Old Gold: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Someone once said that each time you read a new book you should add an old book too. We have looked at the essential books and "Mere Christianity" is certainly a golden nugget on the book shelf.

Lewis is brilliant and I just recently found out he is a "heretic and not a real born again Christian", at least according to some of his contemporaries.  He is a thinker and expresses these thoughts well.  Irish by birth and a self proclaimed atheist, he came to Christ in middle age.  Some call him "new age" and I suppose his fiction might qualify.  He is a devotional writer and thinker but not a Bible commentator.  This book and "The Screwtape Letters" are the only two really blessed me and never got into the Wardrobe books.  I am not ready to make him a saint but his writings reflect a man searching for Christ and using scripture to guide his way.

 These chapters were written for the radio and take his tone and personality to the page. Definitely British, with some aging language, and he sometimes using humor that eludes me, and he speaks from mind more than heart.  He makes sense out of deep things by making them obvious. Few writers that have kept their relevance for modern/post modern readers like "Mere" and C.S. Lewis. Chapter 10's snippet on "Hope" is an example. Lewis deals with the anxiety and often disillusioned responses of the late 1940's at is essence. His frustration with the Christian response and the culture's understanding of the Christian life reflect those of mine and many others. "There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of "heaven" ridiculous by saying they do not want "to spend eternity playing harps." The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown ups, they should not talk about them....People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs." (P. 106)

This is a good collections of thoughts for those struggling with the Christian faith, whether churched or not.  Lewis struggled and perhaps that is why I find resonance with him.   I found a place on my 'essentials' shelf for "Mere Chistianity."  It is worth reading and re-reading in personal devotions.