Mere Christianity

Lewis has a brilliant way of confronting and challenging people without them knowing it. In Mere Christianity, Lewis begins his discussion by back-handedly shaming Christians for emphasizing the differences between them. He quite directly explains that denominations are not the point of joining a church, this shatters their comfort in their respective divisions. Right off the bat, he wipes away all preconceived notions of his writing on one denomination. By doing this, he levels their heads and reminds them of what the point really is: Jesus! The beauty of this is that he brings Christianity back to Christ without any one immediately recognizing it (which brings guilt) or rejecting it (which brings denial). In this writing, each reader lets go of his or her denomination, if only for a little while.

Our generation of Christians seems to reflect this same point. On the first day of class, a student said that he was not "non-denominational," but rather he is "without denomination." (Or something to that effect, Sorry if I got the wording wrong). It interests me that as much as Lewis affirmed this difference, he humble tells of his own membership to a particular denomination. Then, this student in our class may have some insight into Lewis' membership: To attend church, and thrive in Christian fellowship, without falling into the persuasive divisions Christians enjoy so much. I acknowledge that I am assuming the reasoning for this student to reject denomination labels parallel Lewis. In the end, Christians hurt themselves, each other, and seekers. Why would a seeker want to join a church that criticizes and hurts one another? Indeed, I do not escape or exclude myself for driving factions between myself and others.

The conclusion Lewis comes to is that "high Theology…ought never to be treated except by real experts." The point is, it doesn't really matter in the end any way!