Retired Bishop Graham Tomlin on Generous Orthodoxy via C. S. Lewis

Graham Tomlin

"In the preface to Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote about how, in the book, he had deliberately tried to steer clear of disputed points in theology and the differences between Christian denominations. This was because he was writing mainly for a non-believing audience and wanted to portray a more generalized picture of Christianity, one that most Christians of whatever church could recognize. He described the king of Christianity he was writing about in relation to the different expressions of the Church like this:

It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall, I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose, the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be), is, I think, preferable.

When you think of it, the Nicene Creed is a remarkable document. It is the one creed that is accepted by just about every Christian church across the planet--Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and the various types of Protestant churches--which together comprise around 2.4 billion people, around 30 per cent of the world's population. Yet the Nicene Creed doesn't tell you much about how to run your church. It doesn't say anything about forms of worship, what music to use or some of the more precise details of theological debate. It doesn't even mention such crucial things as the Eucharist, church government or how to appoint the church's leaders.

It describes in C. S. Lewis's terms, the hallway, but as he suggests, the hallway is not a place to live. You have to find a room off the hallway and learn to live and become content in it. His point is that Christianity is lived and exercised in particular contexts, in specific social and historical circumstances and that each of us needs a tradition within the tradition, a place within the broader Christian Family in which we feel at home."

Navigating a World of Grace: The Promise of Generous Orthodoxy, Graham Tomlin, SPCK, 2022, pp. 124-125.