Mere+Christianity

**"What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call 'Christianity And.'"** "If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference."

"...He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence...He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme." "...so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty." "Finally, the desire for novelty is indispensable if we are to produce Fashions or Vogues." "He wants men, so far as I can see, to ask very simple questions; is it righteous? is it prudent? is it possible? Now if we can keep men asking 'Is it in accordance with the general movement of our time? Is it progressive or reactionary? Is this the way that History is going?' they will neglect the relevant questions. And the questions they do ask are, of course, unanswerable; for they do not know the future, and what the future will be depends very largely on just those choices which they now invoke the future to help them make."