Christianity and Problems of To-day: Lectures Delivered Before Lake Forest College on the Foundation of the Late William BrossFinley, John H. (John Huston)
Religion
Christianity and Problems of To-day: Lectures Delivered Before Lake Forest College on the Foundation of the Late William Bross
Finley, John H. (John Huston)
Christianity -- 20th century
Now, under new methods, unclean products are purified by chemical or
bacteriological processes; the effluent is clean and innocuous, and
there is no need for dredging. A great deal of the social rescue work
and philanthropy of past years has been a beginning at the wrong end.
Drunkenness and an iron social system manufactured the criminal, the
wastrel, the lunatic, and we dealt with the waste product. Now we are
trying to keep our rivers clean.
A change of similar character, but even more rapid in its operation,
is taking place in our thoughts of religion. It is coming about
rather by the opening of the eyes than by any special process of
reasoning or by any definite challenging of old methods. We are
becoming not a little wearied of the tyranny of organization. We
are afflicted by "drives" of all sorts; by vast conceptions of "the
world for Christ in this generation," while the streams of Christian
thought are all the while running shallower and more shallow, with
less and less power to drive anything. In the States, as in Canada,
there have been great campaigns for funds which also tried to be
campaigns for spiritual results. It has been discovered to be an
easier thing to raise money than to quicken the spirit. Life remains
as materialistic and as worldly as before, and the temperature is
dropping as with the coming of an east wind on the Maine coast.
Theologically in both countries we are still inclined to fight for
a former condition of things which, as a matter of fact, has ceased
to have power. It is our burden, as it is our glory, to stand in
difficult days. We shall all the sooner come to grips with the real
issue if we understand that it is our business to set forth the
undying Christ as we know him, and not to resuscitate, if that were
possible, the forms and phrases and intellectualisms of an age that
is gone. Back to Christ is the necessity--not the Christ of the
Creeds compounded with the technical terms of Greek philosophy or
the juristic outlook of Roman law, but the Christ of the Gospels.
Any religious awakening which is going to move the common weal will
begin in a revival of personal religion. Public morals are what
personal religion makes them. The power-house is more vital than
the transmission-plant. Wherever one looks it is to find that great
public movements have had their origin in the hearts of consecrated
men and women. Religion does not suffer by changing its form; it will
founder if it be not ever related afresh to Jesus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account