Revisiting 'Mere Christianity'

It has been nearly eight years since I read, for the first time, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, but it had been on my radar for much longer. The writings of C.S. Lewis had an interesting way of showing up in my life as a university student, where I was proud of my free-thinking, trail-blazing individualism and secular-humanist approach to life. It was never that I disbelieved in God, it was simply that I thought we came to know God experientially, on our own terms. While I still think that half of that is true: we do meet God experientially; the great fallacy of my position was the omission of the possibility that God might introduce His terms into the deal, and that they are the best, and only, terms on the market. During this time, an acquaintance was moving and was getting rid of his books. One of the books that I grabbed was The Screwtape Letters, having no idea that I was about to read a thoroughly Christian treatise on the nature of Evil. I read it, and was amazed to find how much sense the novel, in the form of letters between two demons, made. It did not convert me, but I know that it planted a seed. A second encounter with Lewis was also in university, when an old friend of mine, whom I had met in Colorado but was a fellow Georgian, sent me a copy of "The Grand Miracle" (which was part of Miracles) along with a cassette of Hammond B3 master Jimmy Smith. I understood the cassette, because we were both music lovers. And we were also both big readers and both English literature majors. Yet, I couldn't understand why he sent me a book about God. He wasn't a Christian and never became one, as far as I know, so it was odd that he sent me the book. I read it and realized that he sent it to me in part because of the great mind of C.S. Lewis and the power of his pen. I also look back on that and like to think that there was, perhaps more going on behind the scenes, that the Holy Spirit was there in the woodwork, slowly, patiently, lovingly reeling me in back to the shore.
When I committed my life to Christ in 2005, one of the first things I did was go out and buy a copy of Mere Christianity. I think I tore through it in a matter of days, and then regurgitated it to whomever might listen, in Bible studies, in conversation. At that time, C.S. Lewis was the voice in the wilderness for me. His writing helped me make sense of what it really means to be a Christian, not the lame caricature of the Christian life that had I often thought I saw on display. Over the past week, I have been carrying around a copy to give to a friend, but our schedules haven't allowed us to yet meet. So, here and there, I have been diving back into the work, and rediscovering it again. Although I had nearly forgotten most parts of the book, I realized as I was rereading just how much it had helped shape my early Christian life and my current understanding of the Gospel. I'm going to cherry-pick just three excerpts that leapt out at me during my most recent reading. There are so many great nuggets here, that it's pretty difficult to choose only three, but here goes:

1. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled (44).

In the first chapter of Genesis, it says, "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was good" (Gen. 1:31). This is important, because I think we have a tendency to hold a dualistic view of the world where there is good and there is evil. But think, for a moment, about some truly good things in life. Let's take food, for example. Food is wonderful, and it is a reflection of the provision that God has given us in the garden. And it goes eons beyond mere provision: it gives us immense pleasure. A good meal should point to God. It reflects the kind of co-creation that Adam and Eve had in the Garden. Good food requires work, some time, creativity, and resources. And in the hands of a master chef, ordinary ingredients can be combined to create a transcendental experience. Food is good. But..., and there is always a but, we are prone to have a fallen relationship with what we eat. This fallen relationship might lead us to food addiction, to gluttony, to greed. It might lead us to laziness, where we  become accustomed to tasting food but never preparing a good meal. Our taste buds can be corrupted to only crave unhealthy, fast foods. The industrialization of food can lead to environmental, social, and health problems. For example, beef production in America is tied directly to soil and water degradation and accounts for a large number of greenhouse gas emissions (click here for more details), all so we can consume more meat than at any other time in history. While we know that food is good, we can see how our relationship with it is problematic. And don't get me wrong, I'm not simply advocating better food practices. I think that the more people that eat better and more responsibly, and share meals with people and help feed the poor will make the world a better place, of course. But I think, that if that is all, it's a bit like trying to dress a gunshot wound with a bandaid. We corrupt good things because we are fallen, and even our "good intentions" will eventually screw things up. We need a more radical change, and only the kind that we cannot do on our own, but in the person of Christ. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28, my italics). Those dreams that we have for a healthy and just world are exactly what God is working to redeem for us and in us through Christ. It will all be good once again.

2. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.... Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it... Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. (227-228).

One of the great ironies I have found in my Christian life is this great, counter-intuitive truth that is found in Matthew 10:39. "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." I have spent a whole lot of energy in dreaming up my identity as a man, in how I’m educated, my tastes, my activities, my outlook, job, etc. infinite...  I have always tried my hardest to be what we moderns call “self-actualized”; meaning, I see what I want my life to be and I make it that by my own effort and will. This idea is popular in our current milieu, and you will see it promulgated everywhere.  It is something that I think I often tell myself. But think about all those things I’m juggling in life. All those details that I feel I’d need to get perfect to be who I really want to be. How anxious it makes me to just simply think about it. And that is without thinking of the million ways that I fall short of my ideal self. I fall short as a husband, as a teacher, a friend, a humanitarian, and basically in every respect. Now multiply that initial anxiety with my shortcomings and we have, as Lewis points out, a perfect recipe for "hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay." The truth is I really need God.

When I first started investigating Christianity, I was worried that if I gave myself over to this, I would lose my identity. But the radical truth is that God is supplanting my old, corrupted, and dying identity with one that is the best version of myself. I was honestly worried that I was going to become a "weird" Christian, who loses his taste in music and fashion, shuns liberal politics, and becomes ferociously "anti" everything fun. I did begin to examine all of those things more deeply, but it doesn't mean that my entire personality changed. But something did change, deep in my heart, and that change is still taking place, turning me into the new man that Christ wants me to become, outfitting me with my best attributes redeemed, making me a crown. God wants my all so He can ultimately redeem it all and make the me beyond my most passionate dreams.  

The irony, the paradox, the counter-intuitive truth of the Gospel, is that when I give my life to Christ, when I lose it in him, I gain the ideal. Not perfectly and not yet, but I see that now in my future, in my eternity, that I am made like Christ but I am Justin: a unique, wonderful version of Christ. I lose my life to gain it. 

3. What can you ever really know of other people's souls-- of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbors or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call 'nature' or 'the real world' fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable? (217)

What, in the quiet recesses of the day, do we tell ourselves? What do we hear; what are the deepest rumblings in our soul trying to tell us about reality? I'd wager that most of us turn on the music, the television; or we turn to chores, housework, cooking; or, even better, we dive into books and lectures. What lengths we will go to not have to ponder the big questions-- Why are we here? What is the deal with morality? Why is there beauty, love, community, family; and then so much heartbreaking hate, violence, and greed infecting everything? Why are we here, on this planet, in the middle of the vast universe, with seemingly no purpose but to try and scrape by as best as we can while we are here? Why do I hurt people, why do I hurt myself? We conjure up our realities and try and not think about it too long, covering our lives with work, activities, relationships, Kakao talk, Facebook, yoga, exercise, diets, and the infinite to-do-lists-du-jour.

But suppose, for a moment, that we take Psalm 46:10 seriously, and truly... "Be still... and know... that I am God." 

There's a great line in a Wilco song that I apply to myself whenever I find that I've been so far into my distractions that I forget the wonder, the beauty, and the mystery of being alive. "It's become so obvious, you are so oblivious to yourself." (Pot Kettle Black, 2002). When I'm done painting my own picture of reality, God is there, waiting, inviting, knocking, imploring me to just be quiet and know Him, and that He is pulling me through the death and decay of the world into a greater narrative. Know that we are inside of a story far greater than the ones we manufacture for ourselves everyday. And know that when it all falls away, and it all will..., that we will stand before the throne of the Author of all that is real and either say we have responded to and tried to know Him, or that we have spent our lives crowding Him out by our own agenda, our diversions, and distractions. 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!