Eric W's Response to "What Christians Believe"

Response by Eric Wolford:

Even before reading the section in my textbook, my heart leaped when I heard that the section was written by C.S. Lewis! Although I wouldn't consider myself much of a reader on my spare time, I do remember some of the few books that I had actually read for the sake of reading were often by C.S. Lewis. The reason was actually from my environment I grew up in as a child. Although my family weren't (and still aren't) members of the LDS church, my father was a huge fan of anything that was written by C.S. Lewis, so much so that the first book that he gave me to read on my spare time as us two were waiting for the paint to dry on my Pinewood Derby car was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Later on, I bought the whole series of The Chronicles of Narnia and also read one of his science fiction novels.

Anyways, as I had began to read the section, my eyes stopped at the sentence, “If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are wrong all through.” The reason why my eyes stopped there really came to the fact that, throughout my life as a member in a myriad of other Christian churches, this description of Christianity was often unfamiliar in some of the churches I had attended and many of the televangelists I saw on the small screen as a kid. Heck, the ignorance of this sentence was so extreme that, as I grew, the idea wasn't that only other religions were completely and totally wrong, but so-called “cults”, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, were horridly wrong. Consequentially, I began to realize how wrong this way of thinking as soon as I moved from Phoenix, AZ to the small farming city of Palmer, AK. There, I began to befriend many members of the church, and realized that they were just as Christian as I was, although I had some differing beliefs on account of the apostasy.

While the conditions in my family seemed to be fine at first, I had began to grow into a way of believing as what Lewis would call Christianity-and-water. While I still understood such things as sin, hell, and evil, my mind had began to be so complacent to the point in which those things began to appear to become harder to distinguish, partly due to my poor scripture study habits and how perfect my life had begun to be. However, just like many things in life, I received a wake-up call through the tragic experience of my parents splitting up and eventually divorcing. Suddenly, not only was my life not perfect, but I was center of my parents' arguments while my only hope and prayer was for them to stop so my family could be “perfect” again, realizing that the perfection I thought never really existed. At this point, I began to see how Lewis described the universe as being “cruel and unfair”, but unlike him, this tragedy sparked in me a greater endeavor for searching the truth, knowing that Heavenly Father is real and that He loves me.

The search started with the spirit's presence nudging me to ask about Brigham Young University and my curiosity of why the spirit would nudge me of doing so, with previous ideas in my head about how the LDS church was “not Christian”. Seeking to find some truth, I heeded to it's voice and I called my family friend who happened to be an alumni from BYU's Law School. While I wasn't able to talk to him personally on the phone, I left him a message concerning a letter of recommendation to BYU and prayed for the best. A few weeks later, two elders who were serving in what would soon be my home ward called me, knowing about my call to my family friend about BYU. I originally thought it would be them just talking about the university, but it turned out to be the first of my many sessions with them. While the first session introduced me to the apostasy and of Joseph Smith's Prayer, I still was not ready to let go of the Christianity-in-water that I was comfortable with.

By June of that year, I had finally been baptized to the church, but not without my father's slight objections. By this point, I saw something different with my father... while he still separated the LDS church with “Christianity”, he was ready to believe that the church was not wrong all the way. It was a start, but I was still left with a haunting question, “What is Christianity truly?” I knew and still know that the church is Christian, but for so many other Christians who aren't members of the LDS church throughout the world, there is still that idea of us being members of a “cult” or at least a bunch of confused Christians who need to get their “beliefs straight”. For this, I believe Lewis sheds some light on the issue with this article.

As stated before, people who proclaim themselves to be Christian should, as Lewis states in the beginning of the article, “...not have to believe that all the other religions are wrong all through.” For those individuals in my life who don't seem to agree with Lewis in this matter, Lewis would probably suggest them to take a look in their Bibles again. Also, Christians should not be like the pantheists, who believe that God is beyond good and evil and that, essentially, everything in the universe is a part of God. Then, Christianity should not be a simple religion. As stated previously in my response, I was even a sucker at one point for beginning to believe in the type of Christianity Lewis calls “Christianity-in-water”. However, especially since I became a member of the church, I now understand that God, nor Christianity in general, is simple. There are many doctrines throughout Church History that are still barely known to us, either because it is too complicated for us to comprehend in this life or because of the mere sacredness of the doctrine. One great example is of Heavenly Mother. We know she exists due to all the references of her in important talks, hymns, and scriptural works like “A Proclamation to the World”, however, that is all that we know. We also know through the article that evil is nothing more than a rebellion from good, even dating back to the per-existence when Satan wanted to get all the glory and honor for himself so he could be higher than God. He then used this with Adam and Eve, with Lewis stating Satan's comment about them “being as God” if they partook of the forbidden fruit. Now what does that mean for us, coming from the LDS perspective knowing about the doctrine of exaltation in which we all have the potential to be as God? Looking back on what Lewis talks of concerning the fall, “... they could “be like gods” - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves – be their own masters.” In this, Lewis is not objecting about the belief of exaltation, in which comes from a dependance on God, but rather the foolish notion of being masters of our own lives without the need of God. Finally, Lewis states that Christians must all believe that Jesus is who He states He is... the Son of God. He cannot be just a great “religious teacher” because, with all the claims He made in His mortal ministry, either He would have been a lunatic with delusions of grandeur or a demon trying to make Himself to be greater than God.

So, to conclude this response, are people who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Christian? Well, according to C.S. Lewis, we are. We aren't pantheistic, we don't believe in an over-simplified version of Christianity, we understand about how evil came to be, and, most importantly, we believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God who suffered for our sins so that we may come back to Heavenly Father's presence. That means, the only other reasons why other Christians might not consider us Christian are for reasons not presented in this article. For some, the reason comes to the idea that Revelation 22:18-19 supposedly states that there shouldn't be any more scriptures besides those in the bible. While this might be a noble reason, this is historically inaccurate due to the fact the Bible came into existence centuries after the completion of the last book of the Bible and because of the neglected books that were a part of the original Bible. Others might complain because of our belief in modern-day prophets and/or temples, but again, the reasons are trivial due to conflicting readings of scripture. However, despite all of these reasons for why the LDS church is or is not Christian, according to Lewis and his arguments in the article, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is, without any doubt, Christian.