How Mere Is Mere Christianity?
The idea of something like “mere Christianity” may be directly traced to Richard Baxter, among the most influential of the English Puritans. Nevertheless, the concept is rightly associated most directly with C. S. Lewis, whose book of that title emerged from radio addresses delivered during World War II. In Mere Christianity, Lewis contended for a conception of Christianity that was irreducible and central to all authentic Christian expression. Pointing to the use of the word “Christian” as first used to identify believers in Antioch (Acts 11:26), Lewis suggested that Christians are “those who accepted the teaching of the Apostles.”17 Of course, an older conception of “mere Christianity” was offered by Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century as “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est,” (“that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by everyone”). Here again we face a difficult quandary. Some doctrines must surely have been believed by all true Christians everywhe
