Retire Young, Retire Rich

Reviewed by
Terence Kam

Edited by
Ann Ring

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Note: You may be interested in our sister publication:

Contrarian Investors’ Journal

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Retire Young, Retire Rich is the fifth book in Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad series. Unlike the previous books in the series, which focus on the concept of cash flow, this book focuses on the concept of leverage. The following forms of leverage are explained in this book: mind, plan, actions and the first step.

Retire Young, Retire Rich by Understanding Leverage

The ‘Why vs. How’ of Getting Rich

The first hindrance to becoming rich is knowing why you want to be rich in the first place. One of the major mistakes that many people commit is to pursue the ‘secrets’ of how to get rich without knowing why they want to be rich in the first place. As a result of not having such self-awareness, laziness, fears, self-doubts and lack of commitment will eventually make them give up and not do what they are supposed to do to be rich. But when they know the reason for wanting to get rich, it gives them the motivation to pursue their higher purposes and dreams.

A good suggestion to help you achieve your dreams is to cultivate and infuse passion in yourself. Passion gives you the energy and commitment to pay the price in order to accomplish your goal. The starting point to develop passion is to identify your loves and hates.

For Robert Kiyosaki, the privilege to be rich and retire early allows him to slow down, reflect, contemplate and start his life all over again.

How Robert Kiyosaki Retired Early

Robert Kiyosaki used the leverage of good debt to help him retire early. To illustrate the point of how the usage of leverage can accelerate toward his goal of retirement, he compared the time taken for him to retire with another person. That person, as a result of using his own equity in his mutual fund, retired eighteen years later than Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki, on the other hand, used the leverage of good debt to retire earlier. A word of warning though: debt is a two-edged sword. Abuse and improper usage of debt due to lack of financial shrewdness can result in disaster. Wise usage of debt can be a very powerful tool to help you.

The lesson to learn here is that debt is just one of the many examples of leverage. Different people have different preferences for their choice of leverages. The trick is to understand how to use the two-edged nature of leverage wisely.

What is Leverage?

Leverage is basically the “ability to do more and more with less and less.” Humans use leverages to gain power and advantage over animals. Some people use better leverages to get ahead of others. Examples of tools of leverage are computers, Internet and so on. Likewise, there are different kinds of leveraged financial tools to help you get ahead financially. Some people use a physical leverage called “hard work” which is very inefficient. For Robert Kiyosaki, he uses other people’s time (employment) and other people’s money (debt) as leverages. Other forms of leverages include health, time, education (financial, academic, professional and technical), relationships and tools.

There are many forms of leverages. Therefore, find one that works for you according to your individual tastes and preferences. Also, remember that to become rich, you have to work to increase your leverages so that you can do more and more with less and less. The moment you stop doing that, your resources will probably become someone else’s leverages.

Million-Dollar Question

“How can I do what I do for more people with less work and for a better price?”

This is a very powerful question that can make you very rich if you act upon it!

Retire Young, Retire Rich by Using the Leverage of Your Mind

Expand Your Mind

To be successful, you have to think beyond your reality. Instead of having a closed mind and telling yourself that you cannot make it, you have to think in terms of possibilities. That is, what “you think is real is your reality.” Therefore, to be rich, we have to be prepared “change our reality [perspectives, point of view, etc]”, which basically means to change, control and expand our minds.

For instance, many people think that investing is risky and that is their reality. But if they can see beyond their reality, they will be able to see the difference between ‘risk’ and ’risky’. For example, there are risks in starting up a business - nine out of ten businesses fail. But to succeed eventually, you have to arrange your strategy such that the success of the tenth attempt will return you a reward that is far greater than the last nine failures. But if you see in terms of either winning or losing, then you will avoid trying just to avoid losing. In that case, you will avoid winning as well! Therefore, a winning strategy must include contingency plans for losses such that your wins will far more than compensate your losses.

Therefore, do not tell yourself things (for example, “I can’t afford it”, “I can’t succeed”, “That’s impossible”, etc) that will prevent you from thinking in terms of possibilities and blind you against them. Before the Wright brothers invented the first aeroplanes, people told them that humans could not fly. But they thought in terms of possibilities and pushed beyond the current reality of the day.

One of the suggestions that Robert Kiyosaki gave for expanding our minds is to read up on and learn from the biographies of people who had achieved their dreams and goals.

What is Risky?

Rich people and the poor and middle-class have opposite thinking in their reality. A person’s reality depends on what they think to be ‘risky’ and ‘smart’.

For example, the middle-class people think that job security is smart and building a business is risky. Rich people think the opposite. Today, with downsizing and outsourcing being the norm, job security is a thing of the past.

Thus, since your thinking will affect your reality, you need to have the right thinking to be rich.

What Types of Income Are You Mainly Working For?

There are three types of income: Earned income is the one from which you receive from your employment; Portfolio income is the one from which you receive from your paper assets (e.g. shares, bonds, managed funds); Passive income is the one from which you receive from assets (e.g. rents from real estate, patents, royalties). The type of income where you devote the main bulk of your effort will determine how fast you become rich.

Earned income generally frowned upon because it is the most burdened by tax (in Australia, the top marginal tax rate can be as high as almost 50 percent!), time-consuming and lacks leverage. He prefers passive income because it is consistent over the long term, least burdened by tax and does not require the least amount of work to maintain. Portfolio income is good too, but depending on the tax laws of your country, it may have higher tax burden than passive income.

Also, please note that each type of income has its own advantages and disadvantages and it is not wise to completely abandon one for the other.

What Is the Advice You Are Getting?

It is important to seek good financial advice. Good advice may be more expensive upfront, but will put you in a financial advantage in the long run. Bad advice may be cheap or free initially, but will put you in a financial disadvantage in the long run. Thus, those ‘free’ or ‘cheap’ advices are more expensive in the long run.

Tax ‘Loophole’ For the Rich

Robert Kiyosaki advised that owning a business is the best way to earn more and more and work less and less. One of the reasons for it is because a business can pay tax after expense whereas an employee has to pay tax before expense. The tax laws favour businesses far more than individual employees. For the latter, their superannuation fund is so far the best tax loophole for them.

Working For Free?

To be rich, you have to spend your resources learning how to create and buy income-producing assets and accumulating them. That would almost certainly mean you have to work and study for ‘free’ much of the time. This is because time spent on learning and accumulating income-producing assets cannot be used for earning income from your employer simultaneously.

The Fastest Way to Get Rich- Expand Your Mind

To be rich, you have to make yourself less employable (in the good sense, of course). To be less employable, you have to embark on a paradigm shift in your thinking (that is, to change your realities in your mind).

Content, Context and Capacity

In the old days, content is king. Schools teach us content (e.g. skills and knowledge) in the belief that a good academic qualification that leads to a good job is secure. In today’s rapidly changing world, with rampant downsizing and outsourcing becoming common and permanent, context (e.g. your reality in your mind and ability to learn independently and critically, resulting in a paradigm shift in your thinking) is king. Your context will determine your capacity to be rich.

How to Expand Your Context

To expand your context, you have to watch out for ideas and beliefs that slip into your mind that will prevent you from being open-minded and think in terms of possibilities. Examples of such ideas include:

• “I can’t afford it.”
• “It can’t be done.”
• “It is impossible.”
• “It’s too hard to do.”
• “I’m right and you are wrong.”

However, please be wise enough not to let cynicism or foolishness control you. The former prevent good ideas from taking root and the latter allows bad ideas to enter.

Retire Young, Retire Rich by Using the Leverage of Your Plan

Coming Up With a Plan

To retire young and rich, you need to come up with a financial plan. Here are some ideas on how to do so:

• Before you start investing, you need to define your exit strategy first. That is, you need to know “how, when, where and with how much” you want to retire.
• Next, you need to create a plan that works for you. Each one of us is different. We have different strengths, weaknesses, values, talents, desires and so on. Therefore, the plan that works for me may not work for you.

Whatever you plan is, you need to open-minded, embrace change and move on with the times, both externally and in your thinking. This will give you the insight and vision to anticipate the future and invest in “what is going to happen”, rather than “what has already happened.” One of the ways to learn how to see the future is to study history, which has a tendency to repeat itself. In today’s fast moving world, investment and business opportunities slip by very quickly. So act fast!

Having a Vision

To achieve your dreams, you need a plan, which is your bridge between where you are right now and your vision for the future. Begin by watching out for the negative and discouraging words and thoughts that you have been telling yourself all this time. Change your actions and habits that you know will lead to dead ends.

To help you develop visions to see into the future, you need to expand your vocabulary (words) in order to contain the concepts in your mind that are vital to help you be rich. Examples of words that can expand your mind with new concepts are: “raise capital” (as oppose to “save money”), “cash-flow” (as oppose to “high-paying job”) and “private placement memorandum” (as oppose to “mutual fund”).

Knowing the Definition of Words

Words are the tools of your mind. Therefore, get to know their definitions well and make them a relevant part of your life. Some words are more significant personally than others. The following definitions are the important ones that you should know:

• Debt-to-Equity or Liquidity ratio - that is the ratio of your total debt over your total equity. The value of this ratio in itself is meaningless, but the trend of this ratio over time gives an important indication of your personal financial situation.
• Wealth ratio - that is, your combined passive and portfolio income over your total expenses. A value of one and above means you are out of the rat race.

Importance of Integrity

Integrity is very important. Having it means there is a consistency between your words and actions. Without integrity, one is likely to have money problems. Make sure that you match your words with your actions, which involves keeping promises and agreements (regardless of its magnitude). Integrity allows you to build strong lasting relationships with people, who are crucial in your path to wealth. Integrity also means knowing the meaning of words and definitions well in your heart, to the point of living them out in your life instead of utilising them uselessly as passive knowledge in order to impress others.

Inspiring Stories

Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad always encouraged himself with fairy tales and Biblical stories to keep him going despite facing ridicule, discouragements and unhelpful people. He then related a story where ten years ago, he and his wife spotted a real estate opportunity but did not have the means to grab that opportunity. That challenged them emotionally to a near breaking point, causing them to almost give up. However, through sheer tenacity and persistence, finally found a breakthrough. The result was an expanded context in their mind. With the benefit of hindsight, such a challenge is trivial to them today. At the present moment, they are experiencing new challenges that are bringing them to the next level of wealth. As they reflected, had they given up on that challenge ten years ago, they would not be at this level of wealth today! Thus, fairy tales can serve to inspire you to achieve your dreams. Do not write them off as nonsense.

Being Generous

People have the view that those in business are there simply because they are greedy. Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad differed in that opinion. He believed that everyone is greedy to a certain extent - most people are not rich simply because they are not generous enough. He saw that the richest people are those who think of ways to be generous by serving as many people as possible.

Path to Wealth

Robert Kiyosaki stressed again the importance of expanding your context and content by having an open mind, rising above “personal doubts, limitations, and complacency, being willing to learn, and taking action.” With an expanded context, you will then be able to increase your leverage.

As an employee or self-employed person, your leverage is usually confined to a 1:1 ratio. This is because you are limited by a natural limit of your own time and labour for which you can use to earn income. Furthermore, they have no long-term enduring value for you to continuously derive income from. Of course, there will be special exceptions in life, like sports and movie stars, who earn millions out of their time and labour.

On the other hand, as an investor and businessperson, your earnings potential is infinite. This is because the value of your income-producing assets (that you spend your time and labour on procuring) can have the potential to increase exponentially. On the other hand, an employee or self-employed person’s earnings potential (salary) can only increase incrementally. However, to be an investor and businessperson, you need to dare to fail and keep going despite setbacks.

Power of Networks

Metcalfe’s Law states that the “economic power of a business is the square of the number in the network.” That partially explains the quantum leap in the growth of wealth and why the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. That is the reason why self-employed people join associations and employees join unions in order to be members of a network, which gives them more power collectively. Therefore, Robert Kiyosaki recommended the network marketing business because it harnesses the power of networks. A solid network marketing business can be much more financially secure than a superannuation fund.

To be successful, it is important to be generous and mutually support and help each other in the network. That means being cooperative and looking out for the benefit of others instead of being selfish and only care about taking.

Looking at the examples of billionaires like Bill Gates and John Rockefeller, each of them became rich because they know how to harness the power of networks.

Who Gets Paid First?

A person who only cares about being paid first for the job that he or she has done does not have what it takes to be a business person. That is the mindset of an employee or self-employed person. A successful businessperson has to be generous enough to pay the business first (assets, employees, specialists, investors) before being paid. But in the long term, it is the business person who gets paid the most through his or her business. Therefore, generosity is an important virtue to have in order to be rich.

Final Word on Generosity

Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad believes in the Law of Reciprocity- he believes that you have to be generous and give first in order to receive. Thus, to be rich, you have to think about how to serve the needs of as many people as possible.

Retire Young, Retire Rich by Using the Leverage of Your Actions

Your Habits

The first habit you should acquire is to hire a professional bookkeeper for your financial life. A professional bookkeeper will ensure that you have a professional financial record, which is a pre-requisite for any financial loans from the bank. This way, you will be able to treat your personal life as a business, which is the first step in moving from an employee or self-employed person to a professional business person. A professional bookkeeper can look at your financial life objectively and “bring your financial challenges out into the open.” Hiring one is a good expense that will eventually put you in a financial advantage and is the first step towards being serious in the responsibility for your financial life.

The second habit you should acquire is to “create a winning team.” Surround yourself with a team of professional advisors (e.g. banker, accountant, attorney, brokers) to help you financially and to learn from them. Though your professional team may cost you a lot upfront, you will reap far more in the long term.

The third habit you should cultivate is to continuously broaden your “context and content.” That means you have to make it a habit to learn continuously.

The fourth habit to nurture is to “keep growing up.” Growing up means taking responsibilities for our failures and not make others the scapegoat for our mistakes. In today’s Information Age, the world is changing more rapidly than before. That makes it even more important for us to grow up. We should shed the mentality of relying on our government to take care of us and realise that there is no such thing as job and financial security.

The fifth habit to acquire is to be “willing to fail more.” That is, we have to be humble enough to be wrong more often. Humility will then give us the courage to try new things and not be afraid of change.

The last habit to develop is to “listen to yourself.” Instead of focusing what you do not want in life, focus on what you do want instead. Be aware of your negative feelings and cling on to positive ones instead. Take corrective actions towards what you want instead of avoiding what you do not want. However, be aware that sometimes we still do not get our way despite our focus on the positives. Therefore, know when to quit and understand that “losing is part of winning.”

Your Money

Are you working harder than your money? Relying on your superannuation funds for your retirement is risky because your wealth is dependent on the rising of the stock market indices. Some people work harder than their money and letting them do nothing by parking them on their savings or retirement fund.

Robert Kiyosaki advocated making our money work hard by moving them fast. Know the difference between an investor and a trader. The former is one who buys to hold whereas the latter is one who buys to sell. By moving your money fast, you can get your money back as soon as possible and re-deploy it to acquire other assets.

For Robert Kiyosaki, he uses investments in real estates to move his money around. He also employed his knowledge of tax laws and corporate entities to move his money between income and expense of one business entity to another. He also buys shares in small cap stocks and sells them at a pre-determined price to get back his initial investment.

Real Estate

Many people have the idea that ‘diversifying’ means diversifying their wealth in many different types of managed funds. This is highly unsafe. Also, there is a flaw in managed funds in which you get taxed for capital gains when you actually make a loss by selling units in your mutual funds. Robert Kiyosaki advocated investing in real estates because there are much more financial and tax advantage compared to investing in managed funds. However, to find good deals in real estates, you need to have the experience that will enable you to see what others fail to see. To have such kind of experience, you need to go ‘shopping’ for real estates. For Robert Kiyosaki, he and his wife had looked at and analysed literally thousands of properties over the years to gain that kind of experience. They had made many mistakes in their real estate investments, learning and improving their investment skills in the process.

In conclusion, a study found out that most rich people made or stored their wealth in real estates because of the various tax and financial advantages over other forms of wealth.

Paper Assets

It is important to invest in paper assets (e.g. stocks and bonds) with insurance. Sophisticated investors can make money both when the stock market goes up and comes down. They also know how to hedge their assets with insurance. One of the insurance tools that are used by sophisticated investors is option.

A sophisticated investor also knows the difference between a trader and an investor. They also know the difference between fundamental analysis and technical analysis. To be a good investor in paper assets, you need to know the meaning of important words: trends, moving averages, stop orders, call options, put options, straddles, collars and shorts.

There are three basic trends: up trend (bull), down trend (bear) and sideways trend. Each of these trends requires different strategies and a sophisticated investor never go against trends. The market usually shows signs before it changes trend. A sophisticated investor will change strategy when these signs show up. Some of the strategies include stop orders, shorts, call options, and put options.

Business

The best investment you can make is on your own business. Most of the self-made rich people make their own fortune from their businesses. However, the reason why there are so few rich people is because it is hardest to be successful in business. In addition, no matter which profession you are in right now, it is important to be open-minded and develop your context (business, employment, self-employment and investor) in as many quadrants as possible. When you have your own business, the rate of return on your investment can potentially be infinitely more staggering than the return on your superannuation fund.

Since building your own business is so lucrative, why is it that the majority of people do not go into business? The reason is because the “hardest thing about business is working with people.” Therefore, to build a successful business, you need to be an entrepreneur with very good people skills. A successful business is the stitching together of many expertises from many diverse kinds of people into a great team by a competent entrepreneur, who is foremost, a great leader. As such, you need to devote a lot of your time in developing your leadership skills in order to become a successful businessperson. Most people devote more of their time in developing their professional and career skills, which is only useful for helping them become a better employee or self-employed person. To develop your leadership skills, you can volunteer to accept and handle challenges.

As a leader, you have to be prepared to do the right thing by making tough decisions to ensure that the mission comes first. The team comes next followed by the individual. The leader must also be a follower, recognising that his team’s mission is part of a higher mission and calling.

More Mental and Emotional Process

The process to retiring young and rich is more of a mental and emotional process than a physical process. Below are some of the mental and emotional processes.

To be able to retire young and rich, you need to wean yourself from the idea of depending on a wage. Once you are able to do that, you have to decide for yourself what type of income you want (earned, portfolio or passive). This would mean focusing your attention on acquiring assets and improving your financial IQ. For Robert Kiyosaki, he chose passive income from real estate investments.

In addition, in order to put ourselves in the mindset of retiring young and rich, we need to technically ‘lie’ about our future. That is, instead of saying negative things to ourselves regarding our future (which is technically a ‘lie’ because the future is yet to be a fact), we should instead say positive things to ourselves regarding our future (which is technically a ‘lie’ too). Our own pronouncements regarding our own future have the tendency to become self-fulling prophecies. Positive pronouncements help us be more optimistic in life and let us not worry unnecessarily about our worst fears. Of course, Robert Kiyosaki is not advocating lying (to others and ourselves) with the intention to deceive or cover up the truth.

To retire young and rich, we have to make a point of daily deciding who and what we want to be. We also need to seek out supportive friends and loved ones who are to share the same journey with us. In addition, we need to build our own team of financial and legal advisors to help us towards our goals. Set a pre-determined retirement date, write down your plans to achieve it and plan for your retirement party. Open our eyes daily that can help us improve our financial IQ and try to attend seminars once a year. Remember that the market can only go three ways: up, down and sideways. One of poorer. That is the reason why self-employed when the trend changes (that is, be at the right place at the right time) and flow with the trend. Visit the richdad.com web site often for more ideas and financial education. Increase your content and context with words, which are free.

Does God Really Exist? The Question of God

Reviewed by
Terence Kam

Edited by
Ann Ring

Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? How do we cope with the problem of suffering and the inevitability of death? What is happiness? What does it mean to be happy? Is there such as thing as evil? Does God really exist? How do we find meaning and purpose in our lives? How do we reconcile conflicting claims of love and sexuality?

Since time immemorial, people throughout the world have been asking these questions pertaining to the meaning of life. Some have chosen the path of atheism and some chose theism. Others cannot be sure which path to embark on.

On Wednesdays, September 15-22, 2004, 9:00-11:00 pm EST, a two-part dramatic program airing in PBS explored the emotional and intellectual journeys into the meaning of life through the brilliant minds and personal struggles of two of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century- Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. The former, the typically described father of psychoanalysis, chose to reject religious beliefs and the latter, the Oxford professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, embraced faith grounded on reason. This program is based on a popular Harvard course taught by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, author of the book The Question of God.

Curiously, though the paths of these two great influential thinkers of the 20th century never crossed, their writings and works are so remarkably parallel that they seemed to speak to each other. Put them together and you can see one of them raises an argument while the other attempts to answer it. One seems to be the primary spokesman for the secular worldview of contemporary culture while the other seems to be the primary spokesman for the spiritual worldview.

“It may be that Freud and Lewis represent conflicting parts of ourselves,” Dr. Nicholi notes. “Part of us yearns for a relationship with the source of all joy, hope and happiness, as described by Lewis, and yet, there is another part that raises its fist in defiance and says with Freud ‘I will not surrender.’ Whatever part we choose to express will determine our purpose, our identity, and our whole philosophy of life.”

Through dramas, visual reconstructions, interviews with historians and biographers and dynamic discussions in a panel of seven men and women from diverse walks of life, Freud and Lewis are brought together in a debate so as to bring about understandings of the two completely opposing worldviews. The significant moments and emotional crossroads of these two great lives that led to such conflicting worldviews provide an impetus for the deepest question of human existence: Does God really exist?

Below are the outlines of the two programs:

First Program

• The early life experiences of Lewis and Freud are explored.
• Panel discussion 1: How much do our early childhood experiences shape our worldview?
• At University of Vienna, Freud, even though he had some influence from the theistic arguments of philosopher Franz Brentano, chose scientific materialism worldview over the spiritual worldview.
• Panel discussion 2: Is the scientific method incompatible with the concept of revelation?
• Early life experiences of Lewis led him to reject his nominal childhood faith in God for atheism.
• Freud, on the other hand, chose the path of atheism through an intellectual process. Through his exploration of the minds through his patients, Freud discovered “unexpected, powerful unconscious desires” and “concluded that the wish for an all-powerful father-figure forms the basis of religion.”
• Panel discussion 3: Do our early relationships colour our attitudes in later life toward the concept of an ultimate authority?
• The program then narrates the transformation of Lewis from a staunch atheist to an outspoken believer.
• Panel discussion 4: Does the persistent human longing for God prove that He exists?
• Panel discussion 5: How would Jesus Christ be received if he lived now?

Second Program

• What is happiness? Freud believed that it is just a model of sexual love whereas Lewis maintained that true happiness could only be found in a relationship with God. Though both agreed that much happiness could be found in our relationships with others, they disagreed on their understanding of love.
• Panel discussion 6: Can we really love our neighbour as ourselves?
• The First World War and widespread anti-Semitism led Freud to dwell on the ‘dark side’ of humanity. Freud believed that in addition to the sex drive, human beings are also driven by a destroying drive called the “death instinct.”
• Panel discussion 7: How can one explain the evil in the world?
• During the Second World War, the BBC asked Lewis to speak about the spiritual worldview, which later got compiled into the best selling book, Mere Christianity. In that book, Lewis began the examination of the existence of a Moral Law, which transcends all time and cultures, which everyone is under. The existence of such a law implies a Moral Lawgiver and that our conscience points to a creator.
• Panel discussion 8: Where do we get our concept of right and wrong?
• Both Lewis and Freud endured life suffering. Freud struggled for 16 years with oral cancer, endured the death of his daughter and experienced anti-Semitism. Lewis lost his wife to cancer. Suffering led to both of them having to face their own deaths.
• Panel discussion 9: How do you equate an omnipotent, all-loving being with what we’ve come to expect and experience in our lives?

Recommended Downloads:

• Discussion Guide for The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis

Recommended Purchases:

• The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis on book.
• The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis on DVD.
• The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis on videocassette.

Recommended Web Site:

• The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis at PBS.

The Rape of Nanking

Reviewed by
Terence Kam

Edited by
Ann Ring

Iris Chang's purpose of writing The Rape of Nanking- The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is to redress the injustice of having one of the worst war atrocities ever committed recently to be forgotten by people outside China. Most people know about the infamous Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War. But not many people outside China know about the barbaric atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in genocidal proportion on a single defenseless Chinese city of Nanking. These atrocities are known as the Rape of Nanking. Despite the sheer intensity, scale, brutality and horror of the atrocities, the Rape of Nanking still remains an obscure incident (at least before this book was published). Furthermore, just as bad as the atrocities themselves were the attempts by some elements within the Japanese society to whitewash the Rape of Nanking from public consciousness.

This book is structured into three parts. The first part is the story of the savage butcheries as depicted from three perspectives and its immediate aftermath. The first perspective is from the point of view of the Japanese- the perpetrator. The next perspective is from the point of view of the Chinese- the victim. The last perspective is from the American and Europeans members of the International Committee and the outside world- the outsider. The second part of this book covers the aftermath of the massacre. The final part looks at the cover-up and whitewash of the actual Rape of Nanking.

Part 1- Atrocities of the Rape of Nanking

Japanese Perspective of the Rape of Nanking

How did such naked brutality of the Imperial Japanese soldiers get to replace civilized humanity in the first place?

For this question, Iris Chang began with a short history of modern Japan. The seed of such atrocities began from the corruption of the ancient Samurai culture that permeated from a small handful of the male population to a “model of behaviour” for every young men of that country. Till the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was culturally isolated until she was humiliated and forced to open up her doors to foreigners in July 1853 by the Americans. This sets the scene for the culturally proud (or perhaps xenophobic) Japanese to overthrow their ruling Shogun and restore authority (in name only) to the Emperor in order to intensely “transform Japan from a patchwork of warring fiefdoms into a modern, powerful Japan.” The tool for such end is the adoption of the Samurai ethic (called Bushido) for the entire nation.

With rapid modernization, the Japanese achieved, up till then, unprecedented power and prosperity. Unfortunately, such prestige was short-lived for Japan. Discrimination from the Western nations and worldwide economic depression led to despair. From the 1920s, the ground was fertile for the militarists to usurp control (an interesting parallel happened in Germany at around the same time, allowing Hitler to take power).

By the 1930s, the increasingly autonomous Japanese army began aggressive actions (covert and overt) on emerging China under the nationalist party (Kuomingtang) headed by Chiang Kai Shek. With the militarists more firmly in control, martial culture soon began to seep more into every aspects of every young Japanese male, right from the day they enter school. Harsh discipline, constrictions of individuality, pressure to conform and ideological insistence that blind obedience is the ultimate virtue were the methods used in the Imperial Japanese educational system and military. Such martial molding, conditioning and indoctrination, along with xenophobic and racist brainwashing planted the right seed for the infamous brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army.

In July 1937, Japan, under the control of the militarists, provoked a full-scale war with China. By November, Shanghai fell. Pillaging and razing along their warpath from Shanghai, Nanking fell too on December 1937 when the defending Chinese army surrendered.

That was the beginning of the Rape of Nanking.

First, the Japanese proceeded to massacre the vast number of prisoners-of-war. Then, with the Chinese soldiers out of the way, the Japanese turned on the civilians with inhumanly brutal rapes and murders as they occupied Nanking. Even the brief arrival of General Matsui Iwane, a frail and compassionate man, was unable to put a stop to the carnage as he was sidelined.

At this point, Iris Chang brought back the question of the state of mind of an average Japanese soldier in Nanking. “What was inside the mind of the teenage soldier handed a rifle and bayonet that propelled him to commit such atrocities?”

That was an extremely difficult question.

Some scholars came up with the theory that it was the Japanese culture and religion that made such atrocities possible. Iris Chang rejects such theory because, firstly, that implies that the Japanese, by virtue of their religion and culture, are different from the West and thus must be judged with a different standard. In addition, such theory also implies that the Judeo-Christian cultures of the West are inherently superior, such that atrocities of those forms are harder to be perpetrated. Upon looking at history, certainly no race, cultures or religions have a monopoly on atrocities. The average Japanese soldiers and officers were able to commit such atrocities because their conscience were gradually and deliberately seared through desensitization and conditioning during military training, games and exercises. Also, given the “arbitrary and cruel treatment that the Japanese military inflicted on its own officers and soldiers,” violent sadism became the only outlet for suffocating repression. In addition, many in the Japanese military had socially engineered contempt for the Chinese that allowed them to see the Chinese as less than human beings. Lastly, by “imbuing violence with holy meaning,” the average Imperial Japanese soldier could only believe that they have the Divine on their side (compare this attitude with today’s Islamist terrorists).

Chinese Perspective of the Rape of Nanking

When the battle for Shanghai was underway, Nanking endured months of Japanese air raid. By November 1937, Shanghai fell and the Japanese were heading for Nanking. Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek decided to move the capital of China from Nanking and dispatched General Tang Sheng-Chih to stay and defend Nanking. Initially, after the Chinese rejection of the Japanese ultimatum, the Japanese army encountered stiff resistance. But while the Chinese forces were slowly crumbling in the midst of fierce battles, Chiang ordered Tang to retreat and abandon his troops. Since fierce fighting was still going on, that retreat quickly descended into a chaotic and humiliating rout.

General Tang, despite his best effort and having ninety thousand soldiers and five months worth of ammunition at his disposal, Nanking fell in just four days.

What was the reason?

Their entire air force at Nanking was withdrawn and consequently, without strategic aerial intelligence on the Japanese forces, the Chinese were at a significant disadvantage from the Japanese forces. Compounding this problem, the Chinese forces lacked communication equipment to coordinate their defenses and suffered language barriers because of the different regional dialects spoken by their soldiers. Also, most of the soldiers were either untrained or too exhausted from the previous battles to fight. Lastly, the Chinese army had no cohesiveness and there was distrust among the commanding officers, thus allowing the Japanese army to defeat each Chinese army one by one.

After the fall of Nanking, the six weeks of horror, which is known as the Rape of Nanking, began….

From war crimes transcript, eyewitness accounts and Chinese government documents, stories after stories of unimaginable horror will fill the reader with repulsion- killing competitions, tortures (e.g. live burials, mutilations, death by fire, ice and dogs, etc), rapes cum murders cum tortures of women, mass slaughter of families, forced incest of families, etc. “There seemed to be no limit to the Japanese capacity for human degradation and sexual perversion in Nanking.” Despite the horrifying magnitude and dimension of these atrocities, there were occasional bright spots- stories of heroic resistance by the helpless Chinese civilians.

How many Chinese died in the Rape of Nanking? We will never know for sure, but historians give the figure from 200,000 to 300,000 (some even as high as 400,000).

International Committee’s Perspective of the Rape of Nanking

During the Rape of Nanking, there were a few heroic American and European members of the International Committee who defied the Japanese to set up the Nanking Safety Zone to save the lives of countless Chinese from the massacre. The Safety Zone was initially set up for non-combatants caught in the crossfire between the Japanese and Chinese militaries. Then, as time progressed till the culmination of the Rape of Nanking, the Safety Zone housed more and more refugees, till at one point, it peaked at around 300,000. “In retrospect, it seems almost miraculous that some two dozen foreigners managed to do everything they did while fifty thousand Japanese soldiers ripped apart the city.” These foreigners not only had to find ways to shelter and feed thousands of Chinese refugees, but also had to, at times, physically protect them from the Japanese soldiers. Thanks to these heroic people, they left many written records of the atrocities for posterity and “broadcasted Japanese outrages to the world.”

Iris Chang concentrated on three of these foreigners:

• John Rabe, a German businessman and surprisingly, a Nazi party member, was elected head of the Safety Zone. Despite persuasions and warnings to leave Nanking for his own personal safety, he chose to stay. Administering the Safety Zone and looking after thousands of helpless refugees was a very difficult task. With just his status of an official of an allied country (to the Japanese), he roamed around Nanking himself to stop as many atrocities as possible as they were committed. John Rabe was feared by the Japanese war criminals, revered by the Chinese and even respected by other members of the International Committee “fundamentally opposed to Nazism.”
• Robert Wilson was born into a Methodist missionary family who had shaped many of Nanking’s educational institution. By December 7, he was the only surgeon in the entire war-torn city, serving an overwhelming number of war victims. As Nanking fell to the Japanese, the senseless rapes and murders that he personally witnessed horrified him. As one of the few medical personnel in the city during the massacre, “Wilson and other volunteers stayed in the hospital [University of Nanking Hospital] until they wavered on the verge of collapse.”
• Wilhelmina Vautrin, known as the “living goddess of Nanking” was the head of the Education Department and dean of studies at Ginling Women’s Arts and Science College. She was remembered “not only for her courage in protecting thousands of women from Japanese soldiers, but also for the diary she kept, a diary that some historians believe will eventually be recognized.”

Part 2- Aftermath of the Rape of Nanking

The world was not kept in the dark about the atrocities in Nanking. There were American journalists who, although left Nanking soon after the fall of the city, personally witnessed the carnage. There were also American newsreel men who filmed the illegal bombing of the American gunboat, the Panay. Although the Japanese military tried to control the movement of the international media and diplomats into and out of Nanking, they were largely unsuccessful in hiding their acts of scandalous savagery. Foreign intelligence, especially the American and German intelligence soon learned of the real reason for such control. It was ridiculous that the Japanese even attempted to hide such colossal bloodbath with propaganda. Most thankfully, the International Committee administering the Nanking Safety Zone documented and even filmed in detail the savage butchery in Nanking and broadcasted the truth to the world.

The worst of the atrocities were concentrated during the first six to eight weeks of after the fall of the city. In addition to the senseless slaughter of human lives and rapes of women, the Japanese army committed widespread destruction, arson and plunder. As the massacre subsided, Nanking gradually began to function as a normal city again, albeit under brutal Japanese occupation.

After Japan surrendered in 1945, war crimes trials were held in Nanking. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) was held in Tokyo. Despite these trials and tribunals, most of the Japanese war criminals were never held accountable for their evil deeds. There were also no full moral accounting of Emperor Hirohito.

Iris Chang interviewed many of the remaining survivors of the Rape of Nanking. What she found were shocking and depressing. Many of the survivors lived in abject poverty. Some sustained permanent injuries that robbed them of their livelihood. Many of those survivors clung on to dear hope of vindication by their government pushing for Japanese reparations and official apology. Sadly, their hopes were dashed when their government pronounced ‘forgiveness’ on the Japanese. Just as tragic, many of the sacrifices by the few foreigners in the Nanking Safety Zone were woefully unappreciated. Many of them paid the price with their physical and mental well-being. John Rabe was even persecuted for speaking out the truth. Fortunately, his diaries during the Rape of Nanking eventually received historical prominence.

Part 3- Whitewash After the Rape of Nanking

Sixty years after the Rape of Nanking, it was consigned into oblivion outside China. Within Japan, there are continual denials of their wartime guilt. In the Japanese educational system, there is “deliberate obstruction of important historical information about World War II through textbook censorship.” The Japanese academic community mainly avoided the Rape of Nanking. Within the media, there is self-imposed censorship. Individual Japanese who have the courage of writing about the butchery faced unrelenting attacks. Former Japanese soldiers who confessed and apologized their wartime guilt faced intimidation and harassment from ultra-nationalist extremists.

Conclusion- The Rape of Nanking

Ultimately, the Rape of Nanking was just a small fraction of Japanese savage brutality throughout the Sino-Japanese War (1931-1945) and the wider Second World War. For example, in many parts of northern China (where the Chinese Communist guerrillas had fought an effective insurgency war), the Imperial Japanese government endorsed policies that would “wipe out everyone,” namely the ‘Three-all’ policy (“Loot all, kill all, burn all”).

From the lessons learned from the Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang concluded that “Japan’s behaviour during World War II was less a product of dangerous people than of a dangerous government, in a vulnerable culture, in dangerous times, able to sell dangerous rationalizations to those whose human instincts told them otherwise.” Civilization is only a thin veneer for which the darker impulse of human evil can easily emerge. Throughout history, the sheer concentration of power in government is lethal. Iris Chang made the observation that “atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking can be seen as a predictable if not inevitable outgrowth of ceding to an authoritarian regime, dominated by a military and imperial elite, the unchallenged power to commit an entire people to realizing the sick goals of the few with the unbridled power to set them.” Even more frightening is the fact that we humans can easily turn into passive spectators of evil- the “Rape of Nanking was front-page news across the world, and yet most of the world stood by and did nothing while an entire city was butchered.” The recent atrocities of Bosnia and Rwanda are testament to this chilling fact. Even as tragic, the world are still watching with folded arms as the “second Japanese rape” occurred- “the refusal of the Japanese to apologize for or even acknowledge their crimes at Nanking, and the attempts by Japanese extremists to erase the event from world history.”

Japan has the moral obligations to own up to this dark chapter of their wartime history.

---

In November 2004, Iris Chang was found dead at the age of 36. It is believed that depression led to her suicide.

Mere Christianity

Reviewed by
Terence Kam

Edited by
Ann Ring

C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity is one of the greatest classics in the twentieth century. In this book, he builds up the argument for Christianity with eloquent logic. The Christianity in which he espouses in Mere Christianity is one that transcends all Christian denominations, churches and movements- hence the word mere. Thus, it is an excellent resource for those who want to learn more about Christianity without the institutional and denominational bias of the various schools of thoughts within Christianity. This book is divided into four parts. The first part looks into Right and Wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe. The second part examines what Christians believe. The third part looks at Christian morality. The final part introduces Christian theology in layman’s terms to the reader. Warning: The final part, due to its very nature of the topic, is not easy to understand and is extremely difficult to explain in a concise manner. Thus, the reader of this summary review is advised that the reviewer’s explanations of Christian theology in the final part are inadequate (and depending on perspectives, inaccuracies, may arise inadvertently) and that the Bible is the sole, final and sufficient authority on these matters.

Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe

The first part builds the case for the existence and nature of God. C.S. Lewis leads us to examine the inquiry for the existence and nature of God with an important clue: The existence of an irreducible and universal Standard of right and wrong that transcends all human thoughts and cultural, language and ethnic divide. Everyone, whether willingly or grudgingly, has an obligation to this Standard. Strangely enough, despite awareness of that Standard, everyone fails to live up to it. This Standard is not just a mere instinct or human invention. It is so universal and irreducible that if we somehow get rid of it, “most of the things we say and think about men would be reduced to nonsense.” Now, a profound question has to be asked: Who is behind this Standard? If there is a Supreme Being behind this Standard, then we have a reason to be uneasy because we have all violated His Standard.

What Christians Believe

With the foundation of this important clue established, the second part looks at Christianity’s basic belief. First, he examines the various conceptions of God. There is one divide in the belief about the existence of God- atheism, the belief in the non-existence of God, and theism, the belief in the existence of God (there is also agnosticism, which is basically the uncertainty about the existence of God). Within the latter branch, there are sub-branches of pantheism and monotheism of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Basically, the former belief sees God as part of the universe whereas in the latter, God and the created universe are distinct.

Christians believe that this created universe has gone wrong. Now, there is this interesting question: If God, the all-powerful and all knowing Supreme Being, created this universe, why and how can it go wrong (for example, cruelty, injustice and unfairness)? This question seems to give grounds for atheism, but it gives rise to another difficulty: Where does this universal and irreducible meaning of right and wrong come from in the first place? If we can see that there is something wrong with this world, it means that we know the meaning of what is right. If world has no meaning (as what atheism believes), then how do we find out that it has no meaning in the first place?

Next, C.S. Lewis argues against the idea of dualism, which is basically the belief that Good and Evil are independent, equal and in conflict with each other. Again, this idea does not hold ground because of the fact that if it is true, then the irreducible and universal Standard of right and wrong will be rendered meaningless too. Nevertheless, Christianity is similar with dualism in the sense that Good and Evil are in conflict with each other. The difference is that in Christianity, Evil is an internal rebellion against Good and that this world we live in is occupied by Evil.

C.S. Lewis then looks at the question of the conflict between God’s will and the free will that He bestowed on His creation. Though free will allows evil to happen, it is also the only way for which love, goodness and joy are possible. With free will, humanity is free to rebel against God by taking the place of Him and believing that perfect joy and peace can be achieved apart from Him. Indeed, throughout history, we can see that humanity has expended colossal effort to make the world perfect apart from God but has failed hopelessly. This is due to the fact that God has designed humans such that apart from Him, perfect joy and peace is unattainable.

Then God, on His part, decided to take the initiative to rescue humanity from such hopelessness and despair by coming down to earth as one of us in the form of Christ! When Christ was on earth, He, to the astonishment of those who refused to believe in His identity, asserted His authority of God. Now, C.S. Lewis brings us to the point that it is irrational to believe in the misconception that Christ is merely a great moral teacher. From His actions and the things that He said and asserted, He is either Lord God Almighty or a liar, lunatic or something worse.

Now, if we choose to believe that Christ is indeed Lord God Almighty and had “landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form”, what was His purpose to do so? Was it just to teach? If we look into New Testament, it is clear that His purpose was more than that. He constantly talked about being killed and rising back to life again. What was the point? Basically, Christ’s death for us “has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself”, made us right with God and gave us a fresh start. Just as scientists give us a pictorial model of an atom to help us understand how an atom looks like, there are many theories explaining how Christ’s death and resurrection works to achieve this purpose, each of them merely gives us a model to approximate the unfathomable spiritual reality. C.S. Lewis gives a model that personally helps him to understand it.

With Christ’s death and resurrection we are offered a completely new life. For those of us who belong to God in this new life, it is more than just “trying to be good,” God will make us good because He loves us and lives in us. This means more than just trying to imitate Christ- He is actually operating through us who belong to Him. The implication of this is that we who belong to Him collectively represent God on earth.

Now, there is this question that C.S. Lewis poses: “Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? Is it that He is not strong enough?” That answer is that God will one day invade. He is delaying because He is giving as many people as much time as possible to join His side before the actual invasion. All of us must choose which side we belong to because we do not have forever to make up our mind before it is too late.

Christian Behaviour

In the third part of this book, C.S. Lewis looks at Christian behaviour. First, he looks at morality. There is this myth that morality is a set of rules and regulations that kills fun and prevents us from having a good time. Moral rules are in actual fact, the instruction manual of humanity- adherence to the directions in it will promote smooth running and prevent unnecessary breakdowns, frictions and strain. From a secular viewpoint, there are two ways in which humanity can go wrong (hence, two dimensions of morality)- firstly, “fair play and harmony between individuals” and secondly, “tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual.” The latter, which is basically the “morality inside the individual”, is something that is most often forgotten. Unfortunately, without it, the former is unachievable. All the institutions, laws, protocols, procedures, rules and regulations that govern the smooth running of society are useless without individuals living according to moral rules and internalising them for themselves. In Christianity, there is a third dimension to morality- the relation between the individual and God who creates individuals together for a specific purpose.

Next C.S. Lewis looks at the four virtues that everyone recognizes: Prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. Prudence is the practical common sense. Temperance is basically moderation. Justice is basically fairness (which includes honesty, giving and taking, truthfulness and so on). Fortitude is courage, both of facing danger and perseverance under pain and difficulties. It is stressed that virtue is an internal quality that defines a person, not a person’s external actions being ‘virtuous’. This is being stressed because such a misconception may give us three wrong ideas: Firstly, the motives behind the right action are unimportant to the building up of our character; secondly, God only cares about our external adherence to rules and regulations; lastly, virtues are unimportant in the after-life.

Next, C.S. Lewis looks at the issue of social morality. There are two things that must be made clear: Christ did not come to this world to teach us a new kind of morality and Christianity is not meant to be political. When people say that the church should lead society, what is the ‘church’ that they mean? Is it the entire body of practicing Christians or is it the clergy and ministers of the Church? If they mean the latter, do they mean that the clergy and ministers should put up a political program for society? If so, then they are asking the clergy and ministers to do a job that they are not trained for. The New Testament, however, gives a hint of how a fully Christian society should look like. Such a society has traces of ‘socialism’, ‘’conservatism’ and other bits and pieces of other characteristics. People are attracted by some of the bits and pieces and want to discard the rest. As a result, an absurd situation can arise when “people who are fighting for quite opposite things can both say they are fighting for Christianity.” Both sides of the political divide may want to find support from Christianity to advance their political agenda and beliefs, but unfortunately for them, the truth is, Christianity is either a Master or a Judge. As such, a Christian society is not possible unless society wants it. Society will only want it if it is made up of Christians.

The next issue that C.S. Lewis looks at is the distinction between Christian morality and psychoanalysis. Though they may overlap in some areas, they serve two different purposes. Within psychoanalysis, there is a line between the “medical theories and techniques of the psychoanalysts” and the philosophical world-view that that Freud has embellished into it. Those add-ons are directly contradictory to Christianity and other great psychologists, namely Jung. C.S. Lewis reckons that when “Freud is talking about how to cure neurotics he is speaking as a specialist on his own subject, but when he goes on to talk general philosophy he is speaking as an amateur.” What is the role of morality and psychoanalysis? When a person makes a moral choice, two things are involved. The first thing, it is the choice itself, which is addressed by morality. The second thing is the psychological outfit (for example, feelings, impulses and so on) that gives the person the raw materials to make that choice. A person’s psychological outfit may be normal or abnormal and it is the job of psychoanalysis to address the problem of an abnormal psychological outfit in order for that person to make better choice. Thus, a “bad psychological outfit is not a sin, but a disease.” God judges us by our moral choice whereas humans tend to judge each other by their external actions. Hence, between a person with a good psychological outfit and another with a bad psychological outfit, God may judge the latter more favourably even though the latter’s action may look ‘less good’ than the former. That is the reason why Christ told us not to judge because we “see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material.” But God, who knows everything, “does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.” This leads on to the next point in which C.S. Lewis notices that some people see Christian morality as a system of rules and regulation in which God rewards and punishes for obedience and disobedience. On the contrary, Christian morality is concerned about us making moral choices (whether big or small), which will eventually revisit us and alter who we are (for better or worse), in the long run. Each time we become better, we understand more clearly about the evil that is still left in us. Each time we become worse, we understand less clearly about it.

The next issue of morality that C.S. Lewis examines is sex, in which the old-fashioned word for it is chastity. First, there needs to be a differentiation between the virtue of chastity and social rule of modesty (or propriety or decency). Modesty depends on the culture of the society of the day and is relative. In Christian morality, the virtue of chastity is this: Either marriage with complete faithfulness or complete abstinence. Now, looking at today’s society, we have to ask ourselves this question: Is the Christian morality on sex wrong or is our sexual instinct wrong? C.S. Lewis reckons that it is the latter. Looking at this question from the biological perspective, the purpose of sex is to pro-create. However, with the current state in which society is in right now, our sexual instinct is in excess of its biological purpose. If the excesses of sexual instinct in society are due to sexual starvation, then there might be some excuse for it. Unfortunately, since sexual starvation is clearly not true, then sexual perversion can only be the reason. Our society has come to the point that we are shamefully obsessed about sex (sex in itself good because it is created by God for our enjoyment).

What are the reasons for such a sorry state of affairs? One of the reasons is that we have been fed, for decades, lies about sex. Propaganda has made us believe that sexual indulgence is associated with health, youth, normality, frankness and so on. But “surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is reverse of health, good humour and frankness.” Another reason for such a sorry state of affairs is that the lure of sex is so strong that we believe, without even attempting, that it is impossible to attain chastity. This is true if we rely only on ourselves and not rely on God for help. Lastly, people often think that controlling our sexual instinct is tantamount to ‘repression’. Technically, repression is thrusting a thought or a desire into the subconscious, which will in turn manifest itself in another form. On the contrary, attempting chastity by controlling our sexual instinct makes us even more aware of our sexuality than anyone else.

Next, C.S. Lewis touches on Christian marriage. Marriage is meant to be a complete union between a man and a woman. The union is so complete that it covers not only at the physical level (sexual), but also at the emotional and spiritual level as well. Therefore, it is inconceivable that a marriage union should be broken. One of the reasons why divorce is wrong is because it violates the virtue of justice by breaking a promise- made during the marriage ceremony- to stick together till death. Many people believe that ‘being in love’ is the reason for remaining married. But if this is so, then the promise that is formally made during the marriage ceremony is meaningless. This is because the promise made when ‘being in love’ ought to hold even when ‘out of love’. Thus, if it is meaningless, it should not be made in the first place. The next question is: What is the point of keeping a couple together when they ceased to be ‘in love’ with one another? For this question, C.S. Lewis expounds on the concept of ‘being in love’. Being ‘in love’ is basically having a feeling of passion. As with any feelings, it can never be relied to last to its full intensity forever. But there is something higher and nobler than this feeling of passion- it is true love, which is “maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit.” True love is quieter, more stable, more lasting and ultimately, more satisfying and fulfilling.

C.S. Lewis then goes on to debunk myths about ‘being in love’ that we may learn from the media. Firstly, some people believe the wrong idea that if we marry the ‘right’ person, we will be ‘in love’ with that person forever. If we believe this myth, that it must follow that if we cease ‘being in love’ with the person we marry, then we must have made a mistake. Secondly, ‘being in love’ is not as irresistible as what we see in the media, unless we let ourselves believe so and turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now, there is this aspect of Christian marriage that is highly unpopular. Why are wives told to obey the husbands, who are the head of the household? Why not equality? Why is it the man? The answer to the first question lies on the value that the marriage union is for life. When a couple disagrees and finds consensus impossible, what are they to do? Since divorce and separation is not an option and there can be no majority vote in a “council of two”, the only option is for one of the parties to decide the family policy. As for the answer to the second question, it is generally observed that in the context of a permanent marriage union, women do not like weak men as their husbands. Furthermore, men are generally more objective to outsiders when it comes to the family’s ‘foreign policy’ and for this reason, ought to take the lead.

The next issue of morality to be discussed is forgiveness, which is easy to understand but difficult to carry out. The truth is, unless we forgive, God will not forgive us. Though forgiveness is not easy, there are some things that we can do to make it easier. Firstly, we can begin with the easiest acts of forgiveness first before proceeding gradually to the more difficult ones. Secondly, we can start by understanding the meaning of loving our neighbours as ourselves. Its meaning is not, as some misunderstood it to be, thinking and feeling ‘nice’ and ‘fond’ of our neighbours (which include our enemies). To love our neighbours means that despite how bad they are, we are to love them without having to love their deeds- hate the sin but love the sinner. At first glance, this seems absurd, but upon closer reflection, C.S. Lewis realises that he has been doing this very thing to a man all his entire life- himself! As he admitted, just “because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.” Thus, to love someone as yourself means hoping that the person can be made good again and be turned away from his or her hateful deeds and actions, even if it means having to punish him or her. On the other extreme end, the sheer pleasure of thinking your neighbours as bad as possible is the first step towards evil.

Next, C.S. Lewis discussed the most insidious and utmost vice called pride (or self-conceit). Pride makes one competitive for the sake of competitiveness, thus making everyone else (including God) a potential enemy. The more pride one has, the more one hates it in others. One of the worst forms of pride is religious pride. It makes one feel superior to others and deceive oneself into believing that God approves of their ‘superiority’. More insidiously, pride can often be used to beat down other vices.

There are four common misunderstandings with pride. First, “pleasure in being praised” is not pride because it comes from the desire to please someone whom we want to please. It becomes pride when we care more about ourselves than the praise itself. Second, when we are ‘proud’ of something or someone, it often means that we have a “warm-hearted admiration” for that thing or person. That is not pride (or self-conceit) because the focus is on outside oneself. Third, pride is not something that offends God as if he is proud. Rather, God hates pride because He is deeply concerned with what the destructive effects of pride can do to us. Pride not only robs joy and happiness from us, it will eventually destroy us. Last, a truly humble person is not the sort who is ingratiating. Rather, he will be such a happy, cheerful and outward looking person who forgets about himself.

Next, the virtue of charity (or Christian love) is being discussed. Love is not just an affectionate feeling- it is the wishing of good on that person. Having affectionate feelings for a person is just a dispassionate fact, which is morally neutral. They merely make it easier for us to love that person. Thus, though affectionate feelings should be encouraged, it is a waste of time attempting to ‘manufacture’ them in order to make us love that person. Rather, we should love by our actions and then the affectionate feelings will follow. Hence, Christian love is different in the sense that it is universally applied to everyone, not just to those whom we have affectionate feelings for. So, love is primarily a matter of the will, whether it is applied to ourselves, others or God.

The next virtue to be discussed is the virtue of Christian hope. In Christianity, hope is the intense longing for the perfect and eternal future in the next world of heaven. Throughout history, it is noticed that among Christians, those who had the most longing for the next world did the most for the present world. There are two reasons why this Christian virtue is on the decline. Firstly, the emphasis of our educational system is focused too much on this present world. Secondly, we often fail to discern deep in our own hearts that intense longing for heaven. Christian hope exists in the form of yearning for something that we know can never ever be satisfied in this world. There are three ways to deal with that intense yearning, of which only one is the right way. The first way is the Fool’s Way- A fool will always hop from experience to experience, thing after thing, person after person and so on, in the hope of getting that ‘Ultimate Thing’ that can fully satisfy that intense yearning. Of course, that ‘Ultimate Thing’ does not exist in this world. The second way is to become disillusioned, disappointed and represses that intense yearning in the name of ‘maturity’. The third way, which is the Christian way, is to recognise that we are not made for this world. As such, while we can enjoy and be contented with what we have on earth right now, we must also not forget the fact that ultimate satisfaction comes form heaven.

Next on the discussion is faith in the sense of belief. Initially, C.S. Lewis is puzzled by this paradox: If faith is just belief of whether something is true or not, how can it be a virtue? To understand this paradox, one has to understand that in humans, there is a disparity between the rational mind and emotions. One may know a certain fact in the rational mind and yet feel otherwise in the emotion. Thus, faith is the “art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

C.S. Lewis then discusses faith of the higher level, which can only make sense if one is a Christian for quite some time. This faith begins when one realises that he is utterly incapable of practicing the Christian virtues perfectly through his own effort, and that even if he could, it is only because he did it entirely through God’s help. It is through this realisation of one’s bankruptcy that one can become a Christian by having faith (complete trust and reliance) in Christ. It is only through faith in Christ that ‘allows’ God to work in one’s life to become the person He wants him to be. It is through God working in one’s life that one could be virtuous. Thus, it is faith that results in good actions (virtues). Faith without good actions is a meaningless “intellectual acceptance about some theory” about Christ. Good actions without faith are just rules, regulations and guilt trips.

Beyond Personality: or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity

The final part of this book is the discussion of some theological concepts in layman’s term. Some people may find theology irrelevant compared to real life spiritual experience. But, as C.S. Lewis argues, it is actually very practical. The reason is because theological knowledge is the accumulation of the past experiences and contemplations by many thinkers over the centuries. Thus, a good knowledge of theology will save us from attempting what has already been attempted and failed, believe what was believed and found out to be false and walk along the paths that had already been walked and found to be dead-ends.

One of the theological concepts in Christianity is the idea of begetting. What does one of the Christian creeds means when it says that Christ is the Son of God “begotten, not created”? What is the difference between beget and create? In beget, the result is something equivalent to the one doing the begetting. In create, the result is something that is different and less of an equivalent to the one doing the creating. Therefore, the creed means that Christ is equivalent to God. On the other hand, God created humans with a kind of resemblance (but not equivalence) to God. In fact, many of the properties (for example, space, matter, flora and fauna activities) of the created universe bear some kinds of resemblance or symbolism to God.

The next theological concept to be discussed is the nature of God expressed in the Trinity. Some people believe in an impersonal God, that is, a sub-personal God. In Christianity, God is a super-personal Being, compared to humans who are personal beings. Humans are so personal that the “human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves- in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.” What does God being a super-personal Being mean? Christians believe that God is three Persons, and yet one Being. From a human dimension, this is absurd. But from the Divine dimension, this is the truth that is beyond the human dimension just as the third dimension is beyond a being that can only comprehend two dimensions. Now, in reality, when Christians pray, they are actually “drawn into the three-personal life.” This is because when Christians pray, they are praying to God, who is also inside them to prompt them to pray, who is also the bridge for them to reach Him through prayer. Is the Christian concept of the Trinity something that is made up? If it were being made up, it would be simple. Theology, which is knowledge about God, is something that we can only know if and only if God takes the initiative to let us know Him. The instruments through which we can see Him are ourselves when we unite ourselves with other Christian believers in purity.

Next, C.S. Lewis brings in the discussion of time. Some people find it impossible to believe that God can attend to the prayers of so many people at the same time. Others wondered how God could be in control of the universe when He existed as a human in the form Jesus at a particular period of time in history. However, theologians had come up with the idea that God is in a dimension beyond time to resolve this difficulty of time constraint. Interestingly, it was the philosophers and later, the scientists who came up with this idea too. Nevertheless, this ‘Christian’ idea is not very important at all- the Bible and the creeds make no mention of it. Therefore, a person can be a “perfectly good Christian without accepting it, or indeed without thinking of the matter at all.”

Next, C.S. Lewis discusses the good ‘infection’ of the life of Christ to us so that we can be with God and thus be what we are made to be in eternal life. First, he describes the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. From his own description of the Trinity, it is easy to get the mistaken impression that God the Father somehow exists ‘before’ the Son and thus, is the result that comes ‘after’ the cause. But C.S. Lewis brings in a couple of practical illustrations on how the result of something can sometimes not come after the cause. Therefore, the “Son exists because the Father exists; but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.” Nevertheless, despite the confusion and impossibility in comprehension, the Father and Son relationship turns out to be the best way for which God chooses to describe Himself to us. What is the importance of this relationship? It turns out that the popular Christian statement, “God is love”, is meaningless unless God consists of at least two Persons. There is a third Person within God, who is the Holy Spirit, who is the Person acting through Christians inside them ‘invisibly’. The result of the joint life of love between each Person in God is a real Person. Now, if we unite with God in this joint life, we will live eternally. On the other hand, if we are separate from God, we will eventually ‘wither and die.” How do we get united with God? We do so by being ‘infected’ with the Life that Christ has in order to take part in that joint life of God.

Next, C.S. Lewis talks more about that ‘infection’ of Christ’s Life. There are two kinds of life, each opposing the other- the natural life that is inherently self-centred, and the spiritual life of Christ that the natural life is afraid to relinquish control to. C.S. Lewis then used the analogy of a child wishing that his toy soldiers would come to life. That will involve turning the tin in the toy soldiers into flesh, which will be met with resistance by them because they see that the “tin is being spoilt.” In the same way, God wants to bring every one of us to life- from the natural life to the spiritual life- and turn us into sons (and daughters) of God. He did it through the Second Person, the Son of God, becoming a human who is perfectly in tuned with the spiritual life. In that sense, Christ is like one tin soldier coming to life. In addition to that, Christ’s coming to life can be seen as a kind of ‘infection’ that started from Him and spreading gradually to the rest of humanity.

Now, there are two clarifications that are to be explained. The first clarification is: Why does God want to go through the painful process of making and bringing to life those who are spiritually dead instead of begetting them alive on the outset? There is a simple and a difficult answer. The simple answer is that had humans not made the free-willed decision to rebel against God, that process would not have been painful. The difficult answer is so abstract that it is beyond human comprehension. That is because when we consider about God begetting sons of God (in addition to the only Son of God), we are in effect asking whether God ‘could have been’ done things differently. For God, who is an infinite Being, the question of ‘could have been’ is nonsensical because He is the “rock bottom, irreducible Fact on which all other facts depend.” Then, even if we can imagine it is possible for God to beget many ‘sons’ of God, how would they be different and distinguishable from each other? It is impossible to think of differences between begotten beings that existed before the creation of the universe without bringing in some other concepts within the created universe (for example, space and time). Thus, it is beyond the scope of us to think of the answer to this question.

The next clarification is this: When we come to the individuals within humanity, we must not forget that individual humans are as important as humanity collectively. In Christianity, each individual is not just a member of an aggregate. Rather, an individual is like an organ that serves a particular purpose, and needs and is needed by others. Thus, individualism (which values the individual far above the aggregate) and totalitarianism (which values the aggregate far more than the individual) are both errors of the opposite ends.

Next, C.S. Lewis talks about reality that comes from ‘pretending’. There are two types of pretending. The bad type arises from the motive of deception. The good type which “leads to the real thing.” We ‘pretend’ to be Christ (and is told by God to do so) in order for Christ to work in our lives, injecting His life into ours and thus, turn that ‘pretension’ into reality. As Christ works in our lives, we will then “begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are.” This is because our deeds (including good deeds done with bad motives) are merely a reflection of what we are- sinful and impure. Only God can change what we are for the better. In addition, although it may seem that it is humans who do everything, in reality, God is the one who does everything. In fact, it is God who does the ‘pretending’ of seeing us (who believe in Him) as perfect as Christ even though in practice, we are sinful and impure.

Is being a Christian easy or hard? It is impossible if we think of it in terms of obligation to be good. When we do so, we will either give up or be very unhappy. The right and Christian way to be good is to give our entire selves entirely to Christ. It is both easier and harder to do that, as Christ Himself said that we have to ‘take up our crosses’ and that His yoke is ‘easy and burden light’. To give our entire selves to Christ is extremely difficult because it would involve killing our natural desires, which is comparable to killing ourselves. But if we choose to do so, we will then find our selves gradually and steadily being replaced by the life of Christ and thus, be ‘naturally’ good. This is the whole of Christianity- the “Church exists for nothing else but to draw men [and women of course] to Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”

The discussion then goes to counting the cost of being a Christian. When Christ said, “Be ye perfect”, what did He mean? C.S. Lewis reckons that Christ meant, “The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less: but I will give you nothing less.” Being a Christians means allowing God to transform us towards perfection. It is very easy to please God even in our unsuccessful attempts to be good, but He will only be satisfied with perfection. That is why Christ told people to “count the cost” of being a Christian. As such, after we become Christians, we can expect the road to be tough as He moulds us according to His purpose.

Now, here comes the tough question: “If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians?” Behind this question lie a reasonable and an unreasonable demand. The reasonable demand is this: If Christianity makes no difference in a Christian’s outward behaviour (that is, the ‘results’), then we will have to question the credibility of the ‘conversion’ to Christianity in the first place. Thus, in that sense, the believability of Christianity depends on the outward behaviour of Christians. The unreasonable demand is this: some people not only make the previously mentioned reasonable demand, they also demand that the world be distinctly and discretely ‘divided’ into the Christian and non-Christian blocs and that everyone in the former bloc must be nicer then the people in the latter bloc. There are three flaws with this demand. Firstly, the division between the two blocs are neither distinct nor discrete- there are people (whether Christians and non-Christians) in so many different stages of beliefs that it is impossible to pigeonhole them specifically into any one of the two categories. Secondly, the issue is not whether Christians ought to be nicer than non-Christians. Rather, the issue is whether Christianity will make a given person better, all other things being equal. Lastly, niceness is not the endpoint of God’s aim- both nice and nasty people are equally in need for salvation. A person’s natural niceness is God’s gift to that person, not that person’s gift to God. Therefore, whether one’s personality and temperament is nice or nasty, one have to offer them to God for His purpose. As such, it is important to realise that God does not judge one according to whether one is nasty or nice- He judges one according to what one has done, given his personality and temperament. Thus, it is possible that a nice person may be in greater danger of hell than a nasty person because the nice person’s natural niceness may lead him to mistakenly and complacently believe that he does not need God for salvation.

Finally, C.S. Lewis talks about the transformation of humans through Christ. He uses the analogy of evolution to illustrate the transformational power of Christ to completely change humanity. Already, there are transformed people “doting here and there all over the earth.” Some of them are not easily recognisable, but when you do recognise them, you will notice that they are different. Also, it must be noted when these people are transformed, they do not lose themselves and become alike each other. Instead, the truth is, when people give their lives over to Christ to be transformed, they become even more truly themselves. Thus, the final call of this book is: “Look for yourself, in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”