June 22: Mere Christianity: Book III, Chapters 8-12
On Sunday, June 22, 4:00-5:30 p.m., we'll continue our discussion of Mere Christianity with Book III, "Christian Behaviour," Chapters 8-12. All are welcome even if you haven't been a part of the conversation up to this point. Here is a selected passage from each chapter:
BOOK III: Ch 8: The Great Sin: paragraph 2:
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
BOOK III: Ch 9: Charity: paragraph 2:
Charity means "Love, in the Christian sense." But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.
BOOK III: Ch 10: Hope: paragraph 5:
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
BOOK III: Ch 11: Faith: paragraph 5:
Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.
BOOK III: Ch 12: Faith: paragraph 6:
Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.
"A New Theory on How Lewis Came Up With the name 'Narnia'" is a talk by Michael Ward at the 2024 Undiscovered C. S. Lewis conference in Newberg, Oregon. Also available on the site are "C. S. Lewis's Hilarious & Undiscovered Poems from Oxford University" by Simon Horobin and "C. S. Lewis's Unpublished Tragicomedy: 'Lewis the Bald'" by Jahdiel Perez, as well as "What made C. S. Lewis such a GREAT communicator?" by Steve Beebe.
The Chronicles of Narnia stamps issued by Royal Mail celebrate 75 years since the release of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Michael Ward wrote the in-slip for the presentation pack.
Central Texas C. S. Lewis is a reading group that meets in Austin, Texas.
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