The Christian in Contemporary Society

[This paper, which was delivered by Mr Alexander Gillies, Glasgow, at the Theological Conference in Edinburgh, on 10th September, 1969, has been adapted for publication.]

The title of this paper — The Christian in Contemporary Society — embraces much. The subject has so many facets that a study of it entails extensive research and observation. I feel, therefore, that it is incumbent upon me at the outset to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following books, which have been so useful to me, and on which I have drawn freely in the composition of my paper:

Escape From Reason by Francis A. Schaeffer.
The God Who Is There by Francis A. Schaeffer.
The New Morality by Arnold Lunn and Garth Lean.
Set Forth Your Case by Clark H. Pinnock.
The Abolition of Religion by Leon Morris.
The Cult of Softness by Arnold Lunn and Garth Lean.
The Christian in Industrial Society by H. F. R. Catherwood.
Runaway World by Michael Green.
Perilous Times by Paul B. Smith.
The Christian and the World by H. M. Carson.

As has been indicated, the title is of such a comprehensive nature that volumes could be written on it; it is, therefore, essential that both the form of the paper and the limits prescribed should be clearly outlined. I propose to divide the subject into four sections as follows:

1. First of all, it is my purpose to anticipate and refute objections that might be raised against relating the position and conduct of the Christian to any particular society during any given period of history.

2. The second section will consist of an exposition of the ethos, that is, the prevailing spirit, of contemporary society and of the thinking which is so insidiously permeating this society.

3. The third section will consist of a description of the symptoms of the disease as these manifest themselves in contemporary society.

4. The fourth section will take the form of a prescription for the Christian whose lot is cast in contemporary society. This will deal with questions such as: how should the Christian be exercised, and what should his response be with regard to the society in which he lives and works?

5. A study of the position of the Christian in a specific society could, quite conceivably, be misinterpreted by some as countenancing the modernist trend of adapting the Christian faith in order to make it, as the catch-phrase goes, “relevant to the age in which we live”. This modernist trend could be summed up as follows: “The Christians of the apostolic era belonged to a primitive age; so the Christian in contemporary society must conform to the theological, philosophical, scientific, psychological and social outlook of his day.” This is a concept utterly at odds with the teaching of the word of God, and, I trust, with the spirit and content of this paper.

It may be argued that the world is the world, whether the date be 1969 or 1569 or 69 A.D., that sin is sin now as then, that the gospel is the gospel now as then. This is undeniable; but the spirit of the world manifests itself in a variety of ways, and certain sins are more prevalent in some ages than in others. Society changes in manifold ways.

We are not living in the society in which the Saviour lived. It is not necessary to expatiate here on His ecclesiastical, political and social environment, but it was manifestly different from ours. Careful perusal of the Gospels makes it abundantly clear that He dealt with religious hypocrisy, spiritual ignorance, formal traditionalism, inordinate worldliness, heretical doctrines, etc., as these manifested themselves in the society which was contemporary to Him. Moreover, He dealt with different classes of people in different ways; in other words He adapted His methods to His audience.

In the apostolic era we find the truth applied to people in forms suitable to their religious, political and cultural background. Examples are numerous: Peter on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius; Paul addressing the Jews at Antioch and the Greeks in Athens; Paul “disputing daily at the school of one Tyrannus”; Paul’s epistles to the various churches; Paul’s advice to Titus in connection with the Cretians.

Precept and example in the Bible are clear! Therefore the Christian’s duty is clear: he must take cognizance of the society in which he lives if he is to be a faithful witness on the side of his Master.

1. In every society since the Fall human nature has exercised itself in various ways, that is, certain human characteristics are more obvious in some periods of history than in others. In order to attain to an intelligent understanding of the present, one must explore the past; for it is certain that the cancer of permissiveness has been working insidiously for many years. One could, of course, in one’s research reach far into the past, but, for practical purposes, I shall confine myself to the 19th and 20th centuries.

If one looks back to the 19th century, and, indeed, to as recent a period as the one preceding the First World War, one finds that in Western society Christians and non-Christians had this in common: they accepted certain presuppositions, the fundamental presupposition being that there were such things as absolutes — absolute truth, absolute knowledge, absolute goodness, etc. People did disagree as to what these absolutes were, but the existence of absolutes was not denied. Both Christians and non-Christians reasoned in this way: if something is true, its opposite is false; if something is right, its opposite is wrong. Even a generation ago, if you said, “This is right” or “This is wrong”, everyone would understand what you meant. This way of thinking has been called the methodology of antithesis. It was a way of thinking which permeated man’s entire mental outlook.

In contemporary society there is a new methodology. The concept of truth and moral rightness has changed. There is no longer in general currency an antithesis like TRUTH v. ERROR or an antithesis like RIGHTEOUSNESS v. WRONGNESS. Absolutes have been cast overboard. The new methodology which underlies the prevailing spirit, or ethos, of contemporary society has three basic characteristics:

• (i) Subjectivism: religion and morality are not fixed; they depend on individual attitudes.
• (ii) Relativism: knowledge can never be absolute; it is limited by man’s perceptive faculties.
• (iii) Agnosticism: no one knows the right answer.

This is the situation that confronts us. The ethos, the prevailing spirit, of our age is dictated by a way of thinking completely foreign to previous generations, and to real Christians in our own time. It is not surprising that so many are baffled by contemporary trends, particularly among the young. Young people think that by throwing off the shackles of “outmoded” religious and moral concepts they will enjoy real freedom. This is an awful delusion. What has happened, and is happening, is that they are the victims of a policy of brainwashing, pursued in the interests of the new methodology. The absolute standards of the Moral Law are ridiculed; men create their own standards as they go along.

Obviously this change did not occur overnight. As I have stated, it is an insidious disease. One can trace its spread westwards from Germany to Britain, and then to America. Its social progress can be traced from the “highbrow” intellectuals to the more educationally privileged strata of society, to the working class, and then to the upper middle class. However, for our purposes it will be more profitable to follow the progress of the disease, the new methodology, through the disciplines — from philosophy to art, then to music, then to general culture, then to theology.

Before embarking on this exposition it is necessary to make a general statement with regard to all non-Christian thought. There was, and is, in all non-Christian thought a unifying factor — rationalism, or humanism in its wider sense. Humanism, in this sense, is the system whereby man, beginning absolutely with himself, tries with the use of his reason to find a meaning and purpose in life. In one sense, of course, rationalism is the same in every age — man trying to build out from himself. In another sense, humanism is constantly shifting, and so the Christian must be careful to study the form rationalism is currently taking.

If we follow the trend in the disciplines already mentioned we discover that men failed in their rationalistic efforts to find a unified meaning to life on the basis of the methodology of antithesis. So, rather than abandon the rationalism which had failed them, they changed the whole concept of truth. If we are to understand the ethos of contemporary society we must follow the conception and birth of modern man through the disciplines — from philosophy to theology.

In the realm of philosophy it was Hegel, the German, who discarded the methodology of antithesis and propounded the methodology of synthesis in the hope of finding a unified meaning to life. However, it is Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and theologian, who holds the doubtful distinction of being the father of modern secular thinking and the new theological thinking. The really significant feature of his philosophy and theology is that he gave up the task of finding a unified meaning to life by the exercise of reason. He stipulated that in order to deal with the purpose and significance of life one must abandon rational thinking about them and make a gigantic “leap of faith”. Existentialist philosophers, then, have abandoned the hope of a rational answer to questions like “What is man? Why is he here? What is his destiny?” Their answer is that, if one concerned oneself with the rational and the logical, that is, historical and scientific truth, life is meaningless and purposeless. Therefore, one must by a “leap of faith”, or mystical experience, fly into the realm of the non-rational and the non-logical, the realm of intuition and imagination and of what cannot be verified or proved in any way. According to this school of thought, here lies the only hope of finding a meaning to life.

This “leap of faith”, which is quite irrational, has been called a “first order experience”, and it is surely not without significance that Aldous Huxley advocated drug-taking in order to attain to a first-order experience. In fact, the sensitive person today does not usually take drugs in order to escape reality. He fondly hopes that by taking them he will attain to a first-order experience which will give some meaning to life.

Just as philosophers tried to find a humanistic answer to life, so did artists. The Dutchman, Van Gogh, and the Frenchman, Gauguin, collaborated to found a new religion based on humanistic principles, but they quarrelled (How very human!), and Van Gogh, two years later, in a fit of disillusionment, committed suicide. Gauguin created a painting with the pathetic caption “What? Whence? Whither?” and then failed in his subsequent suicide attempt. Dada, a modern art movement originating in Zurich, proclaims in paintings and poems that everything is chance — life is meaningless.

From the world of music one example will suffice. The Musique Concrète, developed by Pierre Schaeffer in Paris, proclaims the same message: all is relative; there is no truth; nothing is fixed.

In the realm of literature Henry Miller is an anti-law writer, a wrecker of conventions. Since life is believed to be meaningless, laws and time-honoured conventions are there to be smashed. It is, however, in the “theatre of the absurd” that the abject despair of the philosophy of meaninglessness is given its fullest expression. The avowed aim of this group of dramatists, including Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter and Jean Genet, is to depict the absolute emptiness of life. Francis Bacon, one of Britain’s leading painters, goes even further: the main theme of his work is the sheer horror of existence. What is considered his best work Bacon is said to have done in a drunken state.

In John Osborne’s play “Martin Luther” an old man, the head of Luther’s old monastery, visits Luther and asks, “Martin, do you know you are right?” In the teeth of historical fact, but consistently with the contemporary way of thinking, Osborne puts this reply into Luther’s mouth: “Let’s hope so.” Notice the thread running through contemporary culture: life is meaningless, and there are no such things as absolute truth and absolute morality.

In the modern cinema the same message is conveyed. “The Silence”, produced by the Swede, Bergman, is a series of snapshots with immoral and pornographic themes. There is no commentary, for this is supposed to represent life — devoid of meaning and devoid of morals. “Blow-up”, a film produced by Antonioni of Italy, was advertised by posters announcing “Murder Without Guilt” and “Love Without Meaning”.

This concept of life has permeated society with alarming rapidity through television, radio, magazines, newspapers, novels, “pop” music, the theatre and the cinema.

The same ethos is evident in modern theology. Modern existentialist theology is the child of Kierkegaard. The whole system pivots on the “leap of faith” which I have already mentioned. One of the most remarkable features of modern theology is the close affinity between its development and the development of modern existentialist philosophy. It has already been noted that philosophers had to abandon the humanistic, rationalistic method and embraced Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. Theology has been through the same process.

The rationalistic liberal theologians of Germany rejected everything miraculous and supernatural. They discarded the miraculous and the supernatural in the life of the Saviour and attempted in a rational, objective way to find the “historical Jesus”, as they put it. They found it impossible, however, to separate the supernatural aspects of the life of Jesus from what they condescendingly called “the true history”. If they removed the supernatural, no historical Jesus remained. Two courses were then open to them: they could have renounced their rationalism and returned to Biblical theology, or they could have taken their rationalistic discoveries to their logical conclusion — nihilism (a belief that all existence is basically senseless and useless) — the religion of despair. They chose neither course. Like the philosophers they chose Kierkegaard’s way — the two-storey division of knowledge and truth. The “leap of faith” is their magic wand. In essence, this is the theology of Barth, Niebuhr, Tillich, Robinson, Richardson, and all the new theologians. They have separated religious truth, which to them is non-rational and non-logical, from scientific and historical truth, which is both rational and logical. The gap is bridged by the “leap of faith”. In fact, the faith of modern theology is faith in faith; and the more irrational the leap, the greater the faith.

The new theology is extremely influential in the majority of the churches of our day. It takes the old Christian doctrines and turns them into symbols by emptying them of all definable content. To take a few examples of this:

• (i) The Person of Christ: In the lower storey of historical criticism He is a human prophet; by a “leap of faith” He can be raised to divine significance.

• (ii) The Bible: In the lower storey of scientific criticism it is a human document, full of errors; but you can elevate it into being a medium of revelation. Then it is inspired like the Koran and Shakespeare.

• (iii) Miracles: According to the new theology, miracles are not facts of history. They are really interpretations which believing people gave to events which touched them deeply.

• (iv) The Resurrection: There is no way of knowing whether it happened or not, according to the pundits of the new theology, but one can believe that it happened by a “leap of faith”.
• (v) The Cross: This is a very popular theme, but is treated as a symbol. The blood is ignored or ridiculed. They say that you can still be a Christian even if you do not understand the Cross. “It is the contemporary Christ who saves,” they say.
• (vi) The Trinity: This, as expounded by the new theology, is merely a metaphorical description of God by men who saw the scheme of redemption in that way. If we attempt to take it as literally true, it is a mathematical absurdity.

All these doctrines are part and parcel of the new theology. That makes it more dangerous than 19th century liberalism. It looks so like the gospel, it sounds so like the gospel — when not investigated. The truth is that in the new theology these doctrines are really symbols which cannot be proved right or wrong and whose content is not fixed. The person who has “faith” merely loads these symbols with the meaning he chooses according to the consensus of the age in which he lives.

What emerges from this study of the ethos of contemporary society is that absolutes have been abandoned, and the old methodology of TRUTH v. ERROR and RIGHT v. WRONG, which is the methodology of the Bible, has been rejected. People are being conditioned to a new way of thinking: there are no such things as absolutes, and all convictions are relative. Since this is what is believed, all discriminatory legislation and prohibitions must be removed. “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not” are the imperatives of a morality which modern man rejects. The naiveté of the champions of the cause of permissiveness is such that they fail to understand that that way lies anarchy — the greatest of all human tyrannies. The key words of contemporary society are “revolution” and “freedom”. All revealed law must be destroyed and be replaced by a fluid set of humanly appointed rules. Whatever is, is right.

Across the realms of theology, philosophy, science, psychology, sociology, the arts, literature, the mass-media, government, education, communal and family life, and personal morality, the words of Jeremiah are writ large:

“Lo they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?” (Jeremiah 8 : 9).

1. The religion of contemporary society both inside most of the professing churches and outside their influence is humanism. Biblical Christianity is being pushed from every section of life. Man is the ultimate standard by which all must be measured. It is man who sits in judgment on all questions of religion and morals. If you believe in absolute standards and cherish strong convictions you are condemned as a bigot. According to the standards of contemporary society all the creeds are equally grand, but none is absolutely true. Ecclesiastical leaders speak of our Protestant-Catholic-Jewish heritage.

Ecumenicism, which is as dangerous an “ism” as ever reared its head in this world, is the natural offspring of the ethos of contemporary society. Once the antithesis of TRUTH v. ERROR is abandoned, dialogue, accommodation, and compromise are quite logical.

When we enter the realm of so-called “religious experience”, the influence of the mentality of the “leap of faith” theology is widespread. Zen Buddhism and the cult of transcendental meditation are becoming popular, because in the lower storey of the rational and logical people can see nothing but meaningless and purposelessness. Rationalism has failed to find a meaning and purpose in life, and so there must be a flight from reason into the upper-storey of mystical experience. This partly explains the popularity of LSD and its family of hallucinogenic drugs. It is a characteristic of these drugs that they create a heightened self-awareness and a mystical sensation. The aim is to detach oneself from reality and commune with the beyond. One professor has claimed that by going on a “trip” under the influence of a drug one could enjoy a conversion like the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. At Boston University divinity students “tuned in” to deeper meditation on “Good Friday” with the aid of the “sacrament” — LSD. This flight from rational control is a feature of contemporary society.

The ethos of contemporary society makes itself evident in the realm of politics. The Executive and the Legislature do not concern themselves with the law of God. Why should they, if there are no such things as absolutes? It is the politics of consensus now. It is not “What saith the Lord?” but “What does man desire?” The aims of contemporary politics could be expressed thus: let us appeal to man’s covetous and self-indulgent spirit and let us create opportunities for shameless and God-dishonouring self-indulgence with legislation like the Sunday Entertainments Bill, Divorce Law, Abortion Law, Sexual Offences Law and the abolition of capital punishment. There is now a movement afoot to amend or repeal the Obscene Publications Act; the result would be licence to publish and sell pornography. Two statements made on radio by Mr Brian Forbes, film producer and director, are revealing. He was discussing with others, one of whom was Mr Malcolm Muggeridge, the subject of censorship. If censorship were removed, Mr Forbes maintained, “human nature being what it is, we should get nothing but boring and unadulterated filth.” This sounds rather obvious to us, but his other comment was alarming, especially when it came from such an authentic source: “There is a conspiracy to exploit the basest instincts of human nature.” Satan does not lack human agents in the prosecution of one of his stock activities.

In the Cult of Softness by Lunn & Lean, the authors maintain “that there is today a brilliant, concerted and partially successful attempt to take over the mind and culture of the country for secularism.” Within the ambit of this conspiracy are universities and schools. A Christian student or a student with a Christian background can be prepared on coming to a University for an all-out attempt to wipe his mind clean of inherited ideas and implant within it the idea that there are no absolutes. In textbooks, in educational radio and TV programmes evolution is presented “as it happened”. Charts and illustrations of life’s progress over millions of years are shown. This, despite the fact that it is a travesty of the scientific method, besides being morally indefensible, to delude students into believing that evolution is a demonstrated fact or even a secure hypothesis.

The form and content of religious education in schools is a matter of grave concern to all who have the moral and spiritual welfare of the young at heart. Pupils learn that “values” are important for life, but also that no way exists of knowing which values. The absolute values of God’s Word are largely ignored.

In the field of literature and the arts, to quote Mr Quintin Hogg, “our country is being destroyed before our eyes by intellectuals without faith.” John Calder, the publisher, is inspired by an avowed urge “to break through the British public’s backward puritanical attitude to sex.” Alexander Trocchi, author of Cain’s Book, a Calder publication on drug-taking, said in Edinburgh in 1963, “In the days of Charles II there was right, wrong and God. Now that we are not sure what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s dangerous to limit forms of expression. We must allow all manner of opinions to go into the atmosphere for children.” In 1962 the Writers’ Conference in Edinburgh was preoccupied with homosexuality and drug-taking. At the Edinburgh Drama Conference of 1963 the monarchy, patriotism, moral values, law and order and religion were attacked. Also in Edinburgh, in 1964, Miss Joan Littlewood, Artistic Director of the Theatre Workshop, told the Press, “We believe we are breaking through the Puritanism of the world, leaving pre-history. The theatre can be a marvellous world, since God is dead, and religion is dead.” Lord Harewood, one-time Director of the Edinburgh Festival, stated in the “Daily Record” of 28th August, 1963: “My greatest enemy is still that old Presbyterian, John Knox.”

Contemporary society also has its sacred cow — science, and the cultural myth of our age is “evolution”. This is not believed and taught as a fact because there is evidence for it, but because the humanistic religion of our society needs it. If there is a transcendent God Who is Creator and Lawgiver, the whole fabric of humanism collapses. Such a God must be excluded so that man can be autonomous and free. One need only read extracts from the papers and discussions in the official record — Man and his Future — of the conference sponsored by the C.I.B.A. Foundation in London, to be alarmed by the trend of scientific thought:

Sir Julian Huxley: “Genetic improvement should be brought about by multiple artificial insemination by preferred donors of high genetic quality.”

Dr G. Pincus: “This could be done by the Government’s putting a chemical in our food or water which made everybody sterile, and then providing a second chemical capable of reversing the effect of the first for those whom it licensed to bear children.”

Professor Bronowski: “My values come from an objective and definitive source as any god, namely the nature of the human being.”

Notice how unmistakably clear the spirit of the permissive society is among these intellectual giants of the scientific world — the abolition of an objective or absolute morality and the setting up of a variable morality where the reference point is some supposed good to human society.

A prominent feature of contemporary society is what has been called the cult of softness, one of the forms of permissiveness. In their introduction to the book of this title the authors write: “The great periods in a nation’s history, the age of Elizabeth and the Victorian age in our own, are always distinguished by the uncritical acceptance, at least by the ruling class, of an exacting code, the validity of which is unquestioned even by those who fail to practise what they might be ready to preach.” They go on to state: “In our country, the cult of softness has certainly been responsible for a weakening of the moral fibre not only in sex but also . . . . in the erosion of Christian dogma, in education, art and letters, in the increasing tendency to side with the criminal against the police, and in the repudiation of personal responsibility.” Many of the men dedicated to the secularizing of our society and to the elimination of all effective Christian influence are entrenched in influential positions in publishing, broadcasting and centres of learning.

Dr Leach dismisses the value of the family; Dr James Henning and his like advocate promiscuity. Dr Alex. Comfort in a television broadcast stated, “A chivalrous boy is one who takes contraceptives with him when he goes to meet his girl friend.” In his book, Sex in Society, he states, “It is highly probable that adultery today maintains more marriages than it destroys.”

The cult of softness is most evident in the current attitude to crime. The Bishop of Southwark could tell the House of Lords that “most of those in prison were there because society or their families had failed them,” and the ex-Bishop of Woolwich described suicide as “a sin of society against the individual rather than the sin of the individual against society.” Yet within 20 years of the end of the Second World War burglaries had increased by over 250%, crimes against women by over 400% and crimes of violence by over 500%.

The breakdown of discipline defaces our society and is one of the symptoms of permissiveness. Mr Donald Hughes, the Headmaster of Rydal School, summed up the state of affairs prevailing in the educational sphere as follows: “It is not our job to tell the young what to do, but to give them their heads, to leave them free from directions and stand by to pick up the pieces.” After the pitched battle between Mods and Rockers at Clacton, in March, 1964, Mr Donald MacLachlan asked, “Are we certain that our schools have the right basic theory of education and discipline? For forty years now the reaction has been going on against hard learning, strictness in class, deterrent punishments, and the role of fear and habit in character formation. . . . . Perhaps the strongest grievance that teenagers will have against us may be a feeling that we did not give them the secret of the self-control we expect of them, and that we did not give them firm purposes in life.”

It is among the young in particular that we see the fruits of the philosophy of meaninglessness and the denial of absolutes. The mess the world is in, the mess society is in, the apparent purposelessness of the life of the individual drive many to take refuge in a fantasy world. They are assured by persuaders on every hand, “Sex satisfies; sex is the way to fulfilment.” Another form of escapism is drug-taking, which is assuming alarming proportions. “Pop” music provides yet another avenue by which the young can escape into the world of the erotic and fantastic. Further, if there are no absolutes, conventions and deference to properly constituted authority must go. Extremism, whether it be in behaviour or in dress, is symptomatic of the cancer of permissiveness.

There must, however, be no compromising with modernistic evangelism which seeks “to make the gospel relevant to the age in which we live.” The gimmickry, the mania for tabulated results, the false charity of ecumenicism must be shunned like the plague. The Christian must also shun the “social gospel”, which applies to the generality of sinners the words of Christ to His disciples, as if there were no need for personal repentance and forgiveness.

Nevertheless, in seeking to adhere to the old paths, the Christian must avoid the pitfalls of superstitious and idolatrous traditionalism.

Finally (in his relations with, and attitude to, his fellow-sinners) he must never lose sight of the claims of God’s glory.

(ii) In seeking to be equipped to be a living witness, the Christian must live a life of much prayer and personal holiness. He must live the faith he professes. Fighting the good fight of faith requires the whole armour of God. The Saviour’s words, “Without me ye can do nothing,” must be one of the watchwords of the Christian’s life.

He must, moreover, attain to that knowledge which is needed to communicate the gospel. A clear and intelligent grasp of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” is indispensable. A heavy weight rests on the shoulders of the educated Christian, and the importance of a teaching ministry cannot be too strongly emphasised.

There is also a lack of Christians who understand the broad sweep of the contemporary intellectual climate. The Christian is duty bound to seek to attain to a clear and thorough understanding of contemporary society — its thinking and its trends.

(iii) However circumscribed his opportunities, the Christian must in word and life be a witness for Christ. The defence of the faith is essential. Sects, cults, heresies and specific declensions must be understood and exposed. Young people, in particular, must be instructed and prepared for facing the monolithic culture of contemporary society by being taught the source and nature of attacks on the faith in our generation.

The Holy Spirit is sovereign, but the Bible does not separate His work from knowledge; nor does the prerogative of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of sinners relieve us of our responsibilities as parents, pastors, missionaries or teachers, or, indeed, as citizens in our own communities. The human side to evangelism in the spoken word and in the dissemination of the Scriptures and Christian literature is absolutely vital.

Moreover, if we wish to communicate the gospel, we have a duty to learn our hearers’ or readers’ use of language, so that they understand what we mean to convey. Further, we must treat them as rational beings, for true faith is not a vague thing which replaces understanding. The Christian’s part is to present the claims of God in law and gospel as intelligently and intelligibly as possible and wait for the blessing.

There is one pitfall in particular that the Christian must beware of in the communication of the gospel, and that is an exclusive appeal to experience. An inward personal experience there must be, but when religious consciousness becomes the central part of our teaching doctrines recede into the background. Furthermore, this plays into the hands of the new theology which lays so much stress on faith as a kind of magic wand and on comfortable feelings dependent on some kind of experience. In any case, an experience can be physiological, psychological, theological, or even demonic. Religious experiences not subject to testing can, and are, used, as one put it, “to prove anything from Zen Buddhism to Mormonism”. Two of the pillars of the Christian faith are the veracity of God’s actions in history and the reliability of God’s Word in the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. These must not be relegated to a position of relative unimportance. We all know that experience is essential in personal verification, but it cannot stand alone.

With regard to the responsibility of the Christian in the society in which he lives and works two quotations from The Christian in Industrial Society will suffice to indicate principles of conduct:

• (a) “The voice of Christians should be heard in political matters, and they should influence legislation.”
• (b) “The Christian must be concerned that, as far as he is able to accomplish it, righteousness shall prevail in those spheres in which he is involved, whether it is a school, faculty, local community, a business, a hospital, or what you will. To leave our fellows to secularism or humanism would be a complete abdication of our responsibility as Christian citizens.”

The absolute necessity for importunity in prayer, and our absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit, have, I trust, been implicit and explicit in what has been said in this paper. I have, however, reserved to the end the words of Rev. Thomas Boston, who, in the closing passage of a sermon, so eloquently sums up the duty of Christians with regard to these great indispensables:

“Yet despair not of the reformation of the land or of particular persons, but pray, pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. O wrestle with God and lift up a cry for it. That is a sovereign remedy that would cure all our diseases at once. ‘Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.’ The work of reformation hath long been like corn in a great drought, yellow at the root; a shower of the Spirit would make all green again, and grow fast. As much as we are divided this would unite us. As bold-faced as wickedness and profanity are, this would stop their mouths. As little good as the gospel does, this would make convincing, converting, and confirming work more frequent, and give ministers of the gospel as much to do with broken hearts, as they have now with hard and impenitent ones. As great lifelessness and untenderness as are among ministers and people, this would purify the sons of Levi, and make the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem pleasant to the Lord as in former years. It would restore our judges as at the first, and our counsellors as at the beginning; and make nobles and gentry cease from building of Babel, and pulling down of the church and of religion; put holiness to the Lord on the bells of their horses, and willingly set their shoulder to the work of the Lord, O! pray, pray for this. And let not your hopelessness and uncharitableness, as to any ranks of people in the Land, whether because of their profanity, apostacy, formality, deadness, enmity to religion and hurtfulness to the church, shuffle them out of your prayers for good. But cry mightily for the outpouring of the Spirit that the whole land may mourn.”