Mere+Christianity_The+New+Men

"Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognizable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of 'religious people' which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less.....They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at its very lowest, it must be great fun."
 * MereChristianity Bk 4 Ch 11 The New Men**



The above oft-quoted passage taken from the final chapter of MC, and which sums up Lewis's argument concerning the enormous leap that takes place when a person has been, or at least has begun to be, transformed by Christ, has fascinated me ever since I first came across it. My first thought was, how could Lewis be so precise in his description of these so-called New Men? How did he KNOW what they were like? And the inevitable conclusion was that, despite his modest disclaimer ("but how should I know?") towards the end of the passage, he did know, because he was one himself.

It would therefore seem, if Lewis is correct, that this state of being, this becoming a new man, should be the object of every mere Christian. After all, "To put it at its very lowest, it must be great fun." But then again, to strive for this condition, merely for the sake of its being fun, would be rather a lowly aspiration at best. Lewis follows the above passage, in his own positive way, with what is required in order to become such a new man. He sugars the pill, but the pill remains a bitter one to swallow, for in the end he says:

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death to your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

So, considering the alternative, perhaps the pill may not be all that bitter to swallow after all. As St Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of everlasting life."