Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct Book 3 - Christian Behavior Summary of Chapters: 3 - Social Morality 4 - Morality and Psychoanalysis Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis If our charities to do not at all pinch us or hamper us, I should say they are too small. Every time we make a choice we are turning the central part of us either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature. When Christianity tells you to feed the hungry it does not give you lessons in cookery. Responsibility, Integrated Religion, Psychological Material, and Spiritual Warfare I Co. 10:23-33 (27)

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct Questions For Discussion 3. Social Morality - A discussion of morality between man and man and what a society would be like if it were completely Christian. -Lewis states that Christ did not preach anything new in regards to morality. The real job of every moral teacher is...? -Why can Christianity not have a political program to apply the golden rule to a particular society at a particular time? -"The Church ought to give us a lead" is a legitimate statement if by Church we mean...? -Lewis speculates that if we were to visit a Christian society, we would come away with a curious impression. What is this curious impression? -Lewis states that three great civilizations have condemned the very thing we have based ours on. What were the three civilizations and what is the thing they have condemned? -Lewis states that charity (giving to the poor) is an essential part of Christianity. How can we gage our level of charity according to Lewis? 4. Morality and Psychoanalysis -The Christian specification for the human machine -According to Lewis, psychoanalysis and Christianity are not in contradiction. How does psychoanalysis affect a persons ability to make moral choices? -How is a man who is in a position (due to anger) to kill thousands similar to a man who's anger only causes laughter?

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct Social Morality 1 Golden Rule: Do as you would be done by 2 Christianity has, and does not profess to have a detailed political program for applying ‘Do as you would be done by’ When it tells you to feed the hungry it does not give you lessons in cookery When it tells you to read the Scriptures it does not give you lessons in Hebrew or Greek It was never intended to replace the ordinary human arts and science: it is a director which will set them all to the right jobs, if only they will put themselves at its disposal. Life is Religion

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct The job is really on us, on the laymen, not the Church. The application of Christian principles, say to trade unionism or education, must come from Christian trade unionists and Christian schoolmasters: just as Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatics - from from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time. The New Testament tell us: 1. There is no passengers or parasites 2. Leftist - and Obedient 3. Cheerful society Economy = Socialist Code of manners = Aristocratic Modern Economy - Based on lending money at interest Christian Economist are needed here. The concept applies to all professions. To All of Life

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct The Question of Giving - Charity I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc.., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving too little. If our charities to do not at all pinch us or hamper us, I should say they are too small. A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us want it. And we are not going to want it until we become fully Christians. But I cannot do it until I love my neighbor as myself. And I am not going learn to love my neighbor until I learn to love God and I cannot learn to love God until I obey Him.

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct Morality and Psychoanalysis Christian Specification for the human machine Moral Choices Involve: 1. Choosing 2. Feelings, Impulses (raw material of his choice) Natural and Perverted Desires Bad psychological material is not sin but a disease God does not judge man on the raw material at all but on what he does with it. Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before... turning this central part either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.

Rivermont Presbyterian Church P. RibeiroOct I appeal to evangelical Christians to use the whole range of their professional skills to speak prophetically about our times. We need deeper analyses of the pathology of scientific, technological social and political evils in our contemporary world, in light of the eternal realities revealed in God’s Word. A new missionary enterprise is involved: to go virtually into every professional area of life, just as in the past we have emphasized the geographical penetration of our world with the gospel. James Houston Romans 12: 1,2