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Essay on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Sixty years ago, in 1943, C.S. Lewis delivered the first in a series of lectures that would eventually be published as Mere Christianity. Lewis, author of the popular Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and the Perelandra science-fiction trilogy, was one of the most famous Christian apologists of his time. Mere Christianity was the culmination of his efforts to, in his words, "explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times." (C.S. Lewis 1977). In the decades since its initial publication, Mere Christianity has been tremendously influential and has gathered a reputation as a successful conversion tool. (Michael Joseph Gross, 1999)
Although Lewis' achievements in apologetics have been generally acclaimed, he is not without his critics. In his lifetime he had to meet objections from his fellow Anglican W. Norman Pittinger and the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. In 1985, twenty-two years after his death, a book-length refutation of Lewis' entire apologetical project was published by the philosopher John Beversluis.
The various criticisms, however, reflect the presuppositions of their authors, which are not self-evidently true. One problem stems from the notion of "mere Christianity," which Lewis selected as the position to be defended. It is easy to object that there is no such thing as "mere Christianity" and that major differences, such as those between Protestants and Catholics, cannot be papered over. Aware of the objection, Lewis compared mere Christianity to a hall through which one finds one's way into the bedrooms of a house. The hall is not a place where anyone wishes to stay, but it is a place from which one can gain access to one or another of the rooms, recognizing that those in neighboring rooms are one's housemates. By "mere Christianity" Lewis means the common fund of doctrines and practices enshrined in Scripture and the early creeds, which are foundational for most Christian churches. (Avery Cardinal Dulles, 2005).......
