XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: Gotta_lose@this_spam.com   
      
   Bree wrote:   
      
   > I don't think Lewis ever used a term like 'mere Christian'. Certainly he   
   > never used 'mere Christianity' in a sense like that above: like some   
   > improved or enlightened or ideal or purified version distinct from what   
   > real people really wrote in their creeds etc -- much less something that   
   > could be 'practised' on  its own!  (See Naph's quote of Lewis's passage   
   > about a hall vs rooms, opposing any such idea.)   
      
   Long ago, in days of old, Canada put together a hockey team that would   
   finally take on the Russians at long last. Well there was a lot of   
   politics mixed with this endeavor (as there is with every Canadian   
   activity) and one place where politics was paramount was in picking   
   a name for the team (The traditional 'Canadian National Team' wasn't   
   good enough, you see). Well the name that won out, the optimal French/   
   English mix, was 'Team Canada' (get it... Canada's Team -> Team Canada,   
   English words, French syntax and sentence structure.... Brilliant!!!)   
   Some people like me hated it, most people just said, "yeah, yeah, fine.   
   lets just watch some hockey". Anyway, that's been the name of every   
   Canadian national sports team since.   
      
   Now, how does the computer named Holly on 'Red Dwarf' put it?   
      
      "An IQ of 6000 isn't so much. It's only the same   
                  IQ as 12000 professional hockey announcers"   
      
   And so it goes. The result is inevitable. Over the years and through   
   many international sporting contests we have dim bulbs called announcers   
   who take to referring to teams from other countries as 'team this' and   
   'team that'. At first it is just hockey. You have 'Team USSR' and   
   'Team USA' and 'Team Czechoslovakia' and so on. It goes on and it   
   spreads to other sports and then one day, while you are watching some   
   Olympic coverage, you hear some knucklehead say something like, "and   
   this is the marathon runner from Team Swaziland". And then you scream.   
   The whole world thinks that Canadians everywhere are a bunch of   
   imbeciles who speak some kind of weird pigeon English.   
      
   Now what does that have to do with the phrase 'mere Christianity'?   
   Well, for one thing, it gave me an opportunity to vent. Actually,   
   I am very sympathetic to your gripes. The title of the book is   
   like a nifty little moniker. It is borrowed as a phrase to allude   
   to simple, untarnished discipleship. The most basic doctrines and   
   principles. The things that Jesus taught us without all the   
   extraneous fluff. Would Lewis have objected? I doubt it.   
      
   But then, as soon as you do this, you have a whole crowd of people   
   who want to put the fluff back in and call that 'mere Christianity'.   
   Then you have others who have only a world view of what Christianity   
   is and they want to call 'that' mere Christianity. And then in come   
   the nutbars with copies of The Da Vinci Code in their pockets and   
   all kinds of imaginary historical facts swimming around in their   
   brains telling us what 'mere Christianity' really means. Our nice,   
   simple, to the point, phrase has been hijacked and the title of   
   C.S. Lewis' most popular book is tarnished. Moreover, the whole   
   point of the book is missing altogether. Does Lewis object now? I   
   think he might.   
      
   But through all of this there is another habit that has proven   
   itself most inclined to stick in my particular craw. That is this   
   business of talking about 'mere Hinduism' and 'mere Buddhism' and   
   'mere Paganism', et al. This is just a little bit too trite for   
   words and an insult to the man who loaned us the phrase in the   
   first place.   
      
   Yours in Christ   
      
   John   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)