Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day ThinkingCoffin, Henry Sloane
Religion
Some Christian Convictions: A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking
Coffin, Henry Sloane
Christianity -- 20th century; Theology, Doctrinal -- Popular works
The Gospel of Christ, in its endeavor to make and keep men whole, faces
a similarly double labor. It has its ministry of rescue and healing for
sinning men and women; it has its plan of spiritual health for society.
It comes to every man with its offer of rebirth into newness of life:
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." It comes to society
with its offer of a regenesis, a paradise of love on earth. The life of
God enters our world by two paths--personally, through individuals whom
it recreates, and by whom it remakes society; socially, through a new
communal order which reshapes the men and women who live under it. The
New Testament speaks of both entrances of the Spirit of God into human
life: it pictures "_one_ born from above," and "the holy _city_ coming
down from God out of heaven." The two processes supplement each other.
Consecrated man and wife make their home Christian; a Christian home
renders the conversion of its children unnecessary; they know themselves
children of God as soon as they know themselves anything at all. Saved
souls save society, and a saved society saves souls.
Religion must always be personal; each must respond for himself to his
highest inspirations. A child may confuse the divine voice with that of
its parents, through whom the divine message comes; but a day arrives
when he learns that God speaks directly to him, perhaps differently from
the way in which his parents understand His voice, and he must listen
for himself alone. A Job may take at second-hand the conventional views
of God current in his day, and through them have some touch with the
Divine; but this will seem mere hearsay when the stress of life compels
him to fight his way past the opinions of his most devout friends to a
personal vision of God. Religious experience is hardly worthy the name
until one can say, "O God, Thou art _my_ God." There is no sphere of
life in which a man is so conscious of his isolation as in his dealings
with his Highest. The most serious decisions of his life--his
apprehension of Truth, his obedience to Right, his response to Love--he
must settle for himself.
Space is but narrow--east and west--There
is not room for two abreast.
"Each one of us shall give account of himself to God." In our
consciousness of sin, in our penitence, in our faith, others may
stimulate and inspire us, may point the way saying, "Behold the Lamb of
God," may go with us in a common confession of guilt and a common
aspiration towards the Most High, but we are hardly conscious of their
fellowship; it is the living God with whom we personally have to do.
Points have we all of us within our souls
Where all stand single.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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