Mere Christianity Chapter 1 Summary

We have now come to the fourth and final book of Mere Christianity. In this book, the author takes us to the place in our Christian growth where we begin to rely more heavily on the power of God and less on ourselves to become the being that God originally intended for us to be — a son of God. He begins with an explanation of the difference between “making” and “begetting.”

The Christian religion finds its foundation on the Word of God and the work of Jesus Christ. Christianity finds its beginnings with Jesus Christ about 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth to teach, heal, and die for the sins of humanity. When God created man, he openly rebelled against God, causing a rift in their relationship. Since humans cannot save themselves, a perfect and completely innocent sacrifice was necessary in order to purify and restore mankind. Christianity is all about Jesus’ death and resurrection, as well as denying oneself and following Christ.

Chapter three of Engaging the Christian Scriptures goes into detail over selective parts of the sections of history, writings, and prophets. Chapter three gives the reader information over several books in the Bible such as Joshua, Judges, Jeremiah, etc. The chapter dives into the text of Joshua and gives the reader useful insight over Joshua and him leading the Israel across the Jordan river to conquer the land of milk and honey, Jericho. The book of Judges purpose was to teach Israel that God is faithful and certain to punish sin therefore each person must remain loyal and devoted to the Lord. The purpose of Jeremiah was to warn of the destruction that they were about to face and to urge Judah to return and submit to God. Towards the end

Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis, is written as set of guidelines of Christian belief. Lewis does not say there is any particular way to believe but he does make a point that the topic of religion itself is serious. As you consider whether you want to believe or not, you have to recognize how much thought it requires, and how thought provoking a process this decision is. Lewis covers Christianity in four different books within his book. In book one, Lewis discusses the Law of Nature and makes note of a tendency in humans of appealing to a standard of absolute truth in quarrels and arguments. He calls this standard the Law of Nature or the Moral Law. The Law isn't the same as the law of gravity

In chapter one, Bush gives an overview of the worldview of the advancement. Bush then draws a comparison between the features of the advancement worldview with the features of the Christian worldview. The author explains how the stability that was an integral part of the Christian worldview has been replaced with the concept of inevitable progress in the advancement worldview. Bush writes, “If God created the world, as the Christian Bible said that he did, then the world of nature should be reasonably stable, orderly and predictable,” . From this concept of stability in nature, Bush contrasts the modern worldview by stating, “To the modern mind, however, progress is inevitable. It is a characteristic of nature and a characteristic of mankind,”

As a project we were told to study a religion from an outsider’s perspective. We, as students, would attend that specific religion’s place of worship to observe their rituals and routines. Then after service we would conduct an interview with the participants to answer our personal questions such as “Why do they do the things they do?” or “How often do they do this?” I chose to study Christianity even though I am a Christian. I thought it would be interesting to see if most Christian churches practice Christianity the same way. However, prior to attending services I researched the history of Christianity.

The Story of Christianity is a book written by Justo Gonzalez; a native of Cuba. Gonzalez serves on the faculty of the Interdenominational Theological Center which is located in Atlanta Georgia. He attended Yale University, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in historical theology; in fact Dr. Gonzalez is the youngest person at Yale to be awarded a Ph.D. He is also one of the first generation Latino theologians and instead of growing up Catholic, comes from a protestant background. In addition to writing many other books, Gonzalez is also Cokesbury’s publishing chief narrator of the Christian Believer study video lessons course and the recipient of the Ecumenism Award from the Theological Consortium in Washington, which he received as a

Book 3 of Mere Christianity contains 12 separate chapters, which has far too great a scope to address properly here, so a glimpse will have to suffice. In the first, Lewis examines three components of morality; the relations between men, the interior moral mechanics of a man, and the relationship between a man and the God who made him. Lewis makes the case that, since we are destined to live forever in one state or another, it is desperately important that we pay attention to the sort of Being we are becoming. Lewis points out that most of humanity can agree that keeping relations between men running smoothly are important, but varying world views and religions-or lack of religion, have produced some disagreements on the necessity of keeping one’s own ship in order, as it were, and it completely breaks down when the relationship between a man and his Maker are addressed, as there is virtually no agreement there.

Religion, this is a word that has created many debates and arguments due to the world having multiple viewpoints and beliefs. C.S. Lewis decided that he would write about multiple views of Christianity, in his book “Mere Christianity.” Lewis writes about some of the main issues in Christianity, such as, ethics and humanities evident conscience. The deeper into his work one goes, the writing opens up the eyes of the reader to new views and new rationales of Christianity.

In the novel title “The Lost History of Christianity”, author Philip Jenkins attempts to convey the message that there are many aspects of Christianity that are unknown to Christian followers today. Jenkins start by implying that Christianity essentially starts in Northern Mesopotamia. Jenkins then traces the history of Christianity from Africa to the Arab world to the heart of Asia, in what he consider to be the “golden age” of Christianity. He informs the readers of the stories of churches and movements that thrived over a millennium and then largely died out, though there are remnants of these churches here and there, spread across different parts of the world. Jenkins is a firm believer that Westerners are blinded by the impression the Christianity began in Europe and Northern America, and believe that in some ways they are superior among other religions. Jenkins suggest, “When they think about Christian history, most modern Westerners follow the book of Acts in concentrating on the church 's expansion west, through Greece and the Mediterranean world, and on to Rome. But while some early Christians were indeed moving west, many other believers-probably in greater numbers-journeyed east along the land routes, through what we today call Iraq and Iran, where they built great and enduring churches. Because of its location-close to Roman frontier, but just far enough beyond it to avoid heavy-handed interference-Mesopotamia or Iraq retained a powerful terms of the number and

God become man, one of the profound mysteries of the Gospel and the Christian faith, is evidenced and affirmed throughout Scripture, yet it all too often is neglected in modern Christian thought and practice. In the work, The Incarnation of God, John Clark and Marcus Johnson do just the opposite. They bring the truth from scripture to robustly discuss a theology of the incarnation of God. Throughout their discussion, it becomes evident that the book strives to address the centrality of the incarnation, to the whole of the Christian faith, finding it’s support both in scripture and also the historic understandings of the catholic Church.

Mere Christianity, if you are looking to read a christian book and trying to get closer in your walk with the Lord, is a great book to do so. It helps people go through life and see how they should react and live accordingly to Him. Mere Christianity laid a foundation with me and how I should walk with Christ. I am a Christian, but this book made me not only grow in my beliefs, but in my view of life and how we should all live it. If you are looking for an answer, C.S. Lewis is one of the best authors to write a book like this.

In this article, the author talked a bout increasing the federal minimum wage in washington which Obama favors to be 10.10 $ an hour. He mention a long with the 16.5 million workers that a 10.10$ minimum wage would help directly through changing. This change would improve the family incomes of more than low wage workers and above the poverty line. Additionaly, icreasing wages are good for business because the gross domestic producte(GDP) will comes up.Furthermore, a minimum wage could affect comsumer price and higher-wage earnings.

The next three chapters, Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine, cover the atheist and what manners of atheist there are and how Christians should interact with them. Chapter Seven apprises the reader on the different flavors of atheists. There are three different kinds of atheist people will come across. There are those who are angry at a God they don’t believe exist, so they tend to be more hostile towards religion. There are atheists who are not necessarily neutral, but don’t have an aggressive insolence towards religion. The last group are those who identify as an atheist because they are simply unaware of the evidence of God. Chapter Eight is about how science is not actually against theology, but instead it actually needs theology and is against atheism. It also shows the historical evidence of Jesus, a little bit on the gnostic gospels and what they really are, and miracles and the circular logic of atheist trying to shoot miracles down. The author in Chapter Nine informs the reader on how to interact with our atheist friends. Like in the earlier chapters, Cawley gives micro practices and meso practices. The micro practice in this chapter is question flipping. This is basically the practice of turning fractious questions into delightful answers, and instead of answering straight forward, its beating around the bush.

One influential cult was based upon a mystical interpretation of Plato. Neo-Platonism was like a rational science that attempted to break down and describe every aspect of the divine essence and its relationship with the human soul. An Alexandrian Jew named Philo tried using Greek philosophy to interpret the Jewish scriptures. He wanted to unite the two traditions by suggesting that the Greek philosophers had been inspired by the same God who had revealed himself to the Jews.