Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis
Changed my life in October 1996

It’s probably safe to assume that some readers will simply shut the door on this blog right now because I dare to mention the “C” word, especially on a personal finance site. After all, given the political climate in America for the past twenty years, anyone who dares call themselves a Christian should be tossed in a dungeon with Pat Robertson and locked up for good for the safety of us all, right?

To address this, I’m going to make two statements. First, I’m a Christian, but in today’s political landscape, I would be hesitant to ever call myself a conservative, because I don’t agree with a whole lot of what conservative politics in America stand for today. Second, I have no interest in converting anyone to Christianity via this blog, and this is probably the only time there will be a significant discussion of a single religion on this site.

When I first read this book, I was a pretty strong atheist. I believed that the default position for comprehending the world was that there was no God at all, and I couldn’t see any sort of logical argument that would lead me to believing in a God of any kind. It was an issue that I basically thought was settled until one lazy afternoon in a college dormitory, where I was asked about my beliefs, and an astute young man named Ben asked me if I had ever read an actual solid Christian apologist. When I confessed I had not, he loaned me his copy of Mere Christianity.

At this point, my exposure to Christians had been almost wholly negative. My parents were nominally Christian, but spent a great deal of time criticizing churches and pointing out their hypocrisies. In my school days, most of the Christian children stuck together closely in their own social group that I was aware of and friendly with, but I made it clear to them I wasn’t interested in their religious views, particularly towards a few of them who were quite open and loud about their beliefs. I had also witnessed the blathering evangelists on television, most of which were preaching a Gospel that an intelligent twelve year old could punch holes through.

Anyway, I took the copy of Mere Christianity and read the whole thing in a single Saturday afternoon. I remember thinking before I started reading it that I fully expected it to be tripe. When I closed the back cover, though, I was deeply shaken, and it sent me on a long journey of figuring out who I was and what I believed. Today, I would \describe myself as a Christian, but I wouldn’t say that I was converted by this book alone (there were many factors). I would merely say that it provided the first serious exposure I had to a well thought out and intelligently described discussion of Christianity from the perspective of a follower of the faith, and to see the religion laid out in such a sensible fashion really shook my belief structures to the core.

What’s it about?

Mere Christianity is a Christian apology; in other words, it seeks to explain the belief structure of Christianity in a way palatable to both believers and nonbelievers. Thus, he focuses on only those elements of Christianity that have been part of the belief structure in almost all times and all places, and thus avoids the differences between denominations and also issues with Christian history. This book is about the foundations of Christianity, not the details.

Rather than starting off by reiterating Christian doctrine (which would cause a nonbeliever to shut the book), Lewis begins with morals and ethics. From the Wikipedia entry:

Lewis bases his case for Christian belief on the existence of a Moral Law, a “Rule about Right and Wrong” commonly known to all human beings. This “law” is like mathematical laws in being real, not just a matter of convention, contrived by humans. But it is unlike mathematically expressed laws of nature in that it can be broken or ignored by humans, who possess free will.

Using this as an underpinning, Lewis goes on to lay out the basic tenets of Christianity, including the role of Jesus and the reasons behind atonement for sins. The entire book moves in a rather logical fashion, which is often unexpected to people who have not been exposed to a strong, intelligent discussion of Christian beliefs.

How did Mere Christianity shape the person I became?

It made me respect the beliefs and belief structures of others. This book was the first one that ever thoroughly destroyed a strongly-held belief structure of mine. I basically believed that all Christians were deluded fools, and to see a rational, well-constructed argument in favor of Christianity, even if I didn’t agree with it, altered my perspective on Christians as a whole.

It sent me on my own spiritual journey. In the ten years since I first read this book, I’ve read countless books on countless religions. I’ve spent hours upon hours considering difficult questions about my own beliefs and my own place in the universe. I wound up reading a lot of works from theological schools and other sources, including a few that really altered my viewpoint on various things, but none were capable of making that fundamental shift like Mere Christianity did.

It taught me that I didn’t have to simply accept the dogma of others. After reading this book and thinking about things for a while, I began to realize that a big part of my atheistic perspective wasn’t from my own thought process. I merely bought into what everyone else was saying around me without really thinking about it too much. Many people might expect that a book that would lead me to Christianity would cause me to think less; the truth is that Mere Christianity made me think about my beliefs and ideas more. In fact, that’s a big reason why this site exists: so many people in my generation accept that money works in a certain way, when the truth of the matter is that it works entirely differently.

It started me down a path of redefining my own moral rights and wrongs. I had some seriously skewed views during my college years about what constituted right and wrong, but as time went on, I found myself listening more and more to the little voice inside me. Eventually, I began to completely trust that voice, and it hasn’t led me wrong in a very long time.

Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Changed my life in October 1994

I spent my high school years reading approximately two books a day, many of them quite lengthy. I eschewed having a lot of friends then because, well, I simply had no interest at all in most of the high school social games. I generally kept completely to myself, but made a point to be friendly and social enough to enough people so that I was generally left alone to follow my own path.

This left me with a lot of time to think and to try to figure out how the world worked - or at least figure out how I believed that the world worked. To be honest, I felt very lost at the time, even to the point that I was despondent that the world made little sense to me.

Then I read Atlas Shrugged and, with that one book, I began to assemble an overall understanding of the world around me.

What’s it about?

The book tells the tale of an America slowly rotting away due to technological regression and a lack of leadership. The leaders of society and industry are slowly disappearing, and the remaining ones seem to be fighting a losing battle against a slow malaise.

The central story focuses on Dagny Taggart, a hard-working railroad executive who fights diligently to protect her railroad from the growing malaise. Yet her actions seem to be one step forward, two steps back, and society itself is becoming an irritant to her. The phrase “Who is John Galt?” in particular aggravates her, as it is a social meme that basically means “Don’t ask questions because there are no answers.”

Eventually, Dagny discovers that John Galt is not a meme, but an actual person, one who has convinced the most productive members of society to go on strike, leaving the rest of the world to fall apart.

For a different perspective, the Wikipedia entry for Atlas Shrugged is detailed and well written.

How did Atlas Shrugged affect the person I became?

I started to question the fundamental structure of society, government, and economics. Prior to reading the book, I generally accepted that society in the United States was the way things should be; after the book, I began to dive into economic, social, and political theory an an effort to understand why things were the way they were. I jumped wildly from theory to theory, shifting my worldview wildly from week to week before finally beginning to build a structure that made sense to me, but it was Atlas Shrugged that made me begin to question how things worked.

I began to appreciate the power of the individual. One of the primary themes of this book is that intelligent, hard-working people are the ones that make the world work, and these people deserve the rewards of their intellect and effort. Even today, the people that impress me most are the ones whose actions have a genuine positive effect on the lives of people.

I began to be disillusioned by celebrity. Why should I respect anyone who represents values that I don’t agree with? Why should I look up to people who don’t contribute to a greater society? To me, Norman Borlaug is a hero, not William Hung, and I consider it an indictment of society when more people are familiar with Hung than Borlaug.

I realized that it was up to me and me alone to make a success out of my life. This is perhaps the biggest lesson that this book taught me. Before I read this book, I had this belief that just because I was intelligent, the world owed me something. After reading this, I began to wonder what value I really had to offer to the world. I might be intelligent, but if I spent all my time in the corner ranting about how the world owed me something, I would be wasting my life. I needed to use my intelligence for my own benefit, to get off my lazy behind and do something with it, or else it would just fester and rot.

Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Changed my life in October 1991

In January 1991, I started keeping a journal, one that I’ve kept persistently ever since. Each day, I would write down some of the big events that happened during the day, what the weather was like, and so forth. I also kept detailed notes on the books I read and the music I listened to and my reflections on them. I had already had some epiphanies about the power of music, but I still mostly thought of books as forms of entertainment.

Then Guy Montag entered my life and everything changed.

Fahrenheit 451 was the first book I ever read that left me thinking about my own value structure thereafter. It awakened me to the possibility that a book was more than a simple form of entertainment and left me asking fundamental questions about life and freedom that I’ve never adequately answered. In many ways, these questions led me to blogging which for me is a literary expression of self-discovery.

What’s it about?

Without revealing too much, the book tells the story of Guy Montag, a “fireman” in a future America where firemen burn books. This future America is actually rather frightening: as television becomes more prevalent and more interactive, books are seen by general society as being evil, containing critical thoughts that are better off banished.

Montag is quite happy burning books until he meets Clarisee McClellan, a teenage girl who lives in his neighborhood. She doesn’t convince him to read books, per se, but she simply points out that there are more things to life than television and work. It is her disappearance that makes Guy start to question things, but it is the burning of the home of an elderly woman with a large book collection that really makes him question whether society is healthy or not. He pockets one of the woman’s books and then begins hoarding books for himself.

Before long, he finds himself targeted by the firemen and is given the order to burn down his own home. He refuses and is forced to run for his own life.

The purpose of the whole story is to relate the growth of Guy Montag as an individual over a backdrop of a society rejecting free thought, much like 1984 except with a different conclusion. Montag starts off as a follower, then becomes a questioner, then a learner, then eventually a leader, and this growth is based on realizing that intellectual acceptance without question is a very flawed path.

If you’d like another perspective on the contents of the book, the Wikipedia entry for Fahrenheit 451 is quite detailed and well-written.

How did Fahrenheit 451 affect the person I became?

It taught me to define my own values - and to regret when I let others define my values. This is literally what The Simple Dollar is all about. For too long, I let the values of others - materialism and consumerism - override my own values, and it is something that fills me with regret on a daily basis. My finances were one of the last areas where I let others have so much influence over me; I kept letting the lifestyle of my peer group pull me along for far too long. Every time I have evaluated a portion of my life and put effort into aligning them with my core values, I’ve grown as an individual - and it all began with Fahrenheit 451.

It taught me to question everything. Reading this book was much like a light switch flipping on in my head. I realized that there were many, many things in life that I just took for granted, particularly in terms of how society and day-to-day life worked. Here’s an example: after reading this book, we were in the middle of a section at school where we studied World War II. I spent so much time questioning why the Germans simply accepted this that my teacher, out of frustration, called a professor at the local university to discuss this matter with me. I never stopped questioning things.

It taught me that obsession with popular culture puts blinders on your perspective on the world. It’s fine to be entertained by something, but when I finished reading this book, I looked at television in a much different light. I wound up spending about two years abstaining from television and even now I watch television rarely, and when I do it’s usually in sidelong glances while doing something else. I discovered that popular culture is like the shiniest trinket in an antique shop: it will attract most of the eyes, but the really interesting things are usually elsewhere.

It taught me to value books - in a certain way. Prior to reading Fahrenheit 451, I would read all sorts of things, most of them junk. After I read it, I got a lot more picky. I still enjoyed being entertained by books, but now I felt as though I had wasted my time if they weren’t enlightening. I spent a year reading a lot of classic literature after reading this book; most of them made me think quite a lot, but it was Fahrenheit 451 that provided the original spark.

It first brought about a desire in me to become a writer. Guy Montag was the first literary character that sprang out of the pages and came alive to me, and it seemed like a magic trick. It still does; it’s a trick that I keep working on mastering. Whenever I feel lost as a writer, Ray Bradbury is still one of the first authors that I turn to for inspiration.