C. S. Lewis Quotes About Church

• The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Church Service, Perfect, Would Be

  C. S. Lewis (2002). “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Religion, Church

• For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities but the Body of Christ, in which all members, however different, (and He rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out) must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.

  C. S. Lewis

  Mean, Iron, Differences

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963”, p.68, HarperCollins UK

• As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not conciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

  C. S. Lewis

  Reading, Eye, Thinking

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

• The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing than worshipping ... 'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.

  C. S. Lewis

  Military, War, Thinking

• A cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to Hell than a prostitute.

  C. S. Lewis

  Self, Church, May

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.93, HarperCollins UK

• In such a fearful world, we need a fearless church

  C. S. Lewis

  Fearless, Church, Needs

• Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Church, Next

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Paved with Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map to Your Soul”, p.5, Harper Collins

• The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Church, Christ

• If the Church is not Making Disciples, then all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible, are a waste of time.

  C. S. Lewis

  Church, Waste, Wasting Time

• When you go to church you are really listening-in to the secret wireless from out friends: that is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going. He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery.

  C. S. Lewis

  Intellectual, Secret, Listening

  C. S. Lewis (2010). “A Year with C. S. Lewis: 365 Daily Readings from his Classic Works”, HarperCollins UK

• If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the Church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be played like an orchestra in which all instruments played the same note.

  C. S. Lewis

  Song, Symphony, Church

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.184, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.

  C. S. Lewis

  Mean, Army, Space

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “Paved with Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map to Your Soul”, p.2, Harper Collins

• The search for a "suitable" church makes the man a critic where God wants him to be a pupil. What he wants from the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise- does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going.

  C. S. Lewis

  Attitude, Humble, Men

• A great deal of what is being published by writers in the religious tradition is a scandal and is actually turning people away from the church. The liberal writers who are continually accommodating and whittling down the truth of the Gospel are responsible.

  C. S. Lewis

  Religious, People, Church

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

• We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

  C. S. Lewis

  Church, Together, Christianity

  C. S. Lewis (1984). “The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis”, p.206, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than the doctrine of hell, if it lay in my power. But it has the support of Scripture and, especially, of our Lord's own words; it has always been held by the Christian Church, and it has the support of reason.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Support, Church

• It takes all sorts to make a world; or a church. This may be even truer of a church. If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell.

  C. S. Lewis

  Diversity, Heaven, Grace

  C. S. Lewis (2002). “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers - a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians - a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.

  C. S. Lewis

  War, Men, Doctors

• I believe that there are too many practitioners in the church, who are not believers.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Believe, Church

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “God in the Dock”, p.293, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

• [M]an has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.

  C. S. Lewis

  Strong, Philosophy, Thinking

• What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favorable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbors at all.

  C. S. Lewis

  Running, Believe, Humility

• My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members." --about the only statement i agree with in this book

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Book, Views

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.100, HarperCollins UK

• There is a difference between a private devotional life and a corporate one. Solemnity is proper in church, but things that are proper in church are not necessarily proper outside, and vice versa.

  C. S. Lewis

  Differences, Church, Vices

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

• I can say a prayer while washing my teeth, but that does not mean I should wash my teeth in church.

  C. S. Lewis

  Prayer, Mean, Church

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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