Get ten Christians in a room and ask them what book (other than the Bible) was most impactful for their Christian formation. I guarantee that at least one person (and probably more than one) will mention C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity. (Case in point: when I asked “What’s the most formative book you ever read?” on Twitter (and later on my blog) two respondents mentioned Mere Christianity.)
We all know the book Mere Christianity. Alas, the core concept that forms the book’s title is, for many, a bit harder to pin down. Just what is “mere Christianity,” anyway?
Last week, I posed that question to several friends and acquaintances, asking them to send me their own definition in approximately 5 to 6 sentences. As of yesterday, a total of seven responses had come in, all of them intriguing and thought-provoking in their own right. And that created a problem. You see, while my initial intent was to post all of these statements together in one article, it became apparent to me that each was deserving of fuller reflection. And so I have decided instead to post these several definitions of mere Christianity as part of a series. I’ll be posting them all in the order that I received them, each with an introduction and some brief commentary to follow.
Introduction
The first entry in the series comes from Dale Tuggy. Dr. Tuggy is a professor of philosophy at SUNY (State University of New York) Fredonia and a prolific blogger and podcaster at his website Trinities. He is the author of the excellent book What is the Trinity? (which I review here) and of many journal articles and book reviews (many of which you can read here).
Dale Tuggy on Mere Christianity
“Only the one Jesus calls ‘Father’ is the one true God; the unique man Jesus is his Messiah. God the Father sent Jesus, gave him his message, empowered him, and endorsed him with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him. Jesus obeyed God’s call even to give up his life, but God raised Jesus from the dead, proving that Jesus was indeed God’s Messiah. God exalted Jesus to his right hand, making Jesus the one Lord under the one God. Jesus will return to fully establish God’s Kingdom on earth. All people should worship the one God and honor and follow his Messiah. Through Jesus we have the hope of resurrection to eternal life.”
Reflections
God the Father and his Son Jesus are clearly central in Tuggy’s view, as one would expect with any description of mere Christianity. What is equally clear is that Tuggy’s view, while adhering closely to New Testament language, does not embrace the church’s later doctrines of Trinity and incarnation. Indeed, Tuggy rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as an errant post-biblical doctrine which is inconsistent with the God revealed in the New Testament.
Tuggy is happy to quote Acts 2:36: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” He agrees heartily with Paul’s declaration in Romans 10:9 that those who declare with their mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe that God raised him from the dead will be saved. But he rejects Nicaea and Chalcedon as errant interpretations of biblical teaching. Indeed, Tuggy could very well borrow the words of Luther for his own context:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”
In case you’re wondering: no, now is not the time to mount a pro-Nicene reading of the New Testament. The ensuing disputation would take us far beyond the confines of this short article.
Instead, we can simply note that given the centrality of the Trinity and incarnation in historic orthodoxy, many Christians will repudiate Tuggy’s summary of mere Christianity as not simply inadequate but fundamentally flawed, even heretical. However, whatever you think of the adequacy of his response, he forces us to grapple with the biblical text and to consider again our ecclesial reading traditions. What role, if any, do church and creed have in defining or delimiting the boundaries of acceptable readings of Scripture? And can one person’s careful and conscientious reading of the scriptures, buoyed by reason and conscience, eclipse those traditions?
