“We have been talking…as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded. But this would be a fatal mistake… niceness hardly comes in the question… A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is not redemption… God became man…not simply to produce better men of the old kind, but to produce a new kind of man.”
(C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 211-216)
I love Lewis’ differentiation here. So often I think Christians are perceived as “nice” people, or that other “nice” people are basically Christians anyway, so there must be no real difference. What Lewis called for in this passage are redeemed people who live transformed lives in light of their redemption. If Christians are only a bunch of nice people, then the cross of Jesus Christ becomes irrelevant. Lewis didn’t water down his message. He wasn’t content to settle for maintenance of a “good” life; he sought and spoke about transformation.
Something else I like about his discussion in this passage is that he exposes the hypocrisy that is so often a critique of the church. Nice people, caught up in the sense of their own righteousness, are distant from God whether or not they follow all the rules and live a life that seems pure. I think it levels the playing field. “Nice” people and “nasty” ones have the same need for salvation – and it is available for both.
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