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Essay paper on mere christianity c.s. lewis
Essay paper on mere christianity c.s. lewis
Essay paper on mere christianity c.s. lewis
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“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it” (Lewis, “Mere Christianity”). C.S. Lewis, a renowned broadcaster, essayist, lecturer, novelist, theologian, and Christian apologist, used his writing to create a significant effect on the Christian movement. During his lifetime, Lewis went through an amazing transformation from an avid Atheist to a strong Christian, and dedicated his career to sharing the truths of Christianity in his writing. Lewis utilized Christian apologetics to explain and defend his views of Christianity, and made the idea of Christianity more accessible to …show more content…
The analogy breaks down messages that are revealed in the Bible in order for the average person to understand what it being said, similar to how Jesus used parables to explain his teachings to mass audiences. The people listening to Jesus’ sermons weren’t very educated and had little prior knowledge about who Jesus was. He had to make his sermons relatable to the audience, just as C.S. Lewis does with his readers. Within the novel, Lewis also only covers what he considered the “basic teaching of orthodox Christianity.” Many theologists either focused on details that were unimportant to a new believer, or they wrote in ways that were difficult for the average person to understand. Lewis did not see himself as educated enough to provide a detailed theological and historical explanation of the doctrines that he discusses, but because of the lack of simplicity in religious works of literature, he strove to educate people on the basic outline of Christian beliefs (Mueller). Lewis explained his purpose for writing Mere Christianity in an interesting way,
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a book of thirty –one letters in which a retired, senior demon named Screwtape coaches his newly educated nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is quite troubled when it comes to tempting his “patient.” Nevertheless, he need not fear because faithful uncle Screwtape has offered his services. A unique character featured in the letters is, “The Enemy.” This character refers to God, the natural enemy of Satan. Of course Satan is referred to as “Our Lord.” In the letters, and Wormwood and Screwtape try their very best to please Satan and bring him glory. Although the book is written from the demons’ perspective, Lewis naturally uses it to highlight important truths of the Christian faith.
During his early life, Clive Staples Lewis was raised in church (Stewart 1). However, as modernism continued to gain influence, Lewis started to create his own, new perspective. Individualized, unique perspectives were one of the major aspects of modernism. Modernists of that time also rejected religion and instead chose to see it as a myth. They appreciated religion, but as an interesting story instead of a belief system (Matterson 1). That is just what C.S. Lewis came to believe; that Jesus' life was no more than an embellished story of an ordinary man. He put aside his Christian roots and became enthralled with Pagan myth. Lewis' writings reflected his atheist beliefs, until the early 1930s when he- after many talks with devoted Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien- rededicated his life to Christ (Gopnik 13).
The church has a problem. The eternally relevant message with which she has been entrusted no longer readily finds a willing ear. According to Henderson, the solution lies in first understanding how our world thinks and then, beginning where people are at, bring them to see "the functional relevance for their lives of the actual relevance of our message". In high school speech classes, we were taught to "know your audience." As a careless high schooler, I didn't really care what she meant, but it eventually made sense (once I actually decided to think about it). You wouldn't use sock puppets to explain math to accountants; you wouldn't use in-depth power-point presentations to explain math to first graders. With this in mind, why do many Americans still try to talk about Jesus using the methods used thirty years ago? Why do we use Christian "jargon" to explain Christianity to those outside the faith? Henderson contends that modern American Christians must change their approach to sharing the faith in order to fit modern America. The pattern of Henderson's book is straightforward: he examines a particular aspect/mindset/value of modern Americans; he then gives ideas about how a Christian might share Words of Eternal Life with such an American. Henderson's writing is both straightforward and enjoyable. He gets right to the heart of the American mindset, then illustrates it with descriptions from scenes from popular movies, personal anecdotes, jokes, etc. In all, Henderson does the modern Christian a great service in writing "Culture Shift." Jesus told Christians to tell others about him ("Go, therefore, and baptize all nations...") and Henderson can help us along the way through this book
The message of political alignment is a vast and varying concept, one that will be debated for as a long as party divisions exist. This divide however exists in not just the Christian community. We begin with the metaphor of a shepherds flock, blindly following what an individual says over ones own thinking. Boyd furthers this concept of alignment and how “many who left sincerely believe there is little ambiguity in how true Christian faith translates into politics. Since God is against abortion, Christians should vote for the pro-life candidate, they believe- and the preacher should say so” (Boyd 2). This blind adherence to one topic, one issue is unfortunately a failure on an intellectual level of all people, whether Christian or not. The
C.S. Lewis begins his book, “Mere Christianity”, by introducing the Law of Right and Wrong or the Laws of Nature. This, however, arises a question. What is the Law of Nature? The Law of Nature is the known difference between right and wrong. That is, mans distinction between what is right and what is wrong. “This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it and did not need to be taught it”(18). Lewis relates the law to how we treat others. We treat others the way we want to be treated and if they treat us poorly in return we become agitated and annoyed with them. He states that we become a society of excuses when something goes wrong. He goes on to say that we want to behave in a certain way when in reality we do the opposite of what is right or what is wrong. We are humans and humans have primal instincts. We are all capable of using our instincts to do right or wrong. Lewis uses an example of a drowning man to prove this point. When one sees a man in trouble two desires or instincts kick into play, to save the man or ignore him because the situation at hand could endanger you. However, there in another impulse that says help the man. With this comes a conflict of instincts. Do you run and forget about it or do you jump in and help. Most people will help even if the situation is going to endanger their life. This is just one way of seeing moral law. The right in a situation will mostly always prevail over the wrong. “Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are selfish, nor that they like being unselfish, but they ought to be”(30). We are creatures of habit and logic. Lewis believes that the moral law is not taught to us rather known by us instinctively. He also believes that the law is real. The law is our behaviors in life via good or bad. Lewis states, “there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behavior”(30). This opens Lewis to believe that the natural law is both alive and active in mans life today. Lewis goes on to say that the law must be something above mans behavior. He begins to relate this to the creation of the world.
Gibbons, Stella. "Imaginative Writing." Light on C.S. Lewis. Ed. Jocelyn Gibb. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965. Print.
In chapter nine, C.S. Lewis expands on the notion of God’s desire for perfection. He states that some people believe that God expects nothing short of perfection from his children and, therefore, finds us hopeless. However, draws attention to the fact that this is not the truth. He explains that God’s desire for excellence is not meant to scare us, but rather act as a comforting message. God will love and work with us until we have achieved perfection. Lewis then goes on and recounts a time in his childhood when he suffered from toothaches. He expressed that in spite of the knowledge that his mother would provide him with pain killers, he would not ask her for her help until he was in excruciating pain, because his mother would inevitably take him to the dentist the next morning. “I could not get what I wanted from her unless I got something more, which I did not want” (Lewis 201). In the same way that his mother did not leave well enough alone, God does not either. God grants us a full treatment when we come to him with our problems. Lewis’ quote reminded me of the apostles. In
Christian theism is accepting as truth that God is the one and only creator of the universe.. Per C.S. Lewis, there is a God who is wholly good and righteous, who hates hatred and loves love and has distinct views on how we should act or not act. (Lewis, 2001). This view is a shining example of theism- which can be defined simply as the belief in one God who is an absolute, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent and perfect being who is related to the world as its cause, but is unaffected by the world- we can’t change Him- only He can change us, as well as being transcendent over it.
The Story of Christianity is a book written by Justo Gonzalez; a native of Cuba. Gonzalez serves on the faculty of the Interdenominational Theological Center which is located in Atlanta Georgia. He attended Yale University, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in historical theology; in fact Dr. Gonzalez is the youngest person at Yale to be awarded a Ph.D. He is also one of the first generation Latino theologians and instead of growing up Catholic, comes from a protestant background. In addition to writing many other books, Gonzalez is also Cokesbury’s publishing chief narrator of the Christian Believer study video lessons course and the recipient of the Ecumenism Award from the Theological Consortium in Washington, which he received as a result of his ecumenical work of bringing together churches of different denominations
C.S. Lewis was the 20th century’s most popular proponent of faith based on reason. As a child, he created an imaginary world where personified animals came to life, and later, he wrote the book, Chronicles of Narnia. How did he transform from a boy fascinated with anthropomorphic animals into a man of immense faith? His transformation to the Christian religion happened as his fame began to flourish. People wrote him, asking him about his claims about the truth of Christianity (Belmonte, Kevin). As I attended the drama of Freud’s Last Session, I was engrossed into the plot of the play and was constantly thinking about how it pertained to the objectives of the World Literature class. I not only connected the content of the play to its context, but I also reached out to apply the context to a discussion on a broader scale. I then discovered why the context of literature is imperative for true understanding of the w...
C.S. Lewis, the great author, wrote all kinds of reading material: poetry, novels, and even children's fiction. He even wrote at a young age. He would draw his own pictures. People during his time loved his books, and today people still love to read his books. This author was also intelligent, joyful, and charitable.
In the first excerpt from the text Mere Christianity, C.S Lewis makes an argument for the existence of a Law of Human Nature using deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with a broad statement and comes to a conclusion about an individual idea. In the excerpt given from chapter one, Lewis introduces the concept of law, the physical and biological laws humans cannot disobey which is a universal concept. He makes the claim that there is a law “peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things,” and this law people can choose to disobey. In this quote, he is shifting from general laws to the idea of a law of Human Nature. He makes his opinion known when he states “they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to everyone. And I believe they were right.” Through deductive logic, Lewis allows the reader to contemplate these natural laws, which he uses as the basis to his argument for the existence of a Law of Nature. Moreover, through experience, Lewis claims that everyone has an idea as to what decent behavior looks like or should be. He replies to the objection that different civilizations have different moralities by asserting that they are actually more similar than
The Chronicles of Narnia are veritably the most popular writings of C.S. Lewis. They are known as children’s fantasy literature, and have found favor in older students and adults alike, even many Christian theologians enjoy these stories from Lewis; for there are many spiritual truths that one can gleam from them, if familiar with the Bible. However, having said this, it is noteworthy to say that Lewis did not scribe these Chronicles for allegorical didactics of the Christian faith, but wrote them in such a well-knit fashion that young readers might understand Christian doctrine through captivating fantasy and thus gain an appreciation for it. With this in mind, and in the interest of this assignment, the purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyze one of the many doctrines of the Christian faith from The Lion, The Witch, And, The Wardrobe (LWW), namely, temptation and how Lewis illustrates it through an individual character, Edmund.
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” In the novel, Till We Have Faces, Lewis contrasts religion based on the “gods and goddess” and religion that the different characters believe in. He does this by comparing the “gods and goddess” to the religion. He contrasts the two by having the characters switch opinions within the novel. Gods and goddesses actions vs the view that society has of them.
C.S. Lewis uses a secondary world, Narnia, to convey complex, thought-provoking messages to readers of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. This paper examines the way a selection of Narnia's key characteristics prompt debates over logic and faith, comment on the nature of spiritual and metaphysical journeys, allow readers to broaden their conception of their own capabilities, encourage new reflection on the story of Christ and help to clarify conceptions of good and evil.