Wisdom from C.S. Lewis: On Charity and Stewardship in Material Things

This short series will be excerpted from Mere Christianity, a book by C.S. Lewis, which was lent to me by a fellow volunteer, and which I thoroughly enjoy.  Though he was of the Anglican confession, he was very orthodox-minded and there was only one thing in the book which I could outright disagree with, as an Orthodox Christian, and one other thing which I disagreed with on his emphasis alone (both relatively minor, to bother discussing here).  It is an excellent book, intended to explain the most vital aspects of Christianity to one outside the Christian confession, looking in--but it is also, when understood as being written with that intent, a good book for any Christian.  From his chapter on "Social Morality" in Book III, Christian Behaviour:

     In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a 

     reason "in order that he may have something to give to those in need." Charity--giving to the 

     poor--is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the 

     goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that 

     charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be 

     producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying 

     that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you 

     can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. 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 away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I 

     should say they are too small There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do 

     because our charitable expenditure excludes them. I am speaking now of "charities" in the 

     common way. Particular cases of distress among your own relatives, friends, neighbours or 

     employees, which God, as it were, forces upon your notice, may demand much more: even to 

     the crippling and endangering of your own position. For many of us the great obstacle to 

     charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear-fear of 

     insecurity. This must often be recognised as a temptation. Sometimes our pride also hinders 

     our charity; we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity 

     (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help.

          And now, before I end, I am going to venture on a guess as to how this section has 

     affected any who have read it. My guess is that there are some Leftist people among them 

     who are very angry that it has not gone further in that direction, and some people of an 

     opposite sort who are angry because they think it has gone much too far. If so, that brings us 

     right up against the real snag in all this drawing up of blueprints for a Christian society. Most 

     of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are 

     approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. 

     We are looking for an ally where we are offered either a Master or--a Judge. I am just the 

     same. There are bits in this section that I wanted to leave out. And that is why nothing 

     whatever is going to come of such talks unless we go a much longer way round. A Christian 

     society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until 

     we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the 

     face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love 

     my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by 

     learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward -

     driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest 

     way home.

In Christ,

Teopile/Theophilos Porter