Mere Christianity
This is probably Lewis’ most famous non-fiction book, and if he wasn’t known to our generation as “the Narnia guy,” he would be known as the “mere Christianity guy.” There is much to love about this book – which is actually a collection of talks he gave for BBC radio during WWII. He builds a solid case for a moral law that all people share in common. For example, one doesn’t have to believe in God to think that Hitler’s genocide of the Jewish people was bad. I have yet to find an atheist willing to take a stand for Hitler.
From the universal moral law (which points to a Law-giver) he presents his case for Christ as Lord in his famous “trilemma:”
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would bot be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Hm up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Reading those words for the first time as a young man caused Christianity to make sense to me in a solid way. I remember a sensation like I had been feeling my way around in a dark room, uncertain of my surroundings. I had a vague belief that I was in the right place but with the nagging doubt you feel in the dark. “It seems like the table should be just over there, and if I veer a bit to the left I shouldn’t trip over the computer bag I left out last night.” You know the feeling…slow-motion-walking with your arms extended, praying you don’t stub a toe. These words were to me like the sun rising and shining into that dark room. The shapeless dark began to have form to it. I was confident that Christ was Lord and didn’t need to zombie walk in the dark anymore! For this reason alone I love this book and have recommended it to many people, non-Christians and Christians alike.
There is much more to love about this book. In particular, the chapters titled “The Invasion” and “The Shocking Alternative” are great, quick explanations of spiritual warfare and the presence of evil.
The only reason Mere Christianity didn’t make it to #1 on my list is a weak explanation of the atonement of Christ. Lewis does seem to put forward some type of substitutionary view of atonement (Jesus died in our place), he rejects penal substitutionary atonement (Jesus died in our place to bear the righteous wrath of a just God). I won’t go into detail here as Kevin DeYoung at the Gospel Coalition site has done a great job with this problem here.
Whether you are a Christian or not, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book and setting aside enough time to really wrestle with Lewis’ explanation of what all (or most) Christians truly believe.
You can find it here for $9.
