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Beyond Mere Christianity: C.S. Lewis & the Betrayal Of Christianity
The book is called Beyond Mere Christianity for two reasons. First, in response to C.S. Lewis' influential 1952 work, Mere Christianity, which stands as a masterpiece of Christian apologetics. The second reason, perhaps less obvious, is that a case can be made, based on current, responsible Gospel scholarship, that Jesus was calling his people to the Salvation that lies beyond the worship of the merely created, the Salvation that relies instead on the direct worship of the Creator. I believe emphatically that the authentic words of Jesus invite us to move beyond what is conventionally understood as Christianity for this Salvation.
Hardcover
First published September 8, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 22, 2011
The scholarship is unsupported, but the author uses most of my favorite verses, from both the Quran and the New Testament, so it's not too bad.
November 18, 2016
Clear analysis of the Old Text of Bible and its content with original sayings of Jesus(peace be upon him)
July 29, 2018
Extremely succinct book using Q gospel as evidence that it's surprisingly similar to Islamic theology. Must read.
April 22, 2015
I bought this book because I was looking for Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and this looked interesting. When I realized it was arguing for Islam, I was very hesitant to read it. With time, however, I softened to the idea and decided that I needed to put myself through the experience. It was pretty short, after all.
"There were some thought-provoking things said in this book that have informed me of Islam and strengthened my faith as a Christian. That being said, it irked me that a bunch of the sources were from Wikipedia, and I find it offensive that the author claims that the apostle paul was delusional and made up most of Christianity. Nay, nay - the man was led by God. He had the spirit of prophecy and direct revelation from Christ. It's extremely illogical to disregard the enthusiasm and testimony of the early church."
That was my review when I first read the book in the summer of 2012. After letting it percolate for a few years, I think that I mostly agree with the author. I recognize now that this was the first book that really introduced me to a critical and historical reading of the Bible - something that I hadn't experienced before at all. I hadn't even questioned that it might be okay to take parts of the Bible as inauthentic. In the end, the author does something for Christianity that few Christians have done - he divorces it of its Pauline skew and treats Jesus' own words as the only scripture. I am amused now looking back at how I defended Paul initially because now, I really resent him for how he turned Christianity into this Jesus - worship thing when it could have been something a lot more like an Eastern religion, a teaching based on moral constancy and loving generosity, as well as reverence for the divinity both within people and in the very cosmos.
Brandon Yusuf does a good job of taking Jesus seriously in that regard. However, he also uses Real Jesus to argue that since Jesus isn't God, then Mohammad is God's prophet. Ah, he does this by taking Real Jesus quotes from the most authentic parts of the gospels and putting them side by side with quotes from the Qur'an that sound very similar. It's really cool to read the book to be introduced to Islam and to the Qur'an. I was going to say ", but _______...." However, I've changed my mind. Brandon Yusuf does his job well. He definitely showed me that Islam isn't evil - something that I think I lacked the maturity and openness to understand when I first read the book. Now, I am a Muslim. Not exclusively, of course. I am a Muslim in the same way that I am a Buddhist and a Jainist and a follower of Ba'hai and a Christian and a hippy and an atheist. I attribute much of my current religious openness to having read this book right at the peak of my extreme Christian fundamentalist phase. I do highly recommend it.
"There were some thought-provoking things said in this book that have informed me of Islam and strengthened my faith as a Christian. That being said, it irked me that a bunch of the sources were from Wikipedia, and I find it offensive that the author claims that the apostle paul was delusional and made up most of Christianity. Nay, nay - the man was led by God. He had the spirit of prophecy and direct revelation from Christ. It's extremely illogical to disregard the enthusiasm and testimony of the early church."
That was my review when I first read the book in the summer of 2012. After letting it percolate for a few years, I think that I mostly agree with the author. I recognize now that this was the first book that really introduced me to a critical and historical reading of the Bible - something that I hadn't experienced before at all. I hadn't even questioned that it might be okay to take parts of the Bible as inauthentic. In the end, the author does something for Christianity that few Christians have done - he divorces it of its Pauline skew and treats Jesus' own words as the only scripture. I am amused now looking back at how I defended Paul initially because now, I really resent him for how he turned Christianity into this Jesus - worship thing when it could have been something a lot more like an Eastern religion, a teaching based on moral constancy and loving generosity, as well as reverence for the divinity both within people and in the very cosmos.
Brandon Yusuf does a good job of taking Jesus seriously in that regard. However, he also uses Real Jesus to argue that since Jesus isn't God, then Mohammad is God's prophet. Ah, he does this by taking Real Jesus quotes from the most authentic parts of the gospels and putting them side by side with quotes from the Qur'an that sound very similar. It's really cool to read the book to be introduced to Islam and to the Qur'an. I was going to say ", but _______...." However, I've changed my mind. Brandon Yusuf does his job well. He definitely showed me that Islam isn't evil - something that I think I lacked the maturity and openness to understand when I first read the book. Now, I am a Muslim. Not exclusively, of course. I am a Muslim in the same way that I am a Buddhist and a Jainist and a follower of Ba'hai and a Christian and a hippy and an atheist. I attribute much of my current religious openness to having read this book right at the peak of my extreme Christian fundamentalist phase. I do highly recommend it.
December 24, 2019
Quick pick-me-up. Short and concise which I appreciated. However, I hope using Wikipedia as a source was discouraged by the editor. That's my only gripe. It was very insightful and I went away learning more. Not a bad, one-sit read.
June 6, 2007
This is simply the best "apologetic" book that explains what Muslims believe about Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, I've ever come across. It shows from Biblical scholarship how the earliest teachings of Jesus, accord with what Islam has to say.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews