I guess the disagreement is on the subsistence of the Catholic Church in the church organziation headed by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.

Unlike David Mills, who is the epitome of an "intentional Roman Catholic", having converted from the Episcopal Church, the (mostly nominal) Roman Catholics (as well as the mostly nominal Lutherans and Reformed) here in my home country of Austria, as well as in most of Europe an Latin America (and most of the nominally Orthodox of Eastern Europe and Russia) are members of that church organization (or the corresponding Lutheran and Reformed organizations) because their parents had them sprinkled as infants, often for cultural rather than spiritual reasons. Many of the clergy, at least of my parents' generation, are in that profession because it was respectable, back in their day, and some for less laudable reasons, rather than because of a personal commitment to faith and discipleship.

In large numbers they reject the Pope's authority, particularly when it comes to questions of sexual morality and abortion, and increasingly when it comes to loving and accepting the stranger in our midst. Many of the Protestant Evangelicals I know have more respect for the Pope than these Catholics.

It is not for nothing that the Pope has just established a Vatican body responsible to further the "Re-Evangelization" of the world -- this is largely directed at the "baptized" in so-called Catholic countries who need to be led to conversion and discipleship rather than the completely unchurched or the pagans who have never heard of Christ.

So this Roman Catholic church organization (or denomination) may consider itself as the very embodyment of the Catholic Church (although its leaders increasingly grant that the Orthodox churches are that, as well), but those of us who see it as just another denomination have good reason for this view.

What is not clear about "One flock and one shepherd?"

"I am the truth" How can there be 60,000 truths among Protestant Churches when each church has its version of the truth, and members within a church can make their own interpretation of the bible? Sola Scriptura. That would mean 60,000 truths with various combinations and permutations within each church.

What is not clear about the real presence of the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ in The Holy Eucharist? Christ said, this is my body...this is my blood. He did not say "like." Christ created Heaven, Earth, and the Universe. He raised Lazarus and HIMSELF from the dead. Why would anyone doubt HIS power and love to offer us HIS own body and HIS own blood as food for our souls at every Catholic Mass?

Christ established seven sacraments of which only one, baptism, can be administered by a priest or a lay person. What happened to the sacraments that are not used by Protestant Churches. Christ established the sacrament of Penance for the forgiveness of sins by the Apostles and their successors, that is, bishops and priests. Whatever you loose on earth has already been loosed in Heaven; whatever you hold bound on earth has already been bound in Heaven.

There is a continuous line of Apostolic Succession from St. Peter down through all the Popes to the present and lowliest Catholic priest. These are called valid holy orders which grant priests in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches the authority to become personal representatives of Christ when they consecrate or perform the liturgies of the seven sacraments. It is not the priest himself, but the power of Christ flowing through the priest to baptize, grant absolution of sins, the (bishop) to confirm with the Holy Spirit, to consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ, the bishop to ordain priests with the sacrament of holy orders, to perform the sacrament of Holy Marriage, and to administer the anointing of the sick (extreme unction)

These valid Holy Orders exist only in the Catholic and Eastern Churches. Valid Holy Orders do not exist outside these Churches.

An interesting piece that put me in mind of this article, written by an atheist who was invited to give a sermon at Westminster Abbey:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/17/atheist-sermon-westminster-abbey

He writes: "I would suggest that a far greater enemy to the kind of liberal Anglicanism that has prevailed in the Church of England, custodian of Westminster Abbey, would be a biblical literalist. But I do not imagine that the decision to allow such a person to talk in Westminster Abbey would raise as many eyebrows as the decision to let an atheist do so. Somehow, it has become received wisdom that the most important division is between people of faith and people of none. This is not only false, it is unchristian. Time and again in the gospels, Jesus argues that it is better to be a good gentile than a bad Jew. The Samaritan is more of a friend to the Christian that the Pharisee who walks by on the other side. What matters more than having the right faith is acting in good faith."

I suspect that would fall more in line with John Paul's "let us do together what we can do together..."

Well, I certainly understand David's point here. There certainly has to be a line drawn somewhere. There are people who claim the name Christian whom I would assert are not Christian because what they believe about the nature of God is outside of the historic, orthodox understand of who is God. But I believe the distinction David is making here is not between who is a Christian and who is not, but what is the Church. If my understand of the Catholic position is correct, the magisterium would admit that as a baptized believer in the Triune God, I am a fellow Christian, but that I am not in full communion with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I am, instead, in the words of Pope Benedict, a member of ecclesial community. As such, I may not receive communion from a Catholic priest and he may not offer me communion. On the other hand, were I to convert to Catholicism, I would not have to be baptized because I have already been properly baptized. Ergo, I am a Christian even though I am not within the Church as the magisterium understands the Church.
Thus, from the perspective of a Catholic, it would seem to me, we share "mere Christianity" even if we are not in full communion and even if I am not, properly speaking, part of the Church. In other words, it would seem to me that for a Catholic, there can be "mere Christianity" but there cannot be a "mere Church".
On the other hand, one who called himself a Christian but was not properly baptized would, as I understand the Catholic practice, need to be properly baptized and until he was would not even be a "mere Christian".

Protestants have a different understanding of Christianity and the Church and, from the viewpoint of a Roman Catholic, conflate the two. To many (certainly not all) Protestants, that is, to be a Christian is to be within the Church. The notion that one could be a Christian but not be inside the Church is, to many Protestants, an oxymoron. Certainly some Protestants deny that Catholics are in the Church, but that is because they deny they are Christians. I reject that position, but that appears to be the position that the Baptist minister in Chile may have held. Many Protestants, however, would also deny that many baptized members of their own denominations are Christians because, for many Protestants, faith, not baptism, is the true test of Christianity. Mark 16:16. Therefore, these Protestants hold Catholics to the same test for Christianity that they hold members of their own denominations: do you believe? And these Protestants look at many Catholics (e.g., the current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the many who reject much of the Catholic Church's teaching on human sexuality) and conclude that they do not believe and, therefore, are not Christians and, as such, are not member of the Church. For Protestants, the real divide is between those who, upon merely hearing that one is a Catholic, assume (until presented further evidence) that the person is a Christian and those who assume that he is not. For the former, of which I am one, "mere Christianity" is valid. For the latter, which perhaps includes the Baptist minister in Chile, it is not.

Thus, it seems to me that a Roman Catholic Christian and a Protestant catholic Christian can both accept "mere Christianity", but for the former the Church includes only a subset of "mere Christians" and for the latter it includes them all. Oddly, many devout Catholics are willing to believe that non-Christians (in the case of invincible ignorance) may be saved, while many Protestant are not. Again, Protestants equate being Christian, and thus within the Church, with being saved, while the official teaching of the Catholic Church treats these as three separate issues: one may be a Christian, but not within the Church and one may be saved (i.e., from eternal damnation), but not, properly speaking a Christian. So, in the end, because we define the terms differently, we often talk past one another.

This is, admittedly, the understanding of an uneducated layman and I welcome corrections. But based on this understanding, I see no reason to reject mere Christianity.

For me, a Roman Catholic, there can be little doubt that Lewis imported some Protestant presuppositions into his writings. David's description of "mere Christianity" nicely illustrates the point.

David concludes that Christians ought to be kind to their coreligionists. Indeed. I'd like to propose one additional agendum. In Soloviev's Tale of the Anti-Christ, the author rather generously recognizes the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communions for their distinctive virtues, rather than their defects. Catholics, if I read recall Soloviev aright, sustain the institutional embodiment of the universality of the Church, Orthodox demonstrate genuinely humble obedience to tradition, Protestants advance free inquiry and learned criticism.

To recognize another communion's virtues is more than a kindness. It is, first, an act of justice that can gird embryonic trust and love. To recognize such virtues may additionally become a recognition of one's own call to continuing conversion, and perhaps of one's communion's call to development and/or reform.

I have long been uncomfortable with the "hall with rooms" image from CSL, in an otherwise characteristically outstanding and personally challenging work. This article puts that discomfort into words in a very persuasive way. Thank you.

I myself have adopted the image of a wound in the body of Christ, which of course remains an open and bleeding wound. Without assigning blame, it is an affront to our Founder and Savior, and far more serious than most people realize, who accept a benign "hall and rooms" image.

This past June my youngest got married to a wonderful young lady whom we love. A committed Catholic to a very commited Lutheran. They have chosen to take up abode in the Wound, which will bring pain enough in time. I would happily die to relieve them of that pain, but that's not, of course, possible. Prayer is needed.

Thank you for another good article that speaks the truth and the first two above comments too that speak the truth ( one even if only partly ) ; those words of C.S Lewis at the end - just beautiful and prophetic of our times , from a good heart , indicative of how many good , merciful hearts are in our midst that indirectly thus 'know' our Lord , who is Mercy Incarnate ; this to include Moslems , Hindus ...all those who have not hardened their hearts ..

Mother Church ever astutely warns her children how this hardening can happen ...and ways to prevent and remedy same , for a priestly people who are called to serve day in, day out , in the holy of holies ...and sadly true , many of us are like the high priests who enter with sin and can be under the rightful consequences ...thank God , we have the powerful intercession of St.Benedict , who is calling The Church , to drive out the 'birds' that eat up the seed ..and how many are those !

One interesting phenomenon that has been observed is there is 'something Catholic' that one can often pick up in a subtle way , in many who no longer even claims to be Catholic ..

Many or most of those who want nothing to do with The Church probabaly also have good ancestors , saintly ancestors who are interceding for them from heaven ..this to include most of our Moslem bretheren too , who all would have been Catholic if not for the divider . ...then ofcourse The Mother , who too is in the same role - as the enemy of our enemy who alone divides !

Thank God we live in those times when our Lord promised that He would open the flood gates of mercy ...this , right in the midst when the enemy too has opened its torrents , esp. through media and its effects , yet we see many who are good hearted , merciful people and in whom The Spirit is able to wash off bitterness , hatreds , to help to keep beautiful hearts !

I find Gregory Laughlin's account very helpful. However, it seems to me that it might not be quite accurate to say that Catholicism holds that Protestants are "...Christian even though [they are] not within the Church as the magisterium understands the Church."

As I understand it (as a Protestant), the Catholic teaching is that we are indeed part of the Church through our baptism, even though we are not in full communion. The teaching "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" would indicate that to the extent that Protestants can attain salvation, it must be through their membership in the Church, even if that membership is damaged or diminished.

I think the main difference might be that Protestants tend to think of the Church as comprising those who have saving faith (as Greg said), rather than those who have undergone any particular sacrament. This, of course, is closely related to the differing doctrines of justification between the Catholic Church and most Protestant bodies.

To me, this would seem to open up the possibility of "mere Christianity" from a Catholic perspective, based not on some Christian identity apart from the Church, but upon shared membership in the Church despite our impaired communion. Obviously, from a Catholic perspective, it would be better for that damaged communion to be healed and our faith made complete, but that desire would not preclude accepting Protestants as fellow members of the Church and admiring those aspects of the faith that we have managed to preserve.

Perhaps the image of the hall with many rooms to one side and the other is less than satisfactory, but that does not mean that the whole notion of "Mere Christianity" is without substance (which seems to be the implication). I don't think Lewis intended to imply that any and all Church bodies have an equal claim to the truth. I think he was making the observation there is a real commonality of faith in Jesus Christ among believers across denominational lines. It seems to me that that is an observable and undeniable fact. The problem is in how you account for it.

From a Catholic perspective one may account for it by asserting that the Catholic Church has the truth in its fulness, but that groups which have broken away from the Catholic Church may still retain some of the truth which they received while they were still part of the Catholic Church. From a Protestant perspective one may account for it my asserting that the Bible has the fulness of truth, and that since the Catholic Church still has the Bible she still has some of the truth that it contains. Neither of these ways of looking at it requires the sort of "branch theory" to which Dr Mills is objecting.

Perhaps the image of house with many rooms can be saved for Catholics by noting that the largest and among the oldest of the rooms is occupied by a man who claims to be the steward of the whole house (by appointment of the Owner). The fact that some of the folks in the other rooms don't recognize his stewardship (and don't, in fact, think the house needs a steward nor that the Owner ever appointed one), does not change the fact (as he sees it) that he is responsible for the whole house. Nor does it mean that the folks in the other room are not legitimate residents in the house; they are just a bit confused about how things are supposed to work in the house.

Thanks, Ethan C., I do agree that your post more accurately states the situation, at least as I understand it, than mine did. It does, however, I believe (with Ethan) support the notion of "mere Christianity". As I understand the Catholic position, we properly baptized Protestants are, in fact, "mere Christians", but being "mere Christian" is not Christianity as it should be fully experienced and practiced. What we are missing (from the Catholic viewpoint), however, deprives us neither of the right to be called Christian nor of the hope of salvation. Lewis himself observed that a man could not spend his life in the hallway, but must enter into a room. Serious Christians do so. Some Christians (including Catholics) believe that their is only one true room into which we should enter. Others, including many Protestants, are less restrictive in that regard. But so long as the rooms are entered through the hallway of "mere Christianity" (i.e., Trinitarian or Nicene Christianity, if you will) we can, I maintain, consider those in any of those rooms fellow Christians, even if separated brethren.

I think there is a fundamental problem with the term, "mere," which seems to endorse a kind of minimalism, or at least imply that one's ecclesial commitments are by their nature adiaphora---necessarily a Protestant approach to Christianity.

The Catholic approach tends to be the reverse: To follow the Lord is to do so wholeheartedly, a kind of maximum Christianity. Anything less, whether less because of defective ecclesiology or because of nominal non-practice or any other fault, is a derogation from discipleship. Pending the Lord's Judgment, there is no "mere" minimum, but only a perfection to which we are called.

Surely, the problem arises from trying to use a doctrinal test to define who is, or is not a Christian.

A number of such tests have been proposed, from time to time – “The true faith is contained in the three catholic creeds,” or “The true faith is that Jesus Christ is Lord,” although, if anyone objects that the chosen formula is too inclusive/exclusive, it is difficult to discover grounds on which to refute them. Who, after all, is qualified to decide on the right test?

Now, it is perfectly possible to avoid the question-begging assumption of defining Christians by examining their tenets, or the Church by its teaching. After all, the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which stands in pride of place at the beginning of the Codex of Justinian, did so very neatly, by referring to “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness.”

In short, the Church was defined as a visible communion. No doubt, in the long run this meant the people who are so orthodox that Damasus and Peter had seen no reason to excommunicate them, so that unity and orthodoxy still reacted on one another.

Not only does it avoid the vice of circularity, but, suitably updated to refer to a living authority, it is remarkably easy of application; just what one would expect of the criterion of a divine message, intended for all, regardless of learning, capacity or circumstances.

Mr. Poecking,

I don't think I really disagree with you, but I think we need to remember the context in which Lewis was employing the term. He was not try to say that "mere Christianity" was good enough, much less a goal to which all Christians should direct their faith.

Rather, it was a position for apologetic appeal to non-Christians. He spoke of entering through the hall, but not remaining there. It was "mere" in that it was the basic position most accessible to non-believers, not that it was necessarily the pure essentials.

I'm sure he would be quite pleased to agree that "maximum Christianity" should be the goal of a full Christian life -- though of course, as an Anglican, he would not have considered membership in the Roman Catholic church a necessary part of that life.

Gregory K. Laughlin,

In you interesting post you say:

“Many Protestants, however, would also deny that many baptized members of their own denominations are Christians because, for many Protestants, faith, not baptism, is the true test of Christianity. Mark 16:16.”

In the verse you quote, Jesus says that those who believe and are baptized will be saved, while those who do not believe will be condemned. Perhaps it can be inferred from this that one can be a member of the Church (because baptized) but not a Christian (because one does not believe.)
The question is, though, what is it to believe? While, per James 2:19) the demons believe in the one God, yet they tremble with fear because, after all, theirs is a “mere belief.” For a Catholic, “mere belief””, “mere faith”, “mere Christianity” can never be enough. He is always called through his faith to become ever more fully conformed to the sacramental life of the Church Catholic. For him to be a “mere Christian” is a failure of faith.

To take David's analogy even farther (probably too far, but more fun): I see the Catholic "house" with the Protestant tents around it's yard as a kind of carriage house which is out by the alley behind the main house which is the Orthodox Church.

Mr. Mills,

There are some very deep and fundamental problems with your presumption (and Lewis') that any of us are in any sort of room, let alone "in the house" at all. We're not. At least not in this life, anyway.

We are a pilgrim people, and while the one church that will exist in heaven is most closely resembled on this earth by the Roman Catholic Church, none of us is fully there this side of death and resurrection.

I suppose one might say we spend some time living in the basement ("On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it), but the house will only be finished after the Second Coming. To presume any of us has arrived at our destination and home is something that--to allude to Lewis' "Screwtape Letters"--is a conceit that would doubtless make the demons gleeful.

I am a Catholic who understands what Lewis was doing, and I am in happy agreement that Protestants are Christians. I was raised Catholic, and for a brief period left and became protestant. I then came back. For me there was simple logic that led me back. The first bit of simple logic had to do with Mathew's Gospel. Jesus tells us that the gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church, which means that the Church He established 2,000 years ago has to still exist. At the time I pondered that I was sitting in a church celebrating it's 75th anniversary. It just wasn't logical to me that the church I was sitting in was the same as the one Christ founded so long ago. If it was to never, ever go away, then I should be able to find it.

Another bit of logic that struck me has to do with excommunication. The Gospels speaks of a brother sinning against me. I am told to go to him to show him his fault. If he doesn't listen to me, then I am to go with others. If he doesn't listen still then I am to tell the Church. If he doesn't listen to the Church then he is to be treated as a pagan or tax collector. For me the problem with Lewis' rooms is if you treat him as a pagan or tax collector he will simply go to another room and be welcomed. However, if there is but one room, he has nowhere to go, thus there is so much more force behind Jesus' words. His words mean little if we can simply enter another room.

I think Paul and Chris Jones have the right of it -- Lewis was not articulating an inclusive or "branch" ecclesiology, he was speaking of the commonalities of faith across the lines, regardless of how significant those lines might be. One can still appreciate Lewis' conception that there is a broader faith that exists in fuller and lesser forms in all the rooms, even if one's ecclesiology teaches that his own room is more akin to the drawing room and other rooms are more akin to the outbuildings. As Lewis says, you can't live in the hall, and I don't see how a belief that only one of the rooms is really fit to be in (the only one that's heated and has a decent place to sit down, for example) negates the idea that those rooms are still in some sense a part of the house.

As an unaffiliated sort of fellow, who has only a 'relation of fascination' with Christianity, I don't see how the Roman Church can really believe the things it preaches regarding its unique apostolic legitimacy. There is too much historical evidence that the idea of a single papal line, going back to Peter, and a unique Petrine authority are historical accidents, and fictions developed after the fact. The actual history of the first centuries simply does not correspond to the standard narrative; hence that narrative is false. If I were to join a church, and to do so because I was looking for the communion that had the best claim to historical validity for its understanding of apostolic authority and apostolic succession, I'd certainly become Orthodox. That church doesn't require some obviously invented history to back up its claims to institutional integrity. No, Roman Catholicism is big, but it still looks like an aberrant offshoot to me.
Anyway, the issue is unlikely to come up for me, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

There are many things to be said in response to these very interesting responses, but let anyone be mislead I wanted quickly to flag that I never said belief in the Immaculate Conception was not an essential Catholic belief. I said exactly the opposite.

"It is a way of saying that the differences between Protestants and Catholics would be solved very easily . . . if Catholics became Protestants." Not at all (why assume this?). It could be a way of saying "that the differences between Protestants and Catholics would be solved very easily . . . if Protestants became Catholics".

I think David Mills reads a lot more into the Lewis imagery than Lewis meant to say. As well, I think he treats what Lewis intended as a metaphor as if it were, rather, an analogy. Indeed, if Lewis were here, I think he would tell Mills that Mills was making the metaphor say things Lewis did not wish to say and that the Metaphor doesn't essentially say. So Mills confrontation with Lewis seems to me rather forced. Finally, David Mills elliptically implies that disbelief in the Immaculate Conception is requisite for being a Protestant (or that it might be). But if this is what he means to say, then he's wrong--otherwise you read Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli right out of the Protestant House. But to the main point, nothing in Lewis requires Mill's stretched interpretation.

Dear Mr. Lyttle,

As you might imagine, I dearly hope that the issue will come up for you some time in the future! I respect your judgment (as a Protestant, I am certainly inclined to agree with you on that particular point), but I hope you won't be too hasty to presume that your personal judgment of historical fact is necessarily the best guide to actual historical truth.

And I hope you might contemplate whether your fascination with Christianity might be a sign of your deep and honest desire for the truth and beauty within it. Don't be afraid to see where that fascination might lead you!

For Lewis "the house" is the Church and "Mere Christianity" is the historical creed and practice that is recognized by the various churches as common--for it is in the "rooms" that each of them carries on its life and where both the faith and practice of the house will be better or worse understood, where the occupants will be nearer or farther from harmony with the structure the whole house demands.

This is indeed a Protestant conceptualization. Although clearly Lewis believed that some of the rooms were superior to others, he just as clearly never committed to the idea that only by one of them were the others legitimized. Once one takes that step, the architecture of the whole house must undergo a complete reconceptualization. Rome isn't the only choice for those who disagree with Lewis. Orthodoxy (as far as I can tell) and the strictest Protestant sects also regard themselves as the true Church by which all others are measured. I was raised in one of them.

Protestantism per se cannot be extensively compared with Roman Catholicism because it is not a church with canons or creed. One can, for example, be many kinds of Protestant and believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Among Anglo-Catholics the belief is common and there is nothing that among many other Protestant churches would prohibit it, although it would be regarded as eccentric--something like postribulationism. Beliefs that are typical of Catholics are sometimes prohibited among Protestants, and sometimes not.

Among many of us Protestants, the Catholic Church isn't the codger in 4B. It is our very glorious Mother, and she has many problems it is against her religion to admit. She's just like her Protestant offspring in that regard. Until the whole family sobers up, things won't get much better, and one must stumble forward on instincts such as Lewis voices in Mere Christianity. I tend to think we must await Dad's return. My own guess is that when this happens, Protestants will admit their own errors and return to a penitent and greatly humbled Rome.

It seems to me that Lewis was not really Catholic or Protestant, but in an (ultimately) inconsistent in-between state. The Catholic conception is of the Church as a single house. The Protestant conception (it seems to me) is more like a neighborhood of distinct houses. (One might also use an organic metaphor: the Catholic conception is of the Church as a single tree that never dies; the Protestant conception is of the Church as a forest, where new trees sprout up and old trees fall, but the forest carries on.)

Lewis wanted to compromise with his one-house-many-rooms idea. The trouble with his compromise lies with the notion of "house rules". Whatever house rules may exist, there will be people who consider themselves Christians (and who may be considered so by some people who accept the house rules) but who do not themselves subscribe to the full set of house rules. Presumably, then, they would have to dwell in a separate houses. But that means one is back to the Protestant conception of a neighborhood of many houses after all. In other words, Lewis's attempt at compromise between the Catholic and Protestant conceptions must fail, because it will always end up with separate houses anyway.

Nor is this a mere logical problem, it is illustrated by actual events. There would have been a time when all "mere Christians" would have agreed that the house rules included a belief that premarital sex, or homosexual acts, or abortion are gravely immoral. But now entire denominations are formally committed in various ways to contrary views on those subjects. So either one considers them "outside the house" --- in their own houses, or one relaxes the house rules. Nor is it only moral house rules. Belief in the immutability of the divine nature and in God's knowing the future were once house rules that all Christians accepted. That is no longer the case.

There is no obvious place where the process of relaxing of the house rules would end.

Thus, one either ends up with house rules that are so minimal as to be themselves unsatisfactory to many traditional Christians, or one ends up with a multiplicity of houses, each with its own house rules.

Therefore, a multiplicity of houses is inevitable. Does that means Protestantism is inevitable? No. The question then is whether all the houses have equal status.

The Protestant typically says (it seems to me) that many of the houses satisfy some criteria that allow them to be considered part of "the Church". The Church is a neighborhood, in their view, and contains many houses. Though some of them would draw the boundaries of that neighborhood differently from others --- some might consider, say, TEC and ELCA and PCUSA as part of the neighborhood, i.e. as part of "the Church", while others might not.

Under the Catholic conception, there may be a multiplicity of houses, but there is nevertheless among them one house that is the true home of every Christian, the others being perhaps serviceable, attractive, well-appointed, shelters, with many of the comforts and advantages of home, but not the home where they truly belong. "The Church" is one house, surrounded by a Christian neighborhood of dwellings none of which and no group of which fulfills the criteria to be "the Church". The Catholic wants the neighborhood to be as neighborly as possible. People should be able to borrow cups of sugar from each other, say. But he cannot ever accept the idea that the Church is a group of houses rather than one house.

I am inclined, with some modifications, to agree with Mr. Hutchens. Since I'm heading vaguely Rome/Constantinople way I think "greatly" is too great a modifier. As he points out Lewis allows that the rooms are not of equal worth and that by nature some of the rooms may be enemies.

I don't think, though I could be wrong, that this is _necessarily_ a Protestant reflection. If the rooms are of unequal worth and this is a great manor then there are going to be guest rooms, the families rooms, and so on. The house, especially an old lordly house, should be united against its true enemies that sit outside of the house. The various groups are going to have real disagreements. The servants may have been wronged. Two of the brothers may have gotten into a fight over some overblown statements about a thousand years ago, but they all need to get over it for the good of the house.

It would be wrong for a Catholic, and member of the Eastern Churches, or some of the more stable and traditional Protestant denominations from not thinking their wing is the superior wing and their family the senior branch. That being said the metaphor as a whole is useful because it reminds us that we should be working towards some sort of resolution. Even if your patron is a senior family member you should be seeing to it that they don't rub that in more than absolutely needed.

Its a useful reminder since we've behaved badly in the past. We didn't follow St. John the Baptists example with his own brethren (cf. Luke 3:18) and tended towards violent solutions. St. John was born into a grand house but the house was very divided. I think he is fond of Lewis' formulation and I hope that they have discussed it at length.

Again, thank you all for the interesting responses. Several have said that I read more into Lewis’s image than he intended and more than is there, though without any argument as to why or evidence of what Lewis really intended to say. I don’t think I did, because the image is so straightforward.

Lewis describes each individual body as a part of something greater, as a room in the house, or as a subdivision or branch or section of the Church. That is an ecclesiological statement. As my old friend S. M. Hutchens says, “’the house’ is the Church” and “This is indeed a Protestant conceptualization.”

Which is fine. It is what I’d expect Lewis to say, given his Protestant commitments, which he articulates in the Preface itself in declaring his submission to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. My complaint is that the image is not so irenic as he thought, and not actually useful in understanding and reducing Christian divisions, as many of those who invoke it seem to think.

The reduction of the differences is a matter not of leveling out the differences through some such concept, but in facing them and trying to drive through them in fellowship and common work – which, by the way, involves more than the kindness D. G. Poecking offers as a summary of my conclusion.

Stephen M. Barr said:
The Protestant typically says (it seems to me) that many of the houses satisfy some criteria that allow them to be considered part of "the Church".

I see what you're trying to get at, but it might be important to remember that the general Protestant view -- or at least the general American Evangelical view -- is that "the Church" is not a collection of denominations or institutions, but rather of faithful individuals.

That is to say, it's not a neighborhood of "houses" at all; it's a neighborhood of the particular people who live in each of those houses. Membership in the Church comes only through faith in Christ, and has nothing really to do with one's denominational affiliation.

I'm not necessarily defending this view (it has some rather obvious abuses), but I think it's very important to distinguish between the quite different meanings of "the Church" among different participants in this discussion, and to avoid any accidental equivocation.

An image I have come to appreciate is G. K. Chesterton's, one which I thought was in his work, "The Catholic Church and Conversion," but cannot find at the moment. It is the following. He imagines someone (himself, I think) walking along a city street through a large dome with various buildings along the street. Some are more well-kept than others; some are more beautiful. All are "churches". And down near the end of the street, towards the rough side of town, is a somewhat broken down old building, which is supposedly the Catholic Church. But slowly, over time, the one in the street comes to understand that the Catholic Church is not that dilapidated building at the end, but is actually the dome itself.

I believe he used the image to describe his own understanding and how it developed over time. If I am recalling his image properly, his is the Catholic version, while Lewis' is the Protestant version. An interesting comparison could be made, I think.

(Anyone recall the reference?)

Part of the 'Mere' here in today's environment is between those who believe in God and truth (across denominations, and including Judaism), and those for whom 'god-talk' is fundamentally about us and our spirit-of-the-age concerns. Thus, there is a kind of community of belief whereby pro-life Episcopalian conservatives and Orthodox and Catholics may be closer to each other than they are politically to their liberal co-religionists. But there is still broken communion.

The attempted 'reboot' of Roman Catholic Christianity represented by early protestantisms has proven after 500 years to be an inadequate answer to the basic questions "On what basis unity? Authority? The Holy Spirit?"

I thank David for his reflection, and for the ensuing comments.

Ethan C.

Yes, I see that I distorted the Protestant view. And yet, wouldn't it be the case that there are some Church bodies membership in which would lead to a presumption on the part of Protestants that one was a Christian and thus a member of "the Church"? But I concede your point.

As the one whose comment to David's previous article prompted this one and the ensueing discussion I would like to express my almost complete agreement with the image painted by S. M. Hutchens, including the conviction that while we are called to strive for unity, we will not achieve it until Christ returns and accomplishes it.

I should have thought the burden of proof was on David Mills to show that his interpretation of the metaphor was really what Lewis meant. He doesn't do that. Instead he says, Lewis says x, which means y. And he never says why x means y. Strange, then, that he thinks the burden of proof on those who disagree with him. All I can say is that having read and reflected on Lewis for decades, his particular reading never occurred to me. I may be dense. But I think it would presumptuous to say Mills reading just is the straightforward one and that those of us who disagree are simply too dull to see the point.

At any rate, Lewis doesn't imply that all the rooms are on the same footing or equally as good. The rather singular point of the metaphor was that there's no such thing as mere Christianity that can be enacted in any meaningful sense and that enacting even a distorted form of Christianity in worship would be better than endeavoring to enact mere Christianity. To try and read more out of Lewis than that seems several leaps too far.

David, why would you say the following?

"The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a belief required in the Catholic room, while disbelief in it is required in the Protestant rooms..."

Surely that is opposite the facts. As a [Continuing] Anglican, of course, I refuse to use the word "Catholic" the same way that you do; so, as someone who is both Catholic and Protestant (the very essence of our distinctive nature) my church, the Anglican Catholic Church, allows people to believe, disbelieve or remain agnostic about the particular doctrinal theory you mention, whereas Roman Catholics are required to hold it as a dogma.

Whether or not C.S. Lewis' image misleads depends on whether or not he is understood correctly. He was not writing a doctrinal statement about Ecclesiology, but a realistic analysis of what is both obvious and observable. Christianity is divided in the manner he describes, and that is simply an undeniable fact. The Church on the other hand is a subject that requires doctrinal analysis of a kind he was not even attempting to make, since it was outside his purpose in that spot.

In his list of resources, Mills includes an article by Mohler and a reply by himself. Both are fascinating and have much to recommend them because Mills clarifies the implications of his critique of Lewis. In his reply to Mohler, Mills argues for a strong form of ecumenism among Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and Evangelicals. This strong form of ecumenism will keep the differences among these faiths distinct while allowing them to work against the forces of secularism that have removed “the once-universal Christian practices,” including “‘sex and gender issues,’ like headship in the family and the church, contraception, and divorce and remarriage.”

In other words, his ecumenism is based on shared moral stands as well as “the presence of a doctrinal mind: a mind that cares about Christian truth and its proper and exact formulation.”

He contrasts this doctrinal mind that “cares about Christian truth” with “modernizing Christians—who often, as you know, hate dogma while being among the most wildly dogmatic people in human history.”

It’s at this point that Mills’ argument falls apart. Somehow he believes that Christians who take different moral stands are somehow not serious about either their faith or truth, ending with a caricature of his true opposition, people whose Christian faith have led them to different moral stands.

Mills ends his reply to Mohler with a stirring and completely accurate depiction of Christian humility: “Because we know how God works, we do not condemn other believers, however defective their understanding. Each of us knows that if we are right, we are right by an act of grace—an undeserved, an utterly and completely undeserved, act of grace—and we cannot say why others have not been given the grace we have. It is not often for any obvious want of sanctity.”

I would ask him to apply this humility to the moral stands he has taken and not to question the “sanctity” of the “modernizing Christians” who have—through prayer, study, and tradition—reached other conclusions and believe that people like Mills and Mohler are “defective” in their “understanding.”

The things I like best about this blog are what Steven Barr and Ethan have to say. And I do think that Ethan has gotten Protestant belief about the Church most accurately. While Protestantism may have its problems, in many exchanges concerning the nature of the Church, the Protestant conception is rather distorted (sometimes, perhaps especially by, those who have converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy). Whether or not the Protestant view is right or wrong is one thing. Characterizing it correctly is another. And here I think that Mills has failed to capture just what the standard Protestant or Evangelical view is. In fact, many Protestants hold to a distinction between the Church visible and the Church invisible that is grounded on a certain reading of the parable of the wheat and the tares and that has certain antecedent in St. Augustine. I'm not saying the Protestant view is the right one. I'm honestly not sure (right now Eastern Orthodox and Catholic views both seem plausible to me). Even so, one of the problems with Mills' piece seems to be a certain amount of caricature both in depicting Lewis's position and in describing (or by virtue of what he implies) concerning the Protestant view of the church. Indeed, I wonder if Mills argument might construed as attributing to Protestants, through his conception of Lewis's metaphor, something akin to the fallacy of composition. If this is Mills argument or is entailed by it, then I think he's wrong. Protestant views of the Church, right or wrong, don't come to that.

Stephen M. Barr said:
And yet, wouldn't it be the case that there are some Church bodies membership in which would lead to a presumption on the part of Protestants that one was a Christian and thus a member of "the Church"? But I concede your point.

This is indeed a complicating factor. There are many Protestants who might grant in principle that one could be Catholic or Orthodox (or maybe even Mormon, or Rastafarian...) and still be a part of the Church, but who would in practice presuppose that members of those bodies are very unlikely to be part of the Church.

And then there are things like the Federal Vision in Reformed theology, to which I am personally sympathetic, who try to reconcile the issues of visible vs. invisible communion in more complicated manners.

I'm presenting a fairly simplified summary here.

Paul and Robert Hart,

I think you're misreading a grammatically ambiguous sentence. Mr. Mills is not trying to say that belief in the Immaculate Conception is not required for Catholics. What he's trying to say in that sentence is, "The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a belief required *in the Catholic room,*" -- that is, it isn't some kind of special thing that only Roman Catholics need to worry about, and all other Christians can do with what they wish. The Catholic view is that it is vitally important to Christian faith itself. I.e. it's a rule for the whole house, not just the Roman Catholic room.

Now, whether or not disbelief in the Immaculate Conception is a requirement for each and every Protestant room is not germain to the point that sentence is making. What he's drawing is a contrast between doctrines (and churches) that assert universality within Christianity and notional doctrines that might be said to only have importance within a certain ecclesial community.

The following is worth meditating on--for Catholics and Protestants alike. As an evangelical (one of your 'separated brethren'), I would gently remind my Roman Catholic friends and fellow believers that, even in Catholic teaching, the sacraments are: 1) Mysteries; and 2) Works of grace that cannot be earned and should not be used in judgement.

"On the other hand, Catholics must gladly acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments from our common heritage which are to be found among our separated brethren. It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood. For God is always wonderful in His works and worthy of all praise.

"Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can be a help to our own edification. Whatever is truly Christian is never contrary to what genuinely belongs to the faith; indeed, it can always bring a deeper realization of the mystery of Christ and the Church."

- http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html

Ethan C.: Thank you for clarifying the point I was making. I thought it was clear, but it must not have been.

Paul, and others: I'm still a little baffled as to why the straightforward reading of Lewis's words is problematic, for the reasons I already gave. A learned Protestant like S. M. Hutchens sees the same thing I do. Whether Lewis thought all the rooms the same, and the other refinements put forward as rebuttals, are all irrelevant to the basic point that he saw all the churches as participating partially in something greater that is the Church. It's not an insult to say that Lewis was a Protestant and saw the Church as a Protestant.

Thomas Brown: That is a very good quote, but none of the Catholics here need to be reminded of it. No one has suggested otherwise and certainly not that the sacraments "ought to be used in judgment," whatever that means.

One of the points of the article, in fact, was to reflect on the way we ought to pursue our mutual esteem and friendship when divided so substantially theologically and ecclesially. I think appeals to "mere Christianity" inadequate, but partly bec. they cover the real difficulties, and those difficulties must be faced if they are to be overcome, as far as is likely in this fallen world.

I'm pleased to see that a Southern Baptist theologian liked it (http://www.dennyburk.com/david-mills-on-mere-christianity).

I hope Ethan will note that the offending quote to which he referred at 4:53 p.m. (yesterday) was removed, upon my request, no later than 11:22 a.m. yesterday. I realized per a comment from David Mills that I had misread it then. Though while the sentence was syntactically correct, it was, as it stood, easy to misread--at least at the speed with which one reads things like blogs.

To David Mills, what we dispute is that your reading is in fact a straightforward reading. I think it's only straightforward if you read the image analogically or allegorically. But I think it would be a stretch for Lewis to use allegorical imagery in a work like Mere Christianity. Read metaphorically, I just don't think the Mills reading is straightforward.

Let me put it another way. What you're calling a straightforward reading of the image seems to me much more like an interpretation. Lewis didn't just say the the things you attribute him (save the direct quotes). And what you say his words mean doesn't follow necessarily or obviously from the quotes. In fact, this interpretation seems to me a bit like the sermons from my younger days in a fundamentalist church where the preacher tried to extract rather too much (at least in terms of the number of points being made) from a given parable.

Now, if Alan Jacobs, Michael Ward, Charles Bressler, Lyle Dorsett and a number of other Lewis scholars maintain that this interpretation is clearly and obviously what he meant, then I might be more inclined to concede the point. But if even just a few of these rejected this interpretation, it would be hard to see how it could be straightforward.

But let's get off Lewis for a moment. When you're suggesting Lewis saw the church as a Protestant, you suppose something about the Protestant view of what the church is. And I mean to contest your account of the Protestant view of the Church. Whether that view of the Church is right or wrong (if there is even one such view), is here beside the point. Again, I'm not sure if that view is right. I am certain that a good many Evangelical Protestants would not describe the church in accordance with the view you attribute to them. Evangelical Protestants don't tend to view the church as a whole, of which the constituent parts are various denominations or churches. But that does seem to be the view you attribute them.

I don't think it ought to be terribly surprising to find Protestant presuppositions in Lewis's imagery, seeing as that is what he was.

But I must admit that I'm not especially interested in whether Mr. Mills has interpreted Lewis correctly. I think the overall point concerning the worth of the sort of ecumenism Mills is critiquing can be considered on its own merits.

I'm suggesting that rather than relying on the Protestant concept that each ecclesial community is an organization full of possible/probable Church members that fosters true faith to a better or worse degree, a Roman Catholic could express more or less the same idea by seeing each community as a partial and damaged part of the Catholic Church.

Granted, this will have some different implications, particularly concerning the desirability of institutional unity. But I think it is nevertheless a method of expressing the way Catholics can value the "Mere" (or perhaps even "slight") Christianity of others who share Christian baptism.

David wrote:

Whether Lewis thought all the rooms the same, and the other refinements put forward as rebuttals, are all irrelevant to the basic point that he saw all the churches as participating partially in something greater that is the Church.

That is an area where we cannot agree. Lewis was not writing about the Church as such. If he were, he would have relied on Article XIX, and thrown in something from the Preface to the Ordinal, or the [real, as in not the 1979] Catechism. None of that, however, would have suited the purpose of his house and rooms image.

He was writing a book (as he said clearly about "Mere Christianity") that was addressed to the modern thinker who is undecided about Christianity itself. That is a fact that must be kept in mind when reading the book. Such a modern person sees many churches in his own hometown, RC, Ang. EO, Presb. Bap., Pent., etc. He knows there is division. C.S. Lewis wrote the bit about the house and rooms for such a person, honestly acknowledging the problem. The point had nothing to do with the Church as a theological subject, but was all about making it clear that even with these divisions, we have a recognizable Faith in common on certain basic things.

Did you say the Creed called Nicene this Sunday? It is not merely your Roman Catholic Creed. It is our common Creed, expressing beliefs we share, even though I cannot share your belief in other matters, such as the papacy, etc. We are in that same Nicene/ Biblical House, with the same God, who has revealed Himself in His Son, and is present by His Holy Spirit. Other things we may debate. That is what C.S. Lewis was saying, and that was to help the undecided man over at least that first threshold. His beliefs about the Church are more evident in other things, such as his essay, "Preistesses in the Church." It is not the subject in the part of MC that you interpret here.

It's not an insult to say that Lewis was a Protestant and saw the Church as a Protestant.

Of course it's not an insult. But, Lewis did not simply have a Protestant view of the Church; specifically, he had an Anglican view, and so he saw the Church differently from Protestants in most Protestant churches. The very presence of a priesthood and Apostolic Succession of Bishops, for example, have no place in, for example, the Baptist view. Had he been writing about the Church itself, he would have appeared less ecumenical.

From Paul: // Evangelical Protestants don't tend to view the church as a whole, of which the constituent parts are various denominations or churches. But that does seem to be the view you attribute them. //

But surely they do have some conception of a single entity that encompasses all Christians, whatever their tradition? It may be invisible, it may be undefinable, but it's there. The New Testament requires this, I think. Individuals and traditions all participate in it, but only partially and to some extent erroneously, since they hold with conviction some incompatible beliefs.

Maybe it would be simpler to rephrase the argument this way and simply say that the Protestant view of the Church is that it is not the Catholic Church in the way the Catholic Church asserts. The House is not the Catholic Church, which is only one of the rooms and shouldn't, as I said, put on airs.

I could well be missing something, but I don't see that this very general description of the Protestant view is incorrect. It's enough for my purposes in arguing that Mere Christianity is not a helpful response to divisions that it be true, whatever further distinctions and refinements -- the Anglican view Robert Hart articulates, for example -- the different traditions would offer.

The question of whether Lewis's was a metaphor with limits to its use or an analogy that can be taken as representing a theological conviction is an interesting one. You may be right, but it's hard (for me, anyway) to see that this didn't represent Lewis's view. He was so good and thoughtful a writer, he would, I *think*, have known how it would be read.

David,

I believe that each Protestant--or each Protestant denomination--has some view or other of what the Church universal is. And I agree that the New Testament requires that a Christian person, to be a Christian, must hold some such view (at least by implication).

Even so, there is more than one Protestant view, I think. And the views you express sound more to me like Protestant non-denominationalism than the view of any particular Protestant denomination. So, no doubt, some persons hold it. I just don't think it's the Protestant view as such (if there is in fact such a view).

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's travel back in time to the Fundamentalist/Evangelical church in which I grew up. It was an independent Baptist Church. Now, let's ask some of the folks there of a more fundamentalist bent some questions. First, what is the church? They will likely tell us that the Church is not this brick and mortar building but rather the community of all who are saved by grace through placing their faith in Christ. This salvation is manifested in good works. So they will no doubt tell us that someone behaving very badly is either backsliding or perhaps (maybe even quite likely) not saved, their public profession of faith notwithstanding. They will, of course, tell us that once saved, always saved. Now suppose we ask them whether Catholics belong to Christ's Church. Here I think most of them will answer, "No." We will express some puzzlement. We will say, perhaps, that Catholics, like fundamentalists believe that Christ was the son of God, crucified, and raised to life on the third day. They will likely reply that, even so, Catholics rely on works and merit rather than the grace of Christ. Let's set the obvious mischaracterization aside for a moment. Now, suppose we ask them about the Wesleyans down the road or the members of the Free Church or perhaps even the Lutherans. They will say that members of those Protestant groups belong to Christ's Church inasmuch as they have placed their faith in Him. But they will nevertheless mention practices in those denominations that deflect from Christianity and the Church proper--perhaps infant baptism or belief in some version of real presence. They will not treat these merely as matters of indifference. They will say that those who believe such things are saved by grace through faith, in spite of these beliefs. And they will view the denominations that hold these views as possessing part of the truth but not all of it. So these churches are not Churches with a capital C--only the church invisible is that. But these particular churches are not even fully living up to the definition of church visible. They are on the way there in crucial respects. But they fall away in other respects. From their standpoint, practicing only believers baptism (and so not infant baptism) is normative for all Christians as such. But it happens that there are Christians in congregations that fail to go by that norm. Those congregations and Christians are therefore distorted, to some degree, in their practice, even if they remain Christian in crucial respects.

Now I think most Evangelicals--including those who think of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox as brothers and sisters--approach the matter of the Church much like Rome. As they see it, there are serious deficiencies in Catholic and Orthodox belief regarding matters that are not really optional. Even so, they may be inclined to think that we are saved not by faith in faith but rather by faith in Christ. And so the Catholic or Orthodox person places there faith in Christ and saved by God's gracious action. But this, for many Evangelicals, is in spite of the Catholic persons Catholicism or the Orthodox person's Orthodoxy. Such folks, for many Evangelicals, hold the wrong theological views in matters not optional (perhaps they think all Christians must have a merely symbolic notion of communion). Even so, they think members of such communities can be Christian by virtue of God's grace apprehended through faith. Someone I've long known and who is Evangelical all the way down believes that there are a number of Christians in the Catholic Church. But this person does not believe that Catholic Church as such is a, much less the, Christian Church.

Ironically, then, I think many Evangelicals view either their denomination in particular or Evangelicalism as a whole, much the way you view the Catholic Church. And they view Christians outside their denomination or outside Evangelical Protestantism much the way you view those outside of the Catholic Church.

To be sure, Evangelical Protestants speak of the true Church of being comprised of all those saved by grace through faith. But they think the visible Church only truly instantiated within their given denomination or within Evangelical Protestantism. What they don't tend to think is this: Here's my belief as a Protestant; that's your view as a Catholic; That's her view as Orthodox; It doesn't matter that we have different beliefs about x, so long as we all have faith. There are some Protestants who may think like this. But many don't. And I suspect those who say they do are really very inconsistent if you probe their thinking a bit more.

David,

Let me take another stab at this. Part of my problem with your argument is that even in the passage you quote Lewis seems to be saying that there is no such thing as mere Christianity (certainly not that can be enacted in life or worship). And you seem to complaining that he's saying there is such a thing. I don't think his common rules of the house comment can be stretched into an affirmation in what (so it seems to me) he clearly meant to deny.

Of course, I also think Lewis is trying to avoid suggesting that various groups that are genuinely, in some sense, Christians (enough that we can refer to each other as brothers and sisters--even if the qualifiers of distant or separated are necessary) bear no more relation to each other than, well, a Rawlsian overlapping consensus (for lack of a better term). There may be no mere Christianity--Lewis would agree, I think. But hopefully we're not so bad off as to have only an overlapping consensus connecting putatively Christian groups. I fear any sort of ecumenism would be dead end if that was all we had.

So the Lewis imagery is designed, I think, to suggest that there's no such thing as mere Christianity, on the one hand; but things are a bit better than merely an accidental, overlapping consensus, on the other. Now, suppose that is what Lewis meant to say (my own obstinacy notwithstanding). Would you still disagree with him?

I tend to agree with Robert Hart, I think your positing a fine distinction that isn't as useful as your main point. It is true that ecumenism only has worth where the individual groups take their own positions seriously. I think we all agree with that.

Your reading of Lewis though is non-intuitive as Paul says. Lewis writing from the perspective of the outsider looking in or the newly baptized/interested realizing that the world of belief is much larger than he originally supposed. From those two perspectives his illustration makes perfect sense. To an outsider there is one generic house. A Hindu talking about Christianity is going to see "the house" not the rooms or their meanings. Someone new may be shocked that some rooms branch off the hall or that some are fundamental to the structure of the whole.

It is also an image that has been, in some form or another, used by Rome. Most recently for example there was the "two lungs" comment by the Holy Father. Yes, from an Eastern or Western perspective Rome and Constantinople hold a special place, but it shows the usefulness of the idea. If Ethan and Josiah are correct it has even been used by one of the most popular Catholic writers of recent memory.

Even from a Roman perspective (and running the whole exercise into the ground) I don't think your reading is correct. Yes there is only _one_ Catholic Church but it is composed of particular churches and ecclesiastical communities. The "Catholic" is in a great room that happens to contain all of the houses supporting walls. Yes, Joe Baptist is deficient in many ways, but he is by baptism in the house and has a room. He isn't in House Islam or House Buddhist.

The bulk of the comments here have been discussing Lewis's house illustration in his Preface to *Mere Christianity*. But the Preface aside, is there in fact such a thing as "mere Christianity" that Christians from many different traditions can rally around and agree with, or not? I think so. Lewis's book attempts to discuss some of what is at the heart of what all orthodox Christians believe, and I think he is successful--and his attempt to write a book that many Christians can find a certain unity around is a good thing.

The question, it seems to me, that Lewis's book raises for Roman Catholics by its very existence is this: do you think it is possible for Protestants and Catholics to talk about a common Faith *without* talking about "the Church"? Can we acknowledge one another as Christians, and more, can we acknowledge a certain unity we enjoy with one another around a common Faith, even though we do disagree on what "the Church" is? Putting it more bluntly: can we disagree about the Church but agree about Christianity? Can we agree together with the noun ("Christian") while disagreeing with the adjective ("Roman Catholic" or "Protestant")?

I think so. I think the Christian readers of First Things, for example, whether they be Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Protestant, sense that they have a certain unity, a certain shared orthodoxy, that is deeper than simply the assertion that they are "religious conservatives". Call it mere Christianity, or historic Christian orthodoxy or creedal Christianity, or whatever--but there is something, or Someone, that Christians of a certain stripe share with one another across denominational/communal lines, that needs to be acknowledged (and rejoiced in).

No one would assert that *Mere Christianity* is a perfect book. Some will wish Lewis had added this or that, others that he had left out this or that. But surely there is something good and right about trying to describe this certain something that all Christians down through the ages have had in common. In no way should we gloss over real and serious differences between Catholics and Protestants. But I think it is possible, and desirable, to emphasize a certain "mere Christianity" that we do share and love--and that even to some degree defines us.

In Lewis's own words, "It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine. And this suggests that at the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice."

Robert Hart wrote:

""The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a belief required in the Catholic room, while disbelief in it is required in the Protestant rooms..."

Surely that is opposite the facts."

Robert Hart is right to a degree, though unintentionally, when he later says that Roman Catholics must regard it as "dogma". This is true. However, Eastern Catholics are under no such obligation, since it is unnecessary to their own Tradition's anthropology and soteriology. Individual Eastern Catholics may accept it, but for the rest of us, it is sufficient not to condemn it as heretical. The current Greek Catholic catechism used in the United States, for instance, makes no mention of the doctrine at all (neither does it make much mention of purgatory, indulgences, or even the infallibility of the Pope).

The basic problem is during the second millennium, down to the Second Vatican Council, the Latin Church thought of itself as the Church in a rather exclusive manner (particularly from Trent onward): the Catholic Church and the Church of Rome were coterminous, and beyond its boundaries there were merely heretics or unrepentant schismatics. In such an environment, it was natural to use the word "dogma" to describe doctrines that were specific to Latin theological perspectives or expressed in Latin terms and categories.

This has created a conundrum for the Catholic Church in the post-conciliar era: how to back down from those second millennium teachings which are in fact merely the doctrinal expression of the Latin Church, but which have improperly been endowed with the dignity of "dogma". The Orthodox-Catholic Joint International Theological Commission is grappling with that issue today, and on the outcome of its deliberations perhaps the framework of a reconciliation will emerge.

Long ago, when I was very young, I discovered what the true church is. A friend had invited me to an evening service at an Assemblies of God church in San Diego. I had somehow survived psychedelic voyaging in Berkeley, as well as encounters with a bewildering array of cults and religions, each assuring me that they were the only true way--the Soka Gakkai militant Buddhists, the Maharishi, Scientology, Mormons, firebreathing fundamentalists, and so forth.

There was a visiting evangelist at the Assemblies church that night. His name was Star Thomas, a very old former cowboy from Wyoming. I'm not sure if he ever graduated from high school. After his talk, which I can hardly remember, but dealt with the Fall in the Garden of Eden, he put out an alter call. I didn't understand why, but I felt powerfully drawn to walk down to the front with a small group of others. We began singing, and it quickly became the purest sound of beauty, harmony and devotion I've ever heard. Star looked down on us from the alter, his eyes shining with a supernatural light, saying, over and over, "Just love him...just love him..." We seemed to be enveloped in a flame-colored cloud, invisible to earthly eyes. This power was the purest love, and it dissolved all barriers between us. One woman behind me was speaking softly in tongues, and that sound, too, blended into this heavenly experience, all perfectly orchestrated by a supernatural power. And everything I'm saying here is pathetically impotent to relate what this experience was like. We were no longer on the Earth. We were in heaven, we were the True Church, and we were most certainly not camping outside in the yard. We had rather been ushered into the direct, immediate presence of the Master of the house.

The True Church comprises any and all who are animated, purified, sanctified, and empowered by that Spirit. Never imagine that any institutional organization has an exclusive franchise on God's Spirit, or that that Power can be tamed, bottled, and dispensed in convenient, reliable packages. Don't think, either, though, that all this has made me anti-Catholic. I finally married a Catholic, an Irish poet, and we are raising our sons as Catholics.

The problem is that your definition is more imperialist than Lewis's. You are saying that the Church is the only room, but some people can pitch tents in the yard until they want to come in, and maybe the Roomkeeper will let them in when the night comes. (although this is a recent belief.)

It's odd to blast Lewis for arguing a level of Christianity exists as a baseline, but isn't doctrinally specific, but put forth an idea that the baseline is an illusion of crypto-catholic self-delusion. I'm not sure it's a better definition.

What Stuart Koehl has pointed out is useful. It shows that the See of Rome has its own house and rooms idea as a matter of practice. Similar, not the same, but similar enough to be significant.

My friend Kevin Offner asks "can we [Catholics and Protestants] disagree about the Church but agree about Christianity?" I think the answer is, as it often is, yes and no, but mostly no.

There is something that draws and binds us together over our differences, as Al Mohler and I explored in the papers listed in the "resources." The fellowship is deep and real and in some ways transformative. "Mere Christianity" may be as good a name for it as any, but I still think it is as usually used misleading and that it becomes an ecclesiology that doesn't admit it's an ecclesiology.

But for the Catholic that something has to be related intimately to the Church. The statement from the Second Vatican Council is an attempt to make that connection by placing our non-Catholic Christian friends in a real though partial relation to the Catholic Church.

Which is itself apparently imperialistic, as "DBlade" noted, but there's no way out of making these kinds of claims on both sides. For example, I don't doubt Richard Parker's experience, nor the overwhelming evidence of extraordinary holiness among Protestants, but I still have to reject his claim in the final paragraph, including the caricature of Catholic belief in his second sentence. He should read *Unitatis Redintegratio*.

David Mills,

You’ve offered the corrective metaphor that the house is Roman and in the yard are shelters for the Orthodox and for Evangelicals, but I’d still like to know where you place the “modernizing Christians” that you discuss in your article “Standing with Christ.” Are they also in shelters in the yard? Or are they somewhere else, say in garbage bins in the alley behind the house?

While most of the folks here have offered illuminating comments, there are some errors that, surprisingly, have gone uncorrected, and some issued that have not been fully spelled out. It seems that many folks are relying here upon memory of what C. S. Lewis wrote. I have just pulled my copy of Mere Christianity off the shelf and re-read the Preface. And it is necessary to read the entire preface in order not to misinterpret Lewis' image of the common hall between rooms.

First, the main error that needs to be corrected is that Lewis' image (whether analogy or metaphor, I'm not going to argue) is one of the Church. Lewis neither says nor implies anything of the sort; and if one reads the preface carefully, it is clear that the image is not one of the Church, but of the Christian faith as a set of belief and morals to be believed and practiced. (Fr. Hart is absolutely right in observing that Lewis directs this to the unbeliever on the outside.) The rooms are the particular churches (or "ecclesiastical communities") where people live that faith in communion; the hallway is where they can share, discuss, and dispute what they have in common and the points on which they disagree.

Thus, the real questions of the truthfulness and utility of Lewis' image is not whether it accurately represents the nature of the Church, but rather the relation between the Church and the Christian faith (more on which below). David Mills' entire argument against Lewis' image in fact falls apart right at this point, because he fundamentally misconstrues what Lewis is talking about, though what I mean by that will need to be unpacked in more detail.

Second, Lewis himself defines a crucial point of what he is talking about in the paragraph before that of the hall-and-rooms image:

"We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. the name 'Christians' was first given at Antioch (Acts xi. 26) to 'the disciples,' to those who accepted the teachings of the apostles."

Third, Lewis himself repeatedly places "mere" in scare quotes and opened his image by writing:

"I hope that no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions."

Fourth, I therefore also disagree with David Mills, my good friend Steve Hutchens (among others here) that Lewis' argument is a "Protestant conceptualization." Or, if it is, then it is such at a subtler and more indirect level than is being argued here, precisely because of the main error that Lewis' image is one of the Church.

So much for prologue; now to my main argument.

As I said, Lewis' image is one of the Christian faith as a set of doctrines and morals that are believed and practiced, not of the Church per se, but Lewis himself is a quite explicit that one cannot believe and live in the hallway by "camping"; with an abstract 'mere' Christianity; he explicitly says that, aside form providing a venue for encounters between dwellers in the different rooms, that the hall is at best as temporary waiting area for unbelievers in the process of conversion, who are trying to determine which room to enter.

Lewis also explicitly wrote of this decision: "And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling." Likewise, regarding the necessity to dwell in a room rather than the hall, he stated "the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable [to "camping" in the hall]."

Contrary to some suggestions here, then, Lewis is not implying that all the different rooms -- denominations -- are somehow of equal worth or on an equal level; this is a complete misrepresentation of his argument, stemming form the chief error already cited. He clearly thinks there are better and worse rooms, and that one should diligently seek the best, the true, room. And, clearly, Lewis also regards some putative alternatives as not being rooms at all (a point dealt with earlier in the preface, which is Lewis' response to Michael's argument against David Mills posted above).

In asserting that Lewis holds a "Protestant conceptualization," Steve Hutchens wote:

"Although clearly Lewis believed that some of the rooms were superior to others, he just as clearly never committed to the idea that only by one of them were the others legitimized. Once one takes that step, the architecture of the whole house must undergo a complete reconceptualization."

This is entirely correct. However, since (as Steve himself notes) there are other claimants for the title of "one true church," including Protestant ones, I cannot see that Lewis' failure to state explicitly that one particular room legitimizes all the others is an inherently "Protestant conceptualization." But I would also note that Lewis does not deny the legitimation premise either; he simply does not take a stand on it one way or another. He is quite clear earlier in the Preface that he is recuses himself from addressing certain doctrinal and moral issues because he does not intend to address and resolve those, and to attempt to do so would be needlessly divisive for his purpose. And his explicitly stated purpose is to bring the unbeliever into thee hall, not into any particular room: "If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted." It is patently unfair to Lewis and to his image of the hall and rooms to impute to him and them a meaning and purpose he never intended for them.

Where one might arguer for a "Protestant conceptualization" is in the implicit supposition that the Christian faith as a set of doctrines and morals that are believed and practiced can be considered as something that, at least conceptually, can be considered distinct and apart from a particular room at all. Contrary to one comment above, it is actually those Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants who deny this possibility that are guilty of a conflation -- a conflation of faith and church.

Now, C. S. Lewis has already insisted that 'mere' Christianity does not exist in the hallway apart from the rooms. But he is also clear that it is not exactly coincident with any particular room. What he has actually done is to stake out a position of Aristotelian realism in contrast to both Platonic idealism, nominalism, and reductionism. For Aristotle, an essence is distinct from any particular substance in which it inheres, but it never exist abstractly apart from inhering in particular substances; and some substances realize an essence to a more perfect degree than others. For Lewis, 'mere' Christianity is this kind of Aristotelian essence; it cannot and does not exist abstractly and independently of embodiment in a particular church or denomination, nor is it reducible to one particular exemplar to the exclusion of all others, an yet some exemplars will express it more perfectly and truly than others. (Contrary to David Mills, there is not indication whatsoever that Lewis thinks "'mere' Christianity" to be "greater than" the Church -- Lewis only supposes that the two are not simply identical or coterminous.)

This leads to the second and other major point of difficulty in the entire debate on this thread -- the nature and meaning of the word "church." I think that not only David Mills' criticism on Lewis' argument is flawed, but also that many people here may be inadvertently talking past one another than to one another, precisely because of a fallacy of equivocation (or amphiboly) in which different folks are using different concepts of "church," and unconsciously reading their own sense of the word into posts by other people, leading to mutual misunderstandings.

The problem here is that "church" has multiple different meanings and connotations, depending on context. There is the Church in an institutional sense of parishes, dioceses, and provinces (or congregations and synods, to offer a different institutional polity). There is the Church defined sacramentally, in terms of a commonly recognized ordained ministry and sacraments (or "ordinances"). There is the Church in the sense of an authoritative teaching office. There are the Church militant, the Church expectant, and the Church triumphant. There is the Church in its present imperfect state, and the Church yet to be revealed at the eschaton in its unspotted perfection after the Parousia. etc., etc.

David Mills writes that "membership in the Catholic Church from the things that are essential to the definition of Christian. Lewis's idea of Mere Christianity is ruined as an ecumenical proposal from the start by his making it a theology and moral life lived in fellowship with the like-minded rather than an incorporation into a Body manifest in history. For the Catholic unity comes from shared membership in the Catholic Church, not from agreement on some distilled essence of Christianity.

He [the Catholic] looks at his Protestant brothers as brothers not because he shares with them some essence of Christianity but because they are partly Catholics whether they like it or not. As the Second Vatican Council’s Unitatis Redintegratio declared, “men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”"

The fatal flaw here is that David equivocates here on his meaning of church -- or, more precisely, on his meaning of Catholic. On the one hand, he wants to define these visibly and institutionally -- the RCC as a particularly body that is the one sole legitimate Body. Thus, as he makes clear in concluding his essay, Protestants are not members. They are even in the house -- they're out in the yard. And yet he wants to have his cake and eat it too by saying that Protestants "are partly Catholics whether they like it or not." But is "membership in the Catholic Church from the things that are essential to the definition of Christian," then being "partly Catholic" is as nonsensical as being "partly pregnant." However much David Mills may wish to deny it, it is to say that Protestants are not Christians at all -- unless one gives up defining "Catholic" and "church" in strictly institutional terms. But the minute that is done, then one cannot consign Protestant to the lawn instead of to rooms in the house.

But, thankfully, an in contrast to the implications of David Mills' own argument, with Vatican II the Magisterium of the RCC clearly holds that the Christian faith is not simply identical with, or simply coterminous with, the RCC in either institutional or sacramental terms. Protestants are not simply "heretics" or "separated," but are "separated *brethren*". The RCC is not the visible institutional body where the faith dwells exclusively, but where the faith "subsists in its fulness," allowing that the Christian faith truly (albeit incompletely and imperfectly) subsists in "ecclesiastical communities."

[As an aside, I do not know of a single Eastern Orthodox Christian who accepts the claim often stated by the late Fr. Neuhaus that the only thing the EO church lacks is union with the See of Peter -- they regard the differences with Rome as far more profound. A crucial point for the present discussion is that RCC apologists such as David Mills assert that the credal mark of the oneness of the Church must be visible, and expressed institutionally and sacramentally, by being under the jurisdiction of and in communion with the See of Rome; and yet they explicitly term the Eastern Orthodox, which do neither, a "sister church." Rome may formally deny the "branch theory," but it has in fact accepted it, and just pruned it from the three branches of the Anglican Tractarians to two.]

Argue instead, if you will, that they dwell in the servants' quarters rather than in the family wing; but they are still manifestly in the house. And it is worth emphasizing that, with Lewis' allowance for better and worse rooms, this is quite compatible with his image, and hence not necessarily a "Protestant conceptualization." If one takes this position, the servants (or, perhaps better, the poor relations from the country taken in out of charity) have their legitimacy of residence in the house by virtue of their employment by (or beneficence of) the noble family.

And the servants (or poor relations) share a certain, imperfect degree of family life with the resident noble family; there are matters of common concern (particularly if the manor estate or castle is under siege from hostile barbarians or invaders). It lives and functions as an organic body.

Thus, in sum, David Mills' charge that Lewis' "'mere' Christianity" reduces Christianity to "a theology and moral life lived in fellowship with the like-minded rather than an incorporation into a Body manifest in history" is an unseemly caricature of what Lewis wrote and intended. Lewis neither did nor thought anything of the sort. He repeatedly emphasized in his Preface that mere Christianity is *not* a substitute for Christianity as a whole; that it is *not* lived out in a disembodied way as a vague fellowship, rather than as a Body incorporated and manifest in history. On the contrary; he stressed that mere Christianity is a basis for discussion and a starting point for moving on to more much greater and fuller than itself, precisely by going in to a room to dwell. As an ecumenical enterprise, it is in fact precisely the putative alternative that Mills himself recommends from Pope JPII: "to do together what we can do together, and let our friendships develop as they will." That is exactly what the hallway is for, and to pretend that Lewis said anything else is a total distortion of what he wrote and meant.

in the end, Mills' objection to Lewis' mere Christianity image boils down to scoring Lewis for not asserting instead that there is only one room and no hallway, and that the one room is Rome. But, as I have explained, this is based upon a serious misconstrual of Lewis' meaning and intent, by arbitrarily imposing a primarily institutional concept of "church" upon Lewis' image, which not only is deliberately not institutional in that sense, but (as previously pointed out) misreads Lewis to be speaking of the Church rather than of the faith.

It may be objected that I myself have introduced details that Lewis did not. But the difference is that my details are illustrations fully compatible with Lewis' own argument, and show that it can be accommodated even by a Roman Catholic point of view; they do not fundamentally alter or distort that image.

If mere Christianity does not exist in the way that Lewis stated it -- as shared doctrines and morals that are held in common by all true Christians, however divided they are otherwise -- then there is no basis for any genuinely ecumenical endeavor whatsoever. The very word "ecumenical" (as distinct from "interfaith") denotes converse between folks who mutually recognize each other as being true Christians in doctrine and morals. The people out in the yard are at bottom no different than the barbarians outside the gates.

In a later post, David Mills states that mere Christianity is "usually used misleading and that it becomes an ecclesiology that doesn't admit it's an ecclesiology." Well, as Christ observed, wisdom is justified of her children. There is no more point in objecting to Lewis' image because others have misused it than there is in objecting to the Scriptures or sacraments or the U. S. Constitution or laws of the land because those have been misused. What David could and should have done is to write a column objecting to the misuses of Lewis' mere Christianity, rather than to the thing itself.

Finally, David Mills wrote:

"It's not an insult to say that Lewis was a Protestant and saw the Church as a Protestant."

Given that he wants to put Protestants out of the house and onto the lawn, this disclaimer is singularly unconvincing. Indeed, my initial reaction to this entire piece when it was first posted -- particularly due to the closing line -- was that it was simply a very elaborate shell game to find a new means in coded words for Roman Catholics to speak of Protestants in degrading terms, and even to cast doubt on their very identity as Christians. As I have stated in the past (on the "Mere Comments website of Touchstone magazine, when David was still its editor), I have no problem with the position that the Magisterium articulated in Dominus Iesus, and did not join the hue and cry against it as being allegedly anti-ecumenical. But I do find it highly objectionable when RC apologists gratuitously seek occasion to raise it and rub it in the face of non-Roman Catholics, and this column struck me as a clear example of that. If David concurs with Lewis' conclusion and thinks that the RCC should not put on airs, then let it begin there. Neither JPII or Benedict XVI ever devoted themselves to anti-Protestant polemics; why do not their communicants follow their example?

It is good to see that James Altena has not lost his talent for extremely erudite and lengthy commentary. Among other things, he wrote:

'"We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. the name 'Christians' was first given at Antioch (Acts xi. 26) to 'the disciples,' to those who accepted the teachings of the apostles."'

The issue here is how one interprets the phrase "the teachings of the Apostles". It is fairly clear that Jesus Christ did not tell the Apostles to go forth and preach some new moral system, nor did He indicate that faith in Him was an essentially personal and private matter. Rather, the very word Christ used to describe his follower--ekklesia--implies a calling together of his followers as a community under the leadership and authority of those whom He personally commissioned for that purpose.

By the end of the Apostolic era, we have the earliest of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ignatios of Antioch (whose Feast fell earlier this week) defining the Church as a Eucharistic society centered upon the bishop, assisted by his presbyters and deacons, surrounded by the faithful. Through the Eucharist, the Church manifests itself as the Kingdom of God in this world, its members united to Christ and to each other through the eating of Christ's Body and the drinking of his Blood.

So, the entire purpose of the Church is both to manifest the Kingdom and to identify those who are to be accounted the People of God--and all the rest of it is not really about how one "gets in", but rather of being accounted worthy of remaining in.

It seems to me that many Protestants, particularly of the Evangelical variety, have difficulty dealing with this historical reality, and so just ignore it--and most of the other history of the early Church as well.

The attitude of the Catholic Church today (and please note, James, not just the "Roman" Catholic Church), is "all those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ"--are mystically members of Christ's body. But Christ's body is the Catholic Church, in precisely the manner the term was first used by Ignatios of Antioch--"kata holon", pertaining to the whole, fullness. The Catholic Church sees the Church as a communion of Churches, but Church has a very specific meaning here; i.e., those communities of the faithful that have maintained the continuity of the Tradition through the sacraments and the succession of bishops going back to the Apostles (criterion first laid out by Irenaeus of Lyons in the mid second century).

Here the Catholic Church is caught in a conundrum of its own making, for by definition the Church is one and indivisible. But just as the Eucharist is celebrated in many places, but remains Christ's indivisible Body and Blood (one Christ, not many Christs), so the Church can be manifested in many places at the same time, and yet be one through the communion of its bishops through the Eucharist. The issue is, since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has recognized Churches not in communion with Rome as having true ecclesial status: the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East are all considered "true Churches".

But Rome continues to harbor the pretense that only those Churches in communion with the Church of Rome have the "fullness" of the Church--are truly "Catholic". But being Church is like being pregnant--either you are or you aren't. Every true Church possesses the fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore those that Rome acknowledges as Churches must be the Catholic Church to the same extent as the Church of Rome and those in communion with it.

On the other hand, those Christian communities that have departed from the Tradition and do not maintain the apostolic succession of bishops are not true Churches, but something Rome calls "ecclesial communities", in which the fullness of the Church is present only in part (some more, some less). Yet all are mystically connected, somehow to the Catholic Church--as are all those who are saved, even those not even nominally Christian. As for how Christians not belonging to one of the Apostolic Churches can still be considered mystically connected to the Catholic Church, I would submit that the answer lies in baptism, which is an ecclesial, not a personal action. Even those baptized by ministers not possessing the sacrament of Holy Orders (who, indeed, my reject the very notion of a sacrament of Holy Orders), when they baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity, are acting on behalf of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, knowingly or not. It is baptism that grafts us onto Christ's Body, which is the Church.

The object of all true ecumenism is not to minimize differences or wish them away, but rather to bring all into the fullness of the Church. To me, one part of the problem is largely resolved: the Church of Rome and the Churches in communion with it, and all other true Churches, are indeed the full manifestations of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, whether they recognize it in each other or not (because truth is self-affirming). At that point, the whole "rooms in a house" analogy falls apart: just one house, just one room, perhaps with different types of decor in each corner, but the whole harmoniously integrated.

What then, of those in the "ecclesial communities" or the "non-denominational" (though, of course, "no denomination" is itself a denomination)? Analogies are all faulty when dealing with what must be considered a deep mystery--and unlike Lewis, who was always looking for ways to explain the mystery, I am content to let it remain as such. I would say they are all members of the family who have been invited to live in the house, but who, for various reasons, remain on the property but do not come in. When and if they do, they will find that the festal table is prepared, and they will find welcome. But we cannot compel them to come in, for true faith cannot be coerced. It can be hoped that with patient encouragement, though, at some point all will be living under one roof.

I have explained my position in detail here.
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2010/10/protestant-image.html

It is so interesting watching a number of you argue your point in an effort to explain what others are trying to say. Are we forgeting what God's purpose for us is? It is to renew our minds, soften our hearts, and gain courage with our tongues to allow the Lord Jesus Christ into every fiber of our being, and become His humble and broken servants to further spread the Good News. Let us remember Jn 3:30 "He must increase, I must decrease." It is so easy to get wrapped up in ourselves and our convictions. In the end, it will be each one of us alone with the Lord Jesus Christ, giving an account of our life. I pray that on that day, no matter what denomination(or non-denomination)we are, we have more than "mere Christianity".

Reading James Altena's and Stuart Koehl's posts makes me long for the old days. It was good, once more, to read such thoughtful and thought-provoking post on a serious topic. Well done.

I thought about a composing a satirical or sarcastic reply to Chris--something including encouraging folks to read my wonderful book, "Humility and How I Attained It: A Definitive Account." But I decided against such a reply as incommensurate with the purposes of this site and this blog. Even so, I have always thought that there was a certain hubris or at least lack of humility in telling others that they're not being humble and that they need to be. And to say something, with such condescension for what's been written or for the folks who have written it is not only inappropriate but a conversation killer. It's one thing to disagree vigorously in written exchange and another altogether to accuse those who disagree of being close minded, hard hearted, and full of pride (which Chris suggests we all have been). Doesn't generosity, in dialogue, require of us that we not assess the motives or spiritual estate of others--something known only to God and unknowable to us (as St. Paul says in his epistle to the Romans). Someone who pretends to know the motives and spiritual estate of others--especially by deciphering these through exchanges online--pretends to know more than he can.

Here I must briefly take issue with my friend James Altena's exposition of Mere Christianity. Of course the House is the Church. What else could it be? It is an existence, a concretion, of the same nature as the doored partitions that comprise it, and unlike those rooms, perfectly complete in itself.

The real conceptual difficulty, which Lewis can't really explain very well, is the hallway. This is because it cannot be explained. It is a paradox, a reservation of the Spirit, a place of union in the disunion that the rooms represent, and which many correspondents to this posting who are dissatisfied with Lewis's attempt to describe are trying to puzzle out themselves. For my money, Lewis's representation is as good as I've seen.

With some the locus of union in disunion is the lawn, or a someplace outside the walls, which Roman Catholic conceptualization and terminology defining the Church tends to favor. Characteristically Protestant conceptualizations (which predictably are not held by all Protestants) like Lewis's can locate this place more readily within the House.

I observe that while a Protestant can hold to a view of fraternal separation (more distant, with firm partition--on the grounds perhaps, but "outside the walls") homologous to that of the Catholic, the Catholic cannot reasonably hold to the view put forward by the Protestant (Anglican is Protestant) Lewis. That is why I call it "Protestant"--because it is possible within and typical of Protestantism--even though some Protestants do not accept this view.

It is true Lewis did not directly identify the House as the Church. Had he done so he would have immediately been in the very sort of polemical situation he was attempting to avoid by the use of allegory, as thinly veiled (and deliberately so) as the allegory was.

(1) from the preface to "mere christianity," it seems at least plausible that the analogy of "the house" is primarily intended to illustrate the journey of faith facing a new convert to "mere christianity." whether "the house" is the church and whether some rooms are "the true church" -- these questions are irrelevant to the person who has yet to enter the hallway (the person to whom the preface/book is primarily addressed).

thus, from the perspective of a new convert, at the level of practicality, the house is exactly what the world of christianity looks like. i am reasonably sure that lewis did not intend his illustration to serve as a window into his ecclesiology, but only as a guide to new converts concerning the task facing them.

(2) the only useful meaning of the word "christian" is that which lewis uses -- those who believe certain doctrines considered to be consonant with orthodox christianity. there may be debate concerning the doctrines themselves, but the point is that the term "christian" is only useful if it refers to "belief." "closeness to God" -- and any other criterion -- is impossible to ascertain.

a few conclusions follow:

a. in general, all "christian churches" believe the doctrines of the hallway, but no "christian church" believes only the doctrines of the hallway. the same goes for "christians."

b. the walls between the rooms of the house, from the perspective of the new convert, are made of doctrinal differences.

c. rooms are to be entered using the criteria of "truth" in relation to the doctrines held by that room.

(3) later in "mere christianity," lewis states that "zoe" -- divine life -- is spread by, inter alia, the sacraments such as baptism and the lord's supper. several churches available to the new convert believe no such thing -- they would revolt at any sniff of sacramental reality. to lewis, given that the sacraments are part of the hallway, such churches would not be part of the house....

The ecumenical hand wringing aside, this statement is certainly false:

The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a belief required in the Catholic room

As not merely a pronouncement of the ordinary magisterium but the subject of an explicitly defined dogma, the Immaculate Conception is indeed an obligatory belief for Catholics.

Indeed, it is an obligatory belief for all, but only Catholics acknowledge the obligation. But that would entangle me in the annoying ecumenical hand wringing I set out to avoid.

Paul, it is good for us to restrain from sarcasm. Scripture says in 2 Thes 2:6-7 that we who restrain will be removed from the scene before the lawless one comes. We should be careful not to let intellect become the snare which keeps us from eternal destiny. Salvation is not found in the intellect of man, but in the wisdom from God.

Titus: A little late, but: Please pay attention to what I wrote. What I wrote is:

[[ The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a belief required in the Catholic room, while disbelief in it is required in the Protestant rooms; it is a belief required of all those who live under that roof. If someone doesn’t believe it, he can’t have a room in the house. He can set up a shelter in the yard (his communion is real but imperfect)—inside the pale, certainly, and not beyond it, but not in the house. ]]

"It is a belief required of all those who live under the roof" is a way of saying it is "the subject of an explicitly defined dogma."

The things I like best about this blog are what Steven Barr and Ethan have to say. And I do think that Ethan has gotten Protestant belief about the Church most accurately. While Protestantism may have its problems, in many exchanges concerning the nature of the Church, the Protestant conception is rather distorted (sometimes, perhaps especially by, those who have converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy). Whether or not the Protestant view is right or wrong is one thing. Characterizing it correctly is another. And here I think that Mills has failed to capture just what the standard Protestant or Evangelical view is. In fact, many Protestants hold to a distinction between the Church visible and the Church invisible that is grounded on a certain reading of the parable of the wheat and the tares and that has certain antecedent in St. Augustine. I'm not saying the Protestant view is the right one. I'm honestly not sure (right now Eastern Orthodox and Catholic views both seem plausible to me). Even so, one of the problems with Mills' piece seems to be a certain amount of caricature both in depicting Lewis's position and in describing (or by virtue of what he implies) concerning the Protestant view of the church. Indeed, I wonder if Mills argument might construed as attributing to Protestants, through his conception of Lewis's metaphor, something akin to the fallacy of composition. If this is Mills argument or is entailed by it, then I think he's wrong. Protestant views of the Church, right or wrong, don't come to that. The Catholic approach tends to be the reverse: To follow the Lord is to do so wholeheartedly, a kind of maximum Christianity. Anything less, whether less because of defective ecclesiology or because of nominal non-practice or any other fault, is a derogation from discipleship. Pending the Lord's Judgment, there is no "mere" minimum, but only a perfection to which we are called.

One of the points of the article, in fact, was to reflect on the way we ought to pursue our mutual esteem and friendship when divided so substantially theologically and ecclesially. I think appeals to "mere Christianity" inadequate, but partly bec. they cover the real difficulties, and those difficulties must be faced if they are to be overcome, as far as is likely in this fallen world. I'm not necessarily defending this view (it has some rather obvious abuses), but I think it's very important to distinguish between the quite different meanings of "the Church" among different participants in this discussion, and to avoid any accidental equivocation.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 1 John 5:1

Who's a real Christian? The one who believes in Jesus being the Christ. A believer is born of God. His own son or daughter. Far from living in the yard regardless of what denomination.

Jesus lives
P.S. This isn't a response to anyone else above, just the article itself in which the author seems to rank believers favor with God by denomination.