Mere Christianity: A layman’s guide to his own faith

Most of the times I tried to refrain from reading religious books for one reason or another; maybe I have already other platforms of devotion, the authors are biased and just want to enforce their theological arguments and creeds and on goes the list until I hadn’t read none. The journey to picking this book is a story for another blog.

Fast forward we are here and this is one of the best books I have read this year and as you might guess it not like many of the Christian books I have read(I have not ready but you will understand what I mean) as it not digging deep into scriptures and proving why some doctrine is true. I do not mean to imply that creeds, doctrines, deep scriptural analysis and related things are not important but to some people they really do not understand how they got there and therefore any shaking wind drives them to and fro and the only reason they continue is because they feel they should continue believing as any idea besides that is simply a gimmick to make them lose their and this one area of their lives their intellectual capabilities are not needed at all.

Like the author puts it this book is like the reception room of Christianity. You are not meant to stay here you either proceed forward or turn back and like a hotel with many rooms, suites and the like this rooms will tell you about the common rules of the house, the principles which it runs on and so on and so forth.

The reasons I liked book are the following

1. It is written by a regular Anglican Christian so there is not so much bias as to say.

2. It is a personal account of what the person thinks and how they understand certain things

3. It uses illustrations to explain things and not so much of scripture and I believe this is helpful to people who are not yet believers ( more like parable teaching style to me)

4. Does not go into too much of unnecessary arguments which divide than built

5. There is a reasoning behind( not that it explains everything but it shows someone is not just dreaming or something)

6. Addressees certain myths from within and without the Christian community

7. The identity of Jesus Christ

In an overall sense the book highlighted certain things and I will share a few

1. Moral Law, its origin and implications.

It is one of the things we have that we take for granted and the far greater consequences of our affirmation of the Law. Others think we invented it or it a result of social but it’s universality shows that it is neither. Some people it evolves but examining the fabric of it shows that it really does not. For example people have changed their managed their minds about the number of wives one can have over the course of history but never have anyone approved that you can get any woman you like. But the point is having right and wrong means there is a standard we are comparing to. And seeing that this law only applies to humans further shows that the whole thing that a force that blew the universe into existence and left it to its vices is really some clumsy and sluggish reasoning. This pokes holes in atheist arguments which lead nothing but to an existential crisis in my opinion. And by our shortcomings to apply this law the book tries to answer some really interesting questions to the Christian and the non Christian alike for example:

1. If God wanted to save humans why would he not just do it in a snap ?

2. What was the reason why God put a standard no one can leave up to?

3. What are we to do about these ideals?

4. What was the purpose of freewill

And so on and so forth. Through simple illustrations the author shows some reasoning biases which makes us miss certain points.

2. The identity of Jesus Christ.

You can’t talk about Christianity and run away from this but the author addresses the issues surrounding the figure of Christ in a great style firstly addressing the idea of him just being a good moral teacher and to further on explaining the dynamics that is going on in the Godhead. In the same chapter he tries to explain what we mean when we say God knows everything and the difference with causing each and every event.

3. What Christians are not and do not believe in

It is a very important chapter in my opinion as because often people have all sorts of ideas over things they do not understand and seeing that some Christians are equally ignorant we end up affirming or arguing some of the things just for the sake of winning an argument. This ranges from funny ideas we Christians have, ideas from other religions about Christianity and the atheists which want to discredit everything in the name of logic.

4. Encouragement to read the holy scripture and study

The author does not really state where exactly from the bible his ideas are coming from. This can be a bit frustrating if you are not familiar with the book or the faith and can equally be disastrous if you truing to mount up arguments out of context. But through a positive filter it encourages us to read our bibles as Christians to a point if someone is saying something contrary we can easily catch it. It is not just for the sake of protection but edification where you can have a foundation to build on if you happen to find something that encourages you or edifies you. It one thing to appreciate his thoughts but it is another dimension.

5. Using illustrations to demonstrate certain principles

There are a lot of ideas which are quite difficult to get our minds wrapped around them. His illustrations are by no means absolute or always without a flaw( He even says it that they are not what the bible says) but they help can help you to understand certain things like the unity of oneness of God and the compound nature of his personality, the meaning of the new birth.

6. Christian Virtues

It is a hot topic but there is are certain takeaways I love from it. One was concerning chastity or sexual purity. It is particular case because it is one of those things that we feel good about when we get to do it unlike most of the other proclivities. But the way we place a premium on it is also wrong as there are other more dangerous things like pride that had a heavy price even for once glorious celestial beings like Lucifer. He tries to explain what it means to love our enemies even if it is not something easy reassuring us that we have the grace of God available to help us even in our weaknesses.

I would be lying if I say this book is nothing short of excellent, insightful, educative, thought provoking and something you can afford to not need if given a chance. It is a exposition of our common values as Christians before we dive deep in all sorts of doctrines, creeds and tradition.

I may not have presented it in an exhaustive way but I firmly recommend it.

Adios! @Chungamu