worthy addition to an adult Christian’s bookshelf, provided that the person is grounded in the teaching of the Bible, and as a result, will not be lead astray by some of author’s viewpoints. The book has a number of rather complex reasonings and thoughts, which is why I would recommend it for people who’ve reached adulthood.
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