“I hope no reader will suppose the ‘mere’ Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions – as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in…When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall.”

– C.S. Lewis – Preface to Mere Christianity.

Question:

What do you think of Lewis’ analogy of ‘mere’ Christianity being a hallway and creeds and existing communions being in their own rooms? Is this analogy useful? Or, does it present a sort of reductionism which allows us to think of some doctrines as primary and others as secondary?

Share your thoughts in the comments below