Mere Christianity or Degraded Christianity?

[DistantStar]

During the time I questioned the LC, I was reading books by C. S. Lewis. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he told of how he was very much influenced by two... Catholics... The one was G. K. Chesterton who I really admire for his brilliant wit, and the other was J. R. R. Tolkien, his friend (he authored The Lord of the Rings.

C. S. Lewis did not become a Catholic, yet he did consider these two as Christians.

In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis talked about how new converts to Christianity are standing in the Hall of Christianity. In the hall there is no discussion and fire and interaction. All of those are found in the rooms, with the rooms representing denominations, whether Catholic or Protestant or whatever.

The goal of this book of his was to give a defense of the Christian faith which all Christians; Catholic, Protestant and others, hold. He tried to find the middle ground. To give an account of the "Hall". In other words, that which all Christians believe, the "Mere" Christianity.

In my posts so far I've tried to show how, as others pointed out, normal Christians will often worship and support each other, regardless of their nominal denomination. In fact, I've seen increasing respect between Catholics and Protestants in general.

Now for the LC...

The chief thing which bugged me about the LC was their lowly view of the so called "denominations". It always struck me as seriously hypocritical. After all, they are just as much a denomination as all the rest. Another thing which bothered me was their disinterest in apologetics in general. I recall one instance where I discussed the Biblical account of creation, and the problem of evolution, with one LC member. He basically dismissed its seriousness. He told me about a time when an atheist threw out a lot of questions for him to answer, but this friend of mine simply kept saying "Just trust in the Lord" or something similar.

I have a very big interest in apologetics in general, especially the works of William Lane Craig, Michael Licona, John Lennox and all the rest. And guess what? All of them are in the "evil denominations".

Now here is the point I want to come to in this post: The LC sees Christianity as degraded (or am I wrong?). That somehow the so-called denominations lost their way and that the LC have found some hidden truth (a characteristic of a cult, by the way, but I won't say more of this here).

What would you choose? This isolated better-than-other-denominations denomination (to be frank) with no interest in truth or reason, with little to no cooperation with other Churches, disturbingly with their own Bible version, with only two "apologists" (Lee and Nee), with a history of controversiality? Or the evil denominations which respect each other, try to find the truth to life's questions through studying hard so as to actually have answers, appeal to many educated people and Bible versions and who allow (and tacitly even encourage) disagreements while still seeing themselves as united?

The apologetic dimension I've mentioned is important to me personally. A few months back a friend of mine lost his faith through reading Nietzsche and journals on evolution. When we finally talked about this, I couldn't answer a single question of his at that time. Afterwards as I went home I walked past the LC. At that moment I recalled what that LC friend of mine said: "Just believe". If this friend of mine who was losing his faith went to the LC, they would NOT have helped. They would not even have tried to help him find answers. He would have went away thinking that Christians are as pathetically ignorant and blind as he thought.

I'd like to hear some thoughts. Keep Lewis's Hall in mind.