Human Nature
Today, I picked up C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity for the second or third time. This time I was determined to put a little effort into sticking with it for more than a few pages. I actually finished 3 chapters, which is decent considering my track record on reading. Here’s what I have taken from it so far.
Human nature is something we often talk about but rarely do we analyze it. We just accept the fact that we’re going to act a certain way in all circumstances. This is even true across cultures. Everyone accepts an ultimate right and ultimate wrong. We hold ourselves to standards we can’t keep all while realizing we’ll never be perfect. People are inclined to fall short. We will continually fall short.
The book has also spurred me on to think about our American culture’s idols: BMW’s, mansions, security, bank accounts, country clubs, status, and the like. When will we realize that worshipping at the altar of consumerism will only bring us destruction? The Gospel is not one of health and wealth; it is one of suffering and persecution. We need to have our prosperity torn out from under us in this country of posh living so that we rely on Christ’s work on the cross alone.
Welcome to the blogosphere my friend.
What a timely post! I just finished Mere Christianity for the second time last week. It gets really good later on, so stay with it, man! I love the way he states in the first chapter that whenever you accuse someone of wronging you, they never say “To Hell with your standard.” They instead state reasons why they haven’t really violated the standard or how it somehow didn’t apply the same in this case. There’s an absolute standard that is innate in every human heart regardless of culture (as you stated).
Just way until you get to the part where he describes how God transcends time. It is awesome! Lewis is my favorite author/thinker ever. The man was amazing. He will be the second person I talk to in Heaven (after Jesus and Paul of course!).
Detritche Bonhoeffer said something like this: When Jesus calls a man, he bids him ‘come and die.’” That’s a little different than the prosperity “gospel”.
Keep plugging away with Lewis, it’s a great read and the way he makes complex things so accessible is genius.
I was listening to someone recently, maybe Michael Ramsden of RZIM, and he told about a woman from Christian India who came to the US and could clearly see that our idols are the TV (all the chairs in the room point to it and we focus intently on it) and resturants. Coming from a Christian from a land of millions of idols, she should be able to recognize them.