S1E22 – MC B4C9 – “Charity”

We will spend the remaining episodes of Book III, we will be looking at the theological virtues. Today we begin with Christian love, also known as “Charity”…

Episode 22: Mere Christianity: “Charity” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

• If you want a great way of preparing for Confession, take 1 Corinthians 13 and replace the word “love” with your own name.
• The goal of this episode is to answer the following questions:

1. What is charity?
2. What does charity require of us?
3. How do we grow in charity?
4. How does it apply to our relationship with God?

Quote-of-the-Week

Agape is all giving, not getting.

C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters

Toast

• David was sick this week – his voice is almost as deep as Barry White’s. To help with his sore throat, Matt and he are drinking Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey.
• Before recording this week, Matt proudly told David that he had Lagaveulen for the first time at a party that week, completely forgetting that he had drunk it with him on this show recently. This is why Matt isn’t invited to David’s “Finer Things Club”…
• Matt mentioned an essay of Lewis’ which David had never read: “The Inner Ring”.

Discussion

01. “The Meaning of the Word”

• Charity has a couple of definitions. These days it typically means to give alms to the poor, but originally it meant love in the Christian sense.

‘Charity’ now means simply what used to be called ‘alms’ – that is, giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning … Charity means ‘Love, in the Christian sense’.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Charity is principally about the will, not our emotions. Naturally, we love ourselves, but the Christian faith says this love must extend to others.

Love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings, but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

02. “Requirements”

• Charity does not require you to like everybody you encounter. Matt recalled a quote from the chapter on Forgiveness.

That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.

I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them. But then, has oneself anything lovable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Forgiveness

• Your likes and dislikes of people aren’t sinful, no more than your preference for a particular flavour of ice-cream. What we do with these likes or dislikes, however, matters very much.

We ‘like’ or are ‘fond of’ some people and not of others. It is important to understand that this natural ‘liking’ is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Forgiveness

• Liking people often makes it easier to love them.

Natural liking or affection for people makes it easier to be ‘charitable’ towards them. It is, therefore, normally a duty to encourage our affections – to ‘like’ people as much as we can … not because this liking is itself the virtue of charity, but because it is a help to it.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• However, it can actually cause the opposite problem. If we like someone, it might cause us to be uncharitable to another.

It is also necessary to keep a very sharp look-out for fear our liking for some one person makes us uncharitable, or even unfair, to someone else. There are even cases where our liking conflicts with our charity towards the person we like.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Matt gave the example of a spoiled child. David gave the example of when a girl he really liked entered a competition where he got to pick the winner…
• Lewis draws on the concept of spoiled children in “The Four Loves” and “The Great Divorce”, particularly with the character of Pam, whose self-worth was wrapped up in her child.

“…Give me my boy. Do you hear? I don’t care about all your rules and regulations. I don’t believe in a God who keeps mother and son apart. I believe in a God of Love. No one has a right to come between me and my son. Not even God. Tell Him that to His face. I want my boy, and I mean to have him. He is mine, do you understand? Mine, mine, mine, for ever and ever.”

C. S. Lewis, Pam, The Great Divorce

03. “Nurturing Charity“

• We’ve discussed what charity doesn’t mean, and also what it requires of us. But how does one grow in charity?
• First, Lewis points out that feelings can help actions, but it’s not right to “manufacture feelings”.

Though natural likings should be normally encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Secondly, acting like you love someone can help nurture affection towards them.

Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did … When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Motivations do matter though. If you are willing the good of the other in anticipation for their praise or gratitude, you will be disappointed.

If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Acts of hate beget feelings of hate.

The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become – and so on in a vicious circle for ever.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Hate and love work with “compound interest”. Einstein said that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• Matt and David talked about financial stuff for a while. David told the story about the man who asked for grains of rice on a chessboard.
• Small steps will lead you to do great things e.g. running a marathon.

04. “Our Relationship With God”

• What do you do if you don’t have feelings of love for God? Do the same as you do with people. Don’t wait for feelings, act as though you did.

The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

• This was the same idea that was discussed in the Christian Marriage episode.

05. “Lewis and Charity”

• In the video he quotes the following poem:

Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore sent to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

John Dunn

• Someone we mentioned last week, St. Maximillian Kolbe, also came to mind during this chapter. David quoted the gospel of John:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

06. “God’s Relentless Love”

• Lewis ends the chapter with a strong message:

…the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. it is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Charity

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

• The outline for today’s chapter is available here.

Support Us!

• Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
• We would be grateful if new listeners would rate and review us on their preferred podcast platform.