Mere Morality: What God Expects from Ordinary People

by Lewis B. Smedes

Is there a morality that shows us how to survive as a humane community? Can we know what God expects of the human family? Is there a morality for ordinary people?

In this book, the author of Sex for Christians and Love within Limits explores the way to moral sanity amid the confusions and crises of contemporary life. We do not, says Smedes, have a "moral map" to mark out the details of our route in advance, but neither are we left to grope and improvise at every step.

The focus of Smedes's study is the commandments -- in particular those five of the Ten Commandments which call us to respect other "Honor your father and mother"; "You shall not kill"; "You shall not commit adultery"; "You shall not steal"; "You shall not bear false witness." Each of these commandments pinpoints the moral nucleus of one sector of life in community -- family, marriage, property, communication, and the preservation of life itself.

Using these commandments as a basis, Smedes asks three What does God command us to do? Why does he command this? And how can we obey this in the ambiguities and conflicts of real life?

Smedes answers the first question by extracting the simple meaning of the commands. He probes answers to the second question -- why? -- on the premise that a reasonable Creator commands his creatures only to be what they are and to act in ways that fit their nature as human beings in community. "Moral norms are not alien," claims Smedes, "they conform to our being."

It is in answering how to obey these commandments in ordinary life that Smedes moves from the ancient words at Sinai to the troubled twentieth-century context in which we live. This is not always an easy task. The commandment may signal a clear moral direction, but determining whether and how its absolute fits into each new situation will require patient common sense, tough-minded reason, and devout faith. Such painful struggles, for which Smedes provides eloquent guidance are at the core of responsible moral living.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Christianity, Philosophy, Theology

294 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1982

About the author

Lewis Benedictus Smedes (1921 — December 19, 2002) was a renowned Christian author, ethicist, and theologian in the Reformed tradition. He was a professor of theology and ethics for twenty-five years at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. His 15 books, including the popular Forgive and Forget, covered some important issues including sexuality and forgiveness.

Lewis Benedictus Smedes was born in 1921, the youngest of five children. His father, Melle Smedes, and mother, Rena (Benedictus), emigrated to the United States from Oostermeer, Friesland in the Netherlands. (Rena's name before being changed by the officials at Ellis Island was Renske.) When he was two-months-old, his father died in the partially completed house he built in Muskegon, Michigan. He married Doris Dekker. He died after falling from a ladder at his home in Sierra Madre, California on December 19, 2002. He was survived by his wife, three children, two grandchildren and one brother.

In addition to many articles, Smedes wrote many popular books including:

* Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve, Harper, 1984
* A Pretty Good Person What it Takes to Live with Courage, Gratitude, & Integrity or When Pretty Good Is as Good as You Can Be, Harper, 1990
* Standing on the Promises
* Choices: Making Right Decisions in a Complex World
* How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?
* Caring & Commitment: Learning to Live the Love We Promise
* The Incarnation in Modern Anglo-Catholic Theology
* All Things Made New
* Love Within Limits
* Sex for Christians
* Mere Morality: What God Expects From Ordinary People
* A Life of Distinction
* The Art of Forgiving
* Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve
* Keeping Hope Alive
* My God and I, a Spiritual Memoir, Eerdmans, 2003

Reviews

[Robert Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the philosophical belief in Natural Law, this book exposes how the 10 Commandments are not just religious rules, but universal norms for human conduct

[vinezza · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m an avid reader, and I found this book pretty hard to read. It was for school so maybe I just wasn’t very interested but overall I didn’t like it.

[Amanda Stoeckmann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it to the end of the chapter on Thou Shalt Not Kill before finally deciding to quit reading this tedious book. The one chapter I found interesting was the chapter on honoring parents, because of its historical information. Maybe I would’ve found subsequent chapters interesting … but I’ve got too many other, better, books to read before I die.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle of this volume is unfortunate, for it suggests a kind of elitist attitude absent from its pages. Early on, Smedes draws a distinction between those who are called to lives of service and those who are not. The latter are to whom he addresses this book, making an honest effort to deal with morality in the trenches of everyday life.

His honesty winds up bringing him to some conclusions that most Evangelicals would be quick to dismiss as "liberal". Not so for Smedes, which is surprising from a Reformed theologian at least as erudite as Schaeffer.

The upshot is that, at a time when Evangelicalism has been poisoned not only by Perfectionism but also, more alarmingly, the White Extremism of the Trumpists, Smedes' words offer a hope for healing and common ground with secular society; and that based not on compromising believers' values, but on affirming what all value and prize within the human heart.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is an echo of CS Lewis' 'Mere Christianity'. Smedes attempts an ethics for the comman person by working through the second table of the ten commandments. For those unfamiliar, these are the horizontal or human-to-human commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Smedes' Calvinistic premise is that these commands cover every relational issue that humans face, and so the chapters quite creatively raise a fascinating array of issues with each commandment. Smedes is a master wordsmith - the reader is left with a sense of gratitude for their own humanity, for their place on earth, and for the wild adventure of living in these contemporary times. I differ with Smedes on several fundamental issues, but on a second reading I am benefiting all over again from the questions he raises and the directions to which he points. Each chapter has several exegetical/textual observations that I've seen nowhere else.

[Hans-peter Geiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

[Ron Hassell · Rating 3 out of 5]

College ugh