Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis
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Book Reviews of Mere Christianity
Book Review: The Best Christian Intellectual Book Ever Written
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first Christian book I read after really deciding to follow Jesus. I remember walking through a book store and how shocked I was to see that C.S. Lewis had written a Christian book. I loved the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, so I had to see what it was about. I must admit the first time I read it, it took me several months to get through it. But it was enthralling. This book, far more than any other besides the Bible, has greatly influenced my outlook on life. I have read it four times I think, maybe more. If you have not read this great piece of literature I highly suggest that you do.
Most of this book is just talks that Lewis gave over the radio, especially to troops. In it he sets out to "explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times." He does so masterfully. While intellectual, this book explains the heart of Christianity in non-theological terms. Using metaphors throughout, C.S. Lewis uses real life experiences we already understand to help us understand Christianity. It is simple, or "mere," Christianity.
SYNOPSIS
It is divided into four parts:
I. RIGHT AND WRONG AS A CLUE TO THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE
This first section has helped me more than anything else in believing there is a God, and that He is Good. Scores of books are written to "prove" God with science (i.e. intelligent design). While creation does point to a Creator, this method only works effectively if you are a scientist. If you are not, you really have to go on what other people have told you about it.
But Lewis works on a different premise. Why do we all feel there is such a thing as 'right' and 'wrong,' even if we disagree on what it looks like? If one of our friends punched us in the face we would be angry. Why? Because friends don't punch each other. But why do we have that idea within us? Why do we have this idea that people ought to act a certain way and not in another? And why is it not just in our society, but everywhere? We didn't put it there, so Lewis reasons that something else, something greater than us, must have.
And if that Greater Something put this idea of right and wrong in us, it must be on the 'right' side of things. That is, it must be 'good' because it is the One that gave us the idea that some things are 'good' and some are not. Something good would reveal itself to us, not just leaving us here to figure it all out. And this Good Something has. It is God. Lewis then reasons that the most probable explanation must be Christianity, because it is the only answer that really makes sense.
II. WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE
Here Lewis goes through the process of examining atheism along with different conceptions of God. He goes on to say that atheism is too simple. Many atheists' main reason for their belief is that the world is too unjust for a god to have made it. But what gave man the idea of just and unjust? So atheists argue that God, who gave them the very idea of right and wrong, does not exist because the world is too wrong. This may be an accusation against God, but He is the one who gave them that idea in the first place.
Another idea about God is that everything lovely and beautiful is "God" in some sense, so as long as we are all living good lives we are living true religion. But this is a candy religion. It is all rewards and requires nothing. After dealing with even more views Lewis says that the final view is the "Christian view that this is a good world that has gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been."
And finally he goes on to explain the Gospel, the heart of who this Jesus is and why He came. He writes, "The perfect surrender and humiliation were undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender and humiliation because He was man. Now the Christian belief is that if we somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall also share in His conquest of death and find a new life after we have died and in it become perfect, and perfectly happy, creatures."
III. CHRISTIAN BEHAVIOR
This is a great section in which Lewis explains the implications of God. He deals with some basics of morality like: faith, forgiveness, love, hope, sexual morality etc. I think up to this point in my life (before I read this section) morality seemed like such a cut and dry, boring thing. In Bible classes I mostly heard these terms defined, sometimes applied, but almost never why we should choose one over another.
Lewis' classic view of morality is this. God made us to live a certain way, and only living this way will bring us happiness, contentment, and meaning. The human machine is meant to run on God. Anything else that is put into it will eventually make the machine sputter out and die, even if at first it seems to do better.
He also explains it like taking a dog for a walk. If the dog gets caught on the other side of a pole, it will likely keep trying to push forward. If you try to pull the dog back around the pole it will think you don't want it to go forward, when really pulling back for the moment gets it around the pole, and further than it could possibly go with the leash in the way. This is sort of how morality works. No denial of a sin is fun at the moment (lust, greed, lying etc.) but in the end God is just trying to pull us around the pole to get us where we wanted to go in the first place: joy everlasting.
IV. BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY
This is definitely my favorite chapter, and contains my favorite chapter in all books: Nice People or New Men. Many have the idea that religion is all about becoming nicer and giving God His due. Or that Jesus had some good social teachings and if we all just took His advice we'd be a better society. But that's not what God is after. Those are all by-products only. We have been self-polluted by sin, and it's only by becoming something completely new that we can be made whole again.
Lewis gets into a lot of theology, but from a very practical and reverent perspective. "The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God." He has already done the work for us; we have only but to accept it. Here Lewis explains that we're all very much like tin soldiers. If you were to try to explain to a tin soldier (if it could speak) about what real people are like, and that it could become one, it might not much like the idea. It would be a long, painful process of veins coming in with bones and everything else. It might be quite unpleasant. But if he would just let it happen, he would experience something far greater than he could ever have imagined as being a mere tin soldier.
We are all in the same place, even though we tend to rank people. We tend to look at some people as more evil than others. But we're all tin soldiers without Christ. It's only through the Gospel that we become real people, sons of God. He then writes, "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."
In conclusion Lewis explains that the seed of real life was started in Christ, and that we merely need to accept it to start transforming into a creature with a nature like God's. We are born spiritual babies through Him, but if we keep walking and trusting we will eventually become just like Him, though likely in the life after this one.
MY REVIEW
Of course I just skimmed the top of this wonderful book. If you want more detail I suggest reading it. No book seems to stir me like this one does. Here Lewis talks about Christianity likes it's both real and poetic, like it's inspiring yet intensely practical. I love that, because that mirrors my own experience with Christ.
He's a bit like Shakespeare. If you read Lewis enough you start to think like him, just like I've found myself thinking a little in Old English if I read Shakespeare very much. Once you're in his own version of the English language, his writing is like a refreshing glass of cold water. It is as if he knows real English, and that you've been taught a plastic version all your life. Writing like that about something as grand as Christianity, the reason for existence, really helps make Christianity seem a bit like that as well: the only life that really makes sense.
This is, in my opinion, the most helpful and inspiring book outside the Bible ever written.
Book Review: A Review Of Mere Christianity
Summary: 4 Stars
C.S. Lewis is renowned as one of the foremost Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. Despite being an Anglican and exhibiting a number of tendencies making him a bit of an iconoclast among his fellow believers, C.S. Lewis has been fondly embraced by a broad swath of the church in part because of his efforts to promote a version of the Christian faith amicable towards all denominations by appealing to what all of these theological niches have in common, which could be referred to as mere Christianity.
As such, one of Lewis' best known apologetic texts is titled none other than Mere Christianity. Originally presented as a series of broadcast talks, Lewis vetted much of his text past four members of the clergy --- an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic --- in order to keep denominational idiosyncrasies to a minimum. Because of such conscientious effort, the Christian finds in Mere Christianity a rational defense of the faith of considerable sophistication.
Mere Christianity begins as a recitation of what is known as the moral argument for the existence of God. According to Lewis, the moral law consists of the fundamental rules by which the universe operates and to which all residing within are bound. And even though considerable intellectual resources have been expended to deny its existence, not even those making it their life's purpose to undermine these eternal principles can escape from them try as they might. Lewis observes, "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining `It's not fair' before you can say `Jack Robinson' (5)."
The very fact that human beings are able to argue that one set of moral claims is superior to another, Lewis observes, is itself proof that some kind of higher law exists. Lewis writes, "Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer has committed a foul unless there was some kind of agreement about the rules of football (4)."
Lewis notes, "If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring...Christian morality to Nazi morality...If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something --- some real morality --- for them to be true about (11)." Thus, the standard by which human moralities are judged stem from a source apart and above them.
From establishing that natural law exists, Lewis moves on to examine where this eternal law originates from. Lewis postulates there are approximately two sources that this law could possibly originate from: the materialist view that the principles governing the universe arose through a process of chance and the religious view that the universe was established by a conscious mind. And since the law comes to us in the form of principles and instructions, this would seem to conclude that the promulgator of this law would have to be mind rather than inanimate matter.
Despite the fact that the universe was meant to run according to moral law, it is obvious from a quick look around that the moral agents operating within it fail to live up to these noble ideals as we are regularly aware of even our own shortcomings. As such, the universe requires a divine intervention to set things right. Lewis writes, "Enemy occupied territory --- that is what the world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed...and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage (36)." This king is none other than Jesus, whom from his own claims, must be God or, as Lewis famously points out, is a lunatic "on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg or a devilish liar (41)." It was the primary purpose of Jesus to suffer and die so that our sins might be forgiven so that we might be made whole in Him.
Fundamental as this message is to man's eternal salvation, Mere Christianity is also full of practical observations less cosmic and more down to earth. Lewis writes, "Theology is practical. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology...It will mean that you have a lot of...bad muddled, out of date ideas (120.)" Many of theology's practical concerns manifest themselves in the form of morality.
Lewis lists morality as being concerned with three matters: harmony between individuals, the inner life of the individual, and the general purpose of human life as a whole (57). Lewis observes that different beliefs about the universe will naturally result in different behaviors and those closest to the truth will produce the best results (58).
Lewis demonstrates how this phenomena manifests itself in a number of ethical spheres, sex being one of interest to just about all people. It is this obsession with sex, Lewis point out, that shows just how out of whack contemporary morality has become. Lewis comically comments that the level to which this biological impulse has been elevated in our own society is akin to a land where the inhabitants have such a prurient interest in food beyond nourishment and wholesome pleasure that the inhabitants watch a plate containing a mutton chop that is uncovered just before the lights go out (75). Ironically, Lewis points out, such deviancy is not usually the result of starvation but rather overindulgence.
Though Lewis is witty in regards to most issues he addresses, even in regards to this beloved Oxford professor, the Christian must remember to be a Berean and measure even his formidable intellect by the standard of Biblical truth. Unfortunately, there are at least two matters that must be approached with caution.
Lewis likens the process of change we go through as Christians to the biological theory of recapitulation where it is believed an embryo passes through the various phases of evolution during development in the womb. Of the process, Lewis writes, "We were once like vegetables, and once rather like fish; it was only at a later stage that we became like human babies (159)."
One hopes that had Lewis lived until more technologically advanced times that he would have not retained this scientifically erroneous theory. For at its most innocent, it is used to justify Darwinisim and from Lewis' statement one could very well use it to justify abortion.
From another passage, it would seem Lewis tottered dangerously close to a "proto-universalism" in his thought. Lewis writes, "There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it (162)."
John 14:6 says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And Acts 4:12 says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
In writing Mere Christianity, Lewis does a commendable job overall of balancing the theoretical and practical concerns of the faith. As such, Mere Christianity will no doubt continue as a classic apologetics text for decades to come.
by Frederick Meekins
Book Review: Intellectual and humble; absolutely life-changing
Summary: 5 Stars
In this 200-page work of non-fiction, C.S. Lewis presents the edited and slightly expanded transcriptions of some radio radio talks he gave to English audiences in the 1940's. His conversational writing is all about "apologetics," explaining and defending the Christian faith.
Lewis states early on that he doesn't intend to forward a particular denomination of Christianity or discuss the finer points of theology--he's discussing "mere" Christianity, just the basics of what all Christians say they believe about God and about his son, Jesus. He systematically builds up his logic point-by-point and recaps what he's establishing at the beginning and end of every chapter. The very first building block of his discussion is the idea of the Moral Law, or The Law of Human Nature. Whenever one person fights with another person, they tend to appeal to some higher standard: it was unfair of you to steal my sandwich from the fridge; it was selfish of you to play your music at full blast when you knew I was studying; it was rude of you to cut me off while driving on the freeway. Everyone has an idea of morality, and arguing with another person about their behavior means trying to prove the other person did wrong. Often, the guilty party won't outright say that what they did wasn't wrong--instead, they'll argue that they had special reasons for acting against the moral standard. So there is some idea we all have of fair and right behavior, and we tend to feel uncomfortable/embarrassed/ashamed when we don't adhere to that standard. We come up with excuses and reasons for falling short, but there is still a Moral Law, and none of us fully obey it.
Also, even when we don't want to do the "right" thing, we still feel that we ought to do it--when the instinct to help someone and the instinct to keep yourself comfortable compete against each other, a third, distinct feeling tells you that you should choose to do the more difficult, more selfless thing. From these internal struggles, Lewis concludes that there must be something behind the workings of the universe which incites these feelings, something with a will and a powerful intention to nudge us toward "right conduct". But there's nothing comfy about the Moral Law or the will behind it, and the idea of an absolute good is downright scary: "God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies" (pg 31). This is the first time in the talk that we actually get close to Christianity, because Christianity promises forgiveness if people will turn from their sins, but no one's going to be interested in that offer unless they acknowledge that they have sinned and realize that forgiveness is something they need.
He talks at length about the different conceptions of God, because even after you establish that somebody or something is making reality function as it does, there's still a lot of opinions about who or what is running the control room. Pantheism is the attitude that says there's some sort of God, one that's everywhere, in everything, and doesn't especially care about right and wrong, because it is beyond those sorts of simple distinctions. Monotheism says there is one God, a person who very much cares that you do what is right--Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are three major monotheist religions. Dualism believes that there are two equal forces in the universe, one good and one evil, but if we accept that idea, we run into the old conundrum--if we see one power as good and one as evil, isn't there some third thing inside us that makes us regard them as aligning or not aligning with the Moral Law? "Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in the part of the universe occupied by the rebel" (pg 45).
So Christianity believes that we live in a good world that has gone wrong, a place made by a holy God and tainted by a fallen angel, the devil. But if there is an absolutely good God in control of everything, why does he allow this rebellion? Because goodness and rightness are a choice God offers to human beings. If we didn't have free will, our good behavior wouldn't be of any more value than a mechanical toy that walks and talks when it's wound up. Without the choice between right and wrong, we wouldn't be people capable of giving and receiving love--we would be objects that perform a set of programmed actions.
Now Lewis' discussion moves to the sacrifice of Jesus, specifically. About 2,000 years ago, Jesus came along and claimed to be the human incarnation of the one true God. He offered the forgiveness of all sins, not just forgiving people of wrongs done against himself, but of all wrongs done at any time to anyone. Some say he was a good, moral teacher, but it's impossible to view Jesus as just a man who had some helpful advice, because he emphatically said, within the context of monotheistic Judaism, that he was God in human flesh and that he could forgive sins. With such outrageous claims, he was either crazy, or evil, or he was (and is) what he claimed to be. It's easy to focus on his teachings and miracles, but the main thing he came to earth to do was die and be resurrected. His sacrifice puts us back into a right relationship with God, if we decide to accept him and follow his teachings. One of the big principles of the Christian faith is that we humans don't need to be improved only slightly or made a just little bit nicer--we need to be completely changed and taken over. We have to let go of our own pride and self-will, the idea that we don't need to change and that we're really not so very bad or so very wrong.
Proverbs 11:14 says, "Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety," and C.S. Lewis has been one of my lifelong counselors--his wisdom and love for the Lord shine through his writing. I've seldom read anyone so educated and yet so humble. He answers lots of objections to the faith, always in a kind, friendly manner, and he never belittles the reader, and never seems angry or prideful. Mere Christianity was a life-changing book for me. It's excellent reading for Christians who'd like to see an educated former atheist's explanation of God, faith, sin, and repentance, and it's also good for non-Christians who'd like to know what all this Jesus stuff is really about.
Book Review: Clear, lucid, persuasive
Summary: 5 Stars
The following review is based on the 2001 HarperSanFrancisco edition copublished by Zondervan, with a foreword by Kathleen Norris:
In this volume, C.S. Lewis, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, successfully lays out those basic tenets that nearly all Christians have held together at all times. He employs convincing arguments in plain language to point to a system of absolute truth and he then comes full circle by arguing that this system is fully realized in a Christian worldview.
1. The Case for Absolute Values
He opens the book by arguing that people hold to common perceptions of right and wrong, as can be evidenced in everyday, mundane situations. The statements that are exchanged in arguments, such as "That's my seat, I was there first" or "Come on, you promised," demonstrate this tendency (p. 3). People quarreling typically do not discard the standard against which their conduct is being measured; rather, they try to justify themselves according to the standard. This, says Lewis, points to a system of absolute values that people hold in common.
2. The Case for Christ
Lewis then challenges the reader to concede that he (the reader) has at sometime or another violated the very standards of behavior that "we expect from other people" (p. 7). Thus, although people believe in transcendent standards, they have throughout history and throughout cultures typically not acted in accordance with these standards. This is the gateway through which Lewis sets up the argument that he will employ throughout the rest of the book: people need to be justified, and Christianity offers the answers in Christ.
The reader is challenged to examine the claims of Christ and to determine for himself whether or not Christ was God, as he claimed to be. If he was not, then he "would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell" (p. 52). Lewis leaves no room for the view that Jesus was no more than a "great moral teacher," since no great moral teacher would claim to be God if he was merely man.
3. On Christian Living
After setting out the case for Christianity, Lewis discusses various aspects of Christian doctrine and behavior. The purpose and end of Christians is to become like "little Christs" while working out their salvation. Lewis discusses a series of relevant questions, including social morality, sexual morality, charity, hope, faith, and the difficulty of Christian living.
Of the latter sections of the book, one of Lewis's strongest is chapter 6 of book 3, where he discusses the idea of Christian marriage. He makes the case for the leadership of the man in Christian marriage in a way that is strikingly relevant. He begins from the premise that there needs to be a leader in the relationship and, based on the natural differences between men and women, as well as some anecdotes and arguments based on intuition and some common sense, Lewis states why the leadership of the man, as taught in the Scriptures, is in keeping with human nature. My only criticism to this chapter is that Lewis starts on the premise that disagreement will naturally arise, and because there can be no democracy in a relationship of two, either the man or the wife needs to take the lead. The problem with this is that it ignores the place of leadership even in the absence of disagreement. For example, Adam was Eve's head in prelapsarian Eden, where there was neither sin nor conflict.
Lewis also discusses the two aspects of love that married couples will experience, the first being the "falling in love" and the second being the "staying in love" that should last for the rest of their lives. He writes that "What we call `being in love' is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centeredness. But, as I said before, `the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs'. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a felling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the sate called `being in love' usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending `They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean `They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married', then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be `in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense--love as distinct from `being in love'--is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be `in love' with someone else. `Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it" (p. 108-109). Lewis speaks with remarkable clarity and wisdom for a man who, at the time he wrote the passage, was unmarried.
Book Review: Good but not Great
Summary: 4 Stars
The problem I have with this book is that he doesn't address the apparent injustices of The Bible. He glosses over them as though they don't exist. Just one specific example on this: he said that slavery was eradicated because of the Christians who tirelessly applied the ethics of the Bible. However, there were many at the time that used the rather timid words of the apostle Paul on slavery to justify that institution continuing. Paul used such language such that slaves should not rebel and masters should simply incline towards kindness. This is the problem that arises when your defense of the Bible entails defending the whole Bible. The Old Testament is highly unethical and I would argue is not the word of God, but largely the word of corrupt men. The Old Testament asserts that God rose up the Assyrians to destroy Jerusalem, and that later Jerusalem was to be destroyed again by God sending the Babylonians. Is it just and moral for God to use evil men to wipe out other evil men. Also the line is blurred whether God allowed them to go to war or whether he facilitated the armies against Jerusalem. I think the text affirms the latter.
My biggest gripe with Lewis is when he is explaining why God did not create many "Sons." He said that he can only have one perfect Son that reflects the very essence of God, and that all of humanity serves as the other "Sons." That is the reason he gave that we should all feel interconnectedness to each other and serve one another. I have no qualms with that. However, he goes on to say that automatons could not fully realize love and joy so he gave us all free choice. The fall of man is in fact inevitable. Lewis is beyond smart, but he side steps the most important issue of all. Why is it that the Devil and even Adam and Eve's ought to's, or as Lewis refers to it as the law or conscience, was weaker than their desire to turn to evil. The disturbing reality is that God created us to fall away. He knew we would choose a path that is seemingly easier and more pleasurable. It is the process of life to realize that the easier and logical path is the one that leads to destruction. The transcendent teachings of Jesus reveal that the true path to life is one of illogic. And illogic is always harder because it competes with pride. Pride says, "Use your reason and power to achieve happiness." Jesus revealed that among other transcendent virtues, that giving without expecting anything in return gives a person dignity, an inner peace, and essentially eternal life. So it is faith in unconditional love, forgiveness, and charity that a man is turned back into what he was intended for. In conclusion the most disturbing thing about God is what I believe to be his dualistic nature. He loves what is good, but He doesn't much care how that good is achieved. He is perfectly fine with evil so long as He can eventually separate it from good and eternally punish it. So Hegel is right. All the Pantheists are correct to a degree. The Bible scapegoats our free choice as the reason for evil. The disturbing thing is that everything emanates from God. The possibility to choose evil and the existence of evil to choose derives it origins from God. If not from God than from whom? Again the Bible and Lewis have another scapegoat, i.e. the Devil. Disturbing truth be known, God created evil and left it in dormant form so as not to corrupt his own perfection, but He created both man and the Devil and their nature which inevitably lead to them to choose evil. So the more one thinks about it the more one realizes that evil can lead to the realization of good. And Vice versa, for would we truly know what is good without the contrast of bad.
When one realizes these truths, beauty is observed and tears of joy often do follow. I suggest reading Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. A joy so profound is revealed and experienced in that book by many who read it, which could only be possible with the extreme evil that was occurring. However, Christianity then becomes muddier and morally repugnant if one still believes in a strictly Biblical Heaven and Hell. For Heaven would provide no meaning and Hell would provide no rehabilitation. Life can be lead like this and only like this I believe: live as though you are already in Heaven and that you are only bound by your ought to's. You're ought to's should and naturally reflect good. And nothing is better than love. So ask for God's help to love yourself and others more fully. This means taking care of you're body, working towards a purpose, having safe, healthy fun, and then setting time aside to help those less fortunate, less loving, and less forgiving. I think a variation on Christianity is probably the real truth. There are glimpses of it in the Bible, but something is amiss.