Hitherto in the development of our thought, we have been considering the
Christian Gospel as an entity set in the midst of a progressive world,
and we have been studying the new Christian attitudes which this
influential environment has been eliciting. The Gospel has been in our
thought like an individual who, finding himself in novel circumstances,
reacts toward them in ways appropriate alike to them and to his own
character. The influence of the idea of progress upon Christianity,
however, is more penetrating than such a figure can adequately portray.
For no one can long ponder the significance of our generation's
progressive ways of thinking without running straight upon this question:
is not Christianity itself progressive? In the midst of a changing world
does not it also change, so that, reacting upon the new ideas of
progress, it not only assimilates and uses them, but is itself an
illustration of them? Where everything else in man's life in its origin
and growth is conceived, not in terms of static and final creation or
revelation, but in terms of development, can religion be left out?
Instead of being a pond around which once for all a man can walk and take
its measure, a final and completed whole, is not Christianity a river
which, maintaining still reliance upon the historic springs from which it
flows, gathers in new tributaries on its course and is itself a changing,
growing and progressive movement? The question is inevitable in any
study of the relationship between the Gospel and progress, and its
implications are so far-reaching that it deserves our careful thought.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account