Mere Christianity Summary

C.S Lewis in his book Mere Christianity talks and describes human nature in the first chapter of his book similar to the Golden rule found in the bible. He also refers to Human nature as the law of human nature instead, then mention that it is optional for people to follow it,but is necessary for society's to grow. He proves his point to the reader by presenting a philosophical task of imagining a country where people would be honored from running away from battle or a society where people are proud when double crossing with each other. It's hard to imagine a country or a society being possible with traits such as treachery are being promoted and explains that a variety of early civilizations have followed teachings similar to the golden rule. I believe that the Golden rule is a part of human nature since the creation of man. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important his response “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy

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.

Lewis' argument in the third book is most important to the point I want to discuss. He argues through this chapter the Christian behavior. Morality is what he considers to be the basics of good Christian behavior. Lewis states that morality is not simply, "something that prevents you from having a good time", but rather morals are the "directions for running the human machine". Every moral rule is there to prevent wear and tear on the way machine operates. He realizes that is why the rules seem to be constantly getting in the way of are natural behavior. Lewis sees that some people think in terms of moral ideals not rules and obedience. Ideals suggest preference to personal taste. Something that subjective would be meaningless in practice. Idealistic notions are meaningless unless we try to carry them out. Acting on ideals requires rules. Lewis uses the analogy of the ship to show how ideals without rules can go wrong. If the ships keep on having crashes they will not be able to sail. If their steering gears do not work they will not be able to avoid crashes.

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.

The main message in Christianity & Liberalism is what the only object of faith is Christ. Machen composes his book into doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church; he shows all of this doctrine should be directly connected with the faith in Christ. If not, he declares that that should not be Christianity. In chapter 1 and 2, Machen emphasizes that how maintaining traditional doctrine is important. The reason for that is classical conservatives tried to keep the doctrine upon the Bible; however, classical liberalism attacked the traditional doctrine because Machen points out that liberal theologians and preachers want to interpret the truth from the point of a human. Machen even warns that the liberalism is shaking the faith in Christianity. In other words, it could be proper understanding that the liberalism rebelled against the truth and God’s word.

As Christians, we tend to believe that everyone has the same worldview as us. We believe that everyone thinks the way we do leading him or her to do the right thing. We assume the best and forget the worst. However, it becomes painstakingly real that is not the case in our world today. We are constantly faced with ethical issues in our profession and everyday life. Although we would like to believe that people always do the right thing that is not the case. This reality hits us in cases like the Tuskegee study, the obedience to authority study, and the Stanford prison experiment.

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 chapter one, Lewis makes two fundamental points. The first is that all people have this idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and they cannot to get rid of it. Secondly,

In chapter four the author explains the different school of thoughts, such as modern process theology, the problem of process thought, why this process fails, and the true story of open theism. In simple words, this is the spirit of this age of worldly knowledge and worldly wisdom is dominating society, school systems, and many evangelical churches. As a result, advance thinking and naturalistic view are convinced of their superiority of both knowledge and wisdom denying the existence of God as the Creator of this world. In chapter five Bush explains what naturalistic evolution is – “a philosophical mode by which the world may be interpreted in terms of change rather than stability.”

This month we were assigned to read the last book of Mere Christianity. Chapter one talks about God’s relation to us as followers of Christ. Chapter two discusses the Trinity, and how even though there are three parts he is a personal God. Chapter three addressed God with time. God is not in the past or future, but he is in the present.

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”.

“None of us can meet God’s standard. As a result, none of us deserve to don the robe and stand behind the bench and judge others.” (MaxLucado39) Christians have a hard time abstaining from a judgemental mindset, but that is not always the case. Non-believers have a tendency to show their judgemental side by just saying that “Christians are always judging me.” whenever a Christian may approach a certain non-believer. This is one of the reasons that Christians are considered flat characters rather to the approach of flat characters becoming round. Christians are perceived as one dimensional and hypocritical but in all honesty Christians are striving to become a picture of Jesus Christ.

Following Jesus in America seems to be a very touchy subject in today’s time. Freedom of religion is practiced in America, and Americans are encouraged to practice whatever they choose. John Fea and Stephen Prothero debate the topics of America being founded as a Christian Nation and the idea of Jesus being followed in America. America was and is Christian, still, but was not founded on Christianity. Fea does not answer the question regarding America being founded as a Christian nation (Fea 245). Prothero gives some opinion about Jesus in America, but says Jesus is viewed different in the eyes of many Americans (Prothero 9). As much as I want to think that America was founded as a Christian nation, I cannot agree with it. The people who created the constitution may have had some Christian principals, but the constitution has no evidence of God in it. In the sense of Jesus, Americans do not follow Him in a certain way. Jesus is made out to be the person that suits anyone’s identity at his or her discretion.

Across the globe, there are a wide assortment of religions used by people of varying

We live in a world marked by a culture of death. the constant manifetations of ruptures with one itself as lonelines, sadness, with no sence, unstopping search of false