Mere Christianity

My son Tim and I are nearly finished with a chapter-by-chapter book study of this Lewis classic, and I'm reminded once again why it's a classic. His manner is modest and unassuming. He never leverages his mastery of the language in order to remind you of his own brilliance, but uses it to make complex ideas about God, philosophy and apologetics simple, accessible and clear.

His friendly style doesn't prevent him from cutting to the heart of, for example, "contemporary" Theology. The double irony of the following comment on the importance of studying Theology and on Theological "novelties" (from his intro to Beyond Personality, the final section of the book) is that it was written in 1943.

In other words, Theology is practical; especially now. In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it is is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad, muddled out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today, are simply the ones which real theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.

The new approaches of 18th and 19th century skepticism (on the authority of the Bible and the meaning of the Cross) had only recently been embraced as new thoughts by mainline denominations when Lewis wrote this. Sadly, they are being "trotted out" as novelties again in 2007 by New Evangelicals, Post-Evangelicals and others.

These and other equally muddled notions are easily absorbed by groups and individuals who don't place a high value on Theology (or history, for that matter) generally and learn only from each other and their own experiences.