22/100: Mere Christianity

(Just a warning, reader, this review might be a little disorganized)...

I am not even sure how to efficiently review this book that took me over a month to read!
Mere Christianity turned out to be different than I was expecting; I am so glad I buddy-read this with my friend because I don't know that I would have pushed myself to finish it otherwise. Her being a highly intelligent and extremely wise woman of the Lord was the added benefit because I was able to discuss certain aspects of the book with her.

I realize I have started off with a clearly negative tone, so I think I should make it clear that I didn't dislike this book; on the contrary, Lewis delivered quite a few "mic-drops" that really hit me hard. However, there was quite a few parts of the book that made me shake my head in disagreement, and in the end, I found his general non-fiction writing style to be a bit grating (more on that later). As a side-note, I think it was perfectly acceptable that I disagreed with Lewis on certain issues. Firstly, they weren't "salvation issues" and secondly, if I agreed with every single word written by every Christian author, I wouldn't really be displaying a quality of discernment, now would I?

Lewis has a very deceiving writing style, as my friend so rightly put it. He writes in very simple language and it kind of tricks your brain into reading quite quickly through the material, however, he also writes about some really lofty topics, and if you read full-speed-ahead, you miss out on the real meat of what he is saying. So on the one hand, I did like that he wrote in simpler terms because I think it made the delivery of these heavy topics slightly easier.

On the other hand, the grating part of Lewis' style is that he uses examples and comparisons very frequently and he could draw them out over a page or two, so that I often lost focus on what his original point was. Certainly comparisons and real-world examples help us to envision more, but done in this way, it ended up being more distracting than helpful.

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I kept a log of the various thoughts and quotes I came across during my reading, which I recorded on Goodreads, so from here on out, this review will be a record of the different opinions I had.

* "To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?"

* Lewis speaks of this "deep, strong, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us" and I think he actually was referring to joy... this I feel pretty strongly about. In my opinion, happiness is an emotion, based upon circumstances, while joy is a state of being, predicated on our relationship with God. Happiness is superficial, joy is bone-deep.

* "You will find this again and again about anything that is really Christian: every one is attracted by bits of it and wants to pick out those bits and leave the rest."

* "But never, pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand: but do not try building a house on it." (Mannnnn... convicted right there!)

* I was uncomfortable with many of the statements regarding God and His character and who He is. It often felt like he was trying to define God in the ways that made the most sense to him and did him the most service. I might have felt better about it if he included scriptural references to back up his assertions, but most of the time it felt like he was describing God in mortal terms instead of recognizing that God exists outside of our definitions.

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In the end, my experience with this book can be described as a struggle. Sometimes a good one; as you can see above, Lewis had quite a few quotes that were so convicting. But I did have a hard time connecting with his writing style and that's always a big issue for me. I do still have quite a few thoughts that I am processing through regarding Mere Christianity and maybe someday I will do a re-read and find my opinions have completely changed. All that to say, I am glad to check this classic off my list, and to have read something by Lewis besides Narnia :)

Stats:
Completed: Mar 21
Rating: 3 stars
Pages: 227