PWJ: S1E38 – MC B4C8 – “Is Christianity hard or easy?”

In today’s episode, Lewis attempts to answer the question: “Is Christianity hard or easy?”. When discussing this question you may hear conflicting answers, since Scripture sometimes speaks as though it is former, and then at other times, the latter.

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Episode 38: Is Christianity hard or easy? (Download)

— Show Notes —

• The quote-of-the-week:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it.

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

• In recent chapters, Lewis has been emphasizing again and again that Christianity is all about becoming a son of God and participating in the Divine Life:

What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• Lewis wants to make sure we don’t think that “participating in the Divine Life” is simply Christian-speak for “being good”. He explains how someone might reach this incorrect conclusion.

It begins, he says, with starting with the natural self and natural desires. Once we discover the Moral Law, we know that it must trump some of desires, meaning that we avoid doing somethings with would like and doing other things which would don’t like. The problem comes when when that man thinks satisfying morality, as though it was a tax which he had to pay and, after which, that he can do what he likes with the rest of his life:

“[thinking that] the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• Jack says that this will end badly. Either you will get grumpy or just give up all together:

…if you are really going to try to meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on.
The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.

And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier…

..[You will] become one of those people who, as they say, “live for others” but always in a discontented, grumbling way-always wondering why the others do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• In contrast to this, Lewis says that the Christian way is different.

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good… Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• Matt then told us the story of an Indian beggar who is asked for some grains of rice by the King. The beggar gives him four grains of rice, since he only has eight grains in total. After the King has left, he finds that the four grains have been replaced by four nuggets of gold. Upon seeing this, he says to himself: “If only I had given the King everything…”

• Lewis then gives some examples from everyday life where it is the better thing to give everything, rather than to hold back:

“In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it takes a lot of pluck to do; but it is also, in the long run, the safest thing to do. If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

Matt, in a moment of inspiration compared this to the scene in The Dark Knight Rises where Bruce Wayne is trying to escape from the pit, and he can only do it when he removes his safety rope and commits himself entirely to the jump. In a similar way, we must give everything to Christ:

“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self-all your wishes and precautions – to Christ”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• To give everything is actually easier than what we’re trying to do:

“to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good’. We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centred on money or pleasure or ambition-and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

Jesus says that we can’t do this. We can’t serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). A thistle can’t produce figs (Matthew 7:16). Lewis offers his own example:

“If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• The change in us needs to be deep and abiding:

“It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

I compared it to ketchup and a marinade. Matt referenced the song, Hard Love, by NEEDTOBREATHE:

In the morning you gon’ need an answer
Ain’t nobody gonna change the standard
It’s not enough to just feel the flame
You’ve gotta burn your old self away

NEEDTOBREATHE, Hard Love

• Lewis then quotes some very challenging words of Christ:

When he said, “Be perfect,” He meant it.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

The meaning of this Scripture passage will be discussed in more detail in the next episode, but the essential point again is that half-measures are not enough:

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• This transformative process begins every morning:

“All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day…from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us””

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

Matt explained that a priest offered him similar advice, to begin every day on his knees offering the day to God and at night ending in the same way.

• As Lewis wraps up the chapter, he reaffirms yet again that this transformation in Christ is the entirety of Christianity:

May I come back to what I said before? This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects-education, building, missions, holding services… the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• Jack discusses how all things are drawn into Christ:

…when intelligent creatures entered into Christ they would, in that way, bring all the other things in along with them.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

He admits this is somewhat speculation, but he concludes the chapter by affirming what we know for certain:

What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ – can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father – that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book IV, Chapter 8)

• As usual, I ended the episode with my review of a podcast, American Innovations.

American Innovations is a wonderful podcast which tells the story of great technological innovations through a creative storytelling. Each topic, such as Nuclear Power, DNA and Artificial Intelligence receives several episodes and each episode is a mix of narrative and dialogue. Have a listen and discover the hidden drama behind the development of some great American Innovations!

iTunes Review