Mere Christianity By C. S. Lewis

The first audio book that I downloaded from the library web site and listened to was Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. As far as I can tell, only a subset of books are available for download, usually "Classics" (i.e., those out of copyright) and those by authors I'm not familiar with. Either that, or I haven't figured out how to browse their web site correctly. Anyway, Mere was a book I wanted to read, and Lewis was an author I'm familiar with, and so I selected it.

Let me start by saying that this book is a classic. As such, it should be easy to find more authoritative commentary on it than I can provide here. So take what I say with a grain of salt, find other web sites, or better yet, read the book on your own.

The book is apparently a collection of essays originally meant for wireless (and not that wired junk!) radio broadcast, collected in book form. The first part is an explanation or "defence" of Christianity, designed to explain that belief in Christianity isn't unreasonable. It may not convince many non-believers, and I don't think that is the point. It does, however, present the author's beliefs in a clear way that should be understandable to others who may or may not agree with them. One interesting point he raises is looking at human instincts. He points out that if you see a man in trouble, you'll probably feel two conflicting feelings to a lesser or greater degree. One would be to help the man in need, and the other will be to stay out of it and get yourself to safety. According to Lewis, the thought that you should help the man in need can be explained as a naturalistic instinct, but he wonders if the "little voice" telling us that we really should choose the "instinct" to help the man in need is something beyond the instinct itself. It's interesting and he presents it far better than I am here. Go ahead and read it.

The second part of the book has more to do with Christian living and what, in his opinion, should be the Christian outlook on things. It is also interesting, but the switch between the two sections seemed abrupt to me. This might just have been my missing the transition while concentrating on traffic or something. Here are a few points that struck me as different from what I might hear from today's Evangelicals. This doesn't make them his most important points (not by a long shot!), only that they were interesting to me.

• Lewis is more in favour of consumption of alcohol than is the fashion (in some circles) today. He mentions that one valid reason not to drink would if you're the type of man who can't handle it, and another reason would be because you've decided to give the money to the poor. But he doesn't think that people who are against drink should spoil the fun of those that do.
• Lewis is not in favour of Christians using the political process to do things like making divorce more difficult. He claims that leading a Christian life is hard (especially for non-Christians) and he wouldn't want to make divorce more difficult for non-Christians just like he wouldn't want the "Mohammedans" telling him that he can't have a glass of wine with dinner.
• Towards the end, his views seemed to be sounding a little "Mormonish" to my ears, though I should research this more before making any claims.

This is a rather deep book. Listening to it was difficult because I felt as if the reader was going too fast at times. Perhaps it would be better read slowly.

I won't give this one a "star" rating, though it is recommended for further study and discussion.

And I was planning on a short review. Sheesh!