Skylar Burris's Reviews > Mere Christianity

As a now more mature Christian, this book does not impress me as deeply as it once did, because I don't see its arguments as being objectively persuasive to the non-Christian. (Some of them, which seemed to me compelling at the time, now seem too simplistic, admitting of only a few possible arguments.) Yet when I read it as a teenager, I had just read the Gospels for the first time in my life, and I had been deeply struck by Christ's words and sense of authority. I WANTED to be a Christian at that moment in my life, and possibly I would have become one even if I had never read Mere Christianity on the heels of the Gospels. But I did read Mere Christianity on the heels of the Gospels, and at the time it sufficiently satisfied my intellect, which made it possible for my mind to join my heart in conversion. I give it five stars primarily because of its influence on me. It did not persuade me to convert, certainly (Christ's preaching did that), but it played a significant role in my journey, and I have yet to encounter another modern apologetic quite as simultaneously accessible and "clever." It was Mere Christianity that really introduced me to basic Christian theology. It may not be a persuasive book for the agnostic or the atheist, but it is a superb book for the new convert or almost-convert. Mere Christianity helped to draw me in; Screwtape Letters helped to keep me aware of where I really was (and wasn't).