Here are some more excerpts from Will Vaus’ Mere Theology: A Guide to the Thought of C.S. Lewis. These come from chapters 12-25. Skim through…and then linger on what strikes you. I'd highly recommend this books as a resource!
Chapter 12 – The Tao
Until I reach perfection, the Law is there as a tutor to lead me to Christ. I must try to act as a Christian today whether I feel like it or not. One day, I will always feel like acting as a Christian should. (120)
Growing in the Christian life is more like [God] painting his portrait in our lives than like obeying a set of rules. (120)
Chapter 13 – Venus
Sexual sin is bad, but it is the least bad of all sins. A cold, self-righteous snob who goes to church regularly may be nearer to hell than a prostituted. But it is better to be neither! (127)
Chapter 14 – Marriage and Divorce
We must remember that the husband is the head of the wife only in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the church. He is to love her as Christ has loved the church and give up his life for her. This kind of headship is thus embodied most clearly in a marriage that is most like a crucifixion. (136-137)
A good wife contains so many persons in herself. In relation to her husband she can be daughter, mother, pupil, teacher, subject and sovereign, mistress, and always holding all these together, comrade, friend, shipmate and fellow soldier. (137)
Chapter 16 – I Am the King’s Man
The rightful King of the universe has landed in disguise on this planet and has set about winning us back to himself, that he might raise us to reign with him in the heavenlies. (146)
Chapter 17 – War and Peace
War does not make death more frequent, war just makes death more real to us, and that is a good thing. One should be prepared for death and not put too much of one’s hope in this life. (150)
Chapter 18 – What’s Love Got to Do With It?
“Love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god” (Denis de Rougemont). God is love but love is not God. (157)
Lewis’ delightful rule of friendship: “People who bore one another should meet seldom; people who interest one another, often.” (159)
We should act as if we love others and then we will end up loving them. (161)
Grace must shine and rain on the garden of our loves if the loves are to grow properly. Left to themselves the natural loves either vanish or become demons. But when God arrives, these half-gods can remain and be fruitful. (162)
The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (162)
Then in the end, by loving God more than our natural loves, we shall love our natural loves more than we do now. (164)
If we cannot practice the presence of God, it is something to practice his absence, to realize the vacuum in our hearts that only he can fill. (164)
Chapter 19 – The Church
Once no one goes to church except to seek Christ, then the number of actual believers can be discovered. (172)
The test of music is always the same. We should ask ourselves, “Does this music make me more obedient, more God-centered and neighbor-centered or more self-centered?” (174)
Our present services are merely attempts at worship. When we attempt to worship God in church what we are doing is tuning our instruments for Heaven, where one day we shall praise God perfectly, with total delight. (175)
Chapter 20 – Prayer
When we don’t use any ready-made forms we tend to get too cozy with the Almighty. (177)
The body needs to be active in prayer as well as the soul. But concentration matters more than kneeling. (178)
We often pray for others when we should be doing things for them. (182)
We should make these [mental distractions in prayer] the subject of our prayers. We shouldn’t try to keep the distraction out of our minds. Rather, we should pray about the distraction, and then we may be able to return to our normal pattern of prayer. (183)
[We must be careful of] mere “Jesus-worship” rather than worship of the triune God. (184)
By spending time in God’s creation every day we reconstitute our souls. (185)
We must remember that we are still in the school of prayer; we haven’t graduated yet. (185)
Chapter 21 – The Sacraments
Communion is holy, for in it Christ is truly hidden. (193)
Jesus’ command was “Take, eat,” not “Take, understand.” Being tormented by wondering what the wafer and wine are stops one from receiving what God wants to give. It is like taking a red coal out of the fire to examine it; it goes dead. Overanalyzes of Communion leads to paralysis in the reception of it. (195)
Chapter 24 – Heaven
All scriptural images [describing heaven] (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) are symbolic attempts to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because music suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest splendor and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven and the preciousness of it. Those who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Jesus told his disciples to act like doves, he meant for them to lay eggs! (210)
Heaven is like morning, full of the promise of a new day, a fresh start, sunrise not sunset. (212)
Christians throughout the ages who have thought most of the next world are also the ones who have done the most for this world….Aim for Heaven, and you will get Earth along with it; aim for Earth, and you will get nothing. (213)
If we find in ourselves a desire that this world cannot satisfy, perhaps it is because we were made for another world. (214)
Our worship services on Earth are merely attempts at worship, attempts that are never fully successful, and sometimes 99.9 percent failures, or else total failures! (216)
Our present bodies were not given us so that they could one day be done away with. Rather, they were given us for training purposes. (221)
Nature will be cured, not tamed nor sterilized. (222)
“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead” (William Law). If we insist upon holding on to hell, or anything other than God in this life, then we shall not see Heaven; if we accept Heaven, we shall not be able to keep even the smallest souvenirs from hell. (224)
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