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Christianity and Crisis Christian Opinion /٠ a Bi-Weekly Journal Christianity and Crisis Christian Opinion /٠ A Bi-Weekly Journal Volume III, No. 6 A pril 19, 1943 $1.50 per ; 10 cents per copy Christian Contrition and Action N the solemnity of this season, when heart-search- into hardened men be£ore their minds and bodies I ing should be at its height, we may well reflect on have experiencedwhat youth should bring. All this two perils that beset the path of those who give their must be accepted if the war is to be won, but not moral support to the prosecution of war. One is complacently accepted unless we are to lose the peace. that they may become less sensitive than they have The second peril is 0£ a different sort. It is theo- been hitherto to the brutalities that war engenders. logical in essence and is.enhanced by the £act that The other is that in their tough realism about the the war caught us at a time when the social hope embodied in liberal Christianity was being effectively nature of man, they may lose faith in the possibility assailed. The attack upon it was in part, certainly, of organizing the world politically so that such a well £ounded, £or our Protestant churches had be- tragedy may not recur. come cradles 0 £ an easy optimistic £aith in salvation The first of these perils manifests itself in the fear by social mechanics. toe contention o£ the that softness and sentimentality will weaken the war “realists” got itsel£ 1^)ressivelyi documented in the effort, and that even in victory toe fruits of that outbreak 0 £ the most savage war0 £ modern times. victory may be lost through misguided gentleness in The illusion 0 £ modern progress was rudely dispelled. the political reordering of the world. The fear is That lesson must never be £orgotten. probably well grounded in both respects, but this Yet it is doubtful i£ the real lesson has been only enhances the moral danger. The necessity of learned. I£ the great error 0 £ liberal Christianity inflicting suffering on fellow human beings, even in consisted in a spurious concept 0 £ man’s nature, the vindication of a principle and in defense of others, great error 0 £ the £uture is likely to be a préoccupa- is corroding to the conscience unless one is protected tion with the individual man to the exclusion of the from it by a miracle of grace. This is why self-iden- possibilities 0 £ a Christian culture. The question tification with the enemy in a common fund of guilt here is not as to the derivation 0 £ the meaning o£ ٠٢£ is so necessary to the Christian who fights. He is history though that is a very important question unfit to stand and fight if he is not continually driven Christian philosophers. Nor is it one a£ per£ectionist as to toe realization 0 £ Utopia within ٠־ to his knees in penitent prayer. All unawares, he is caught in the flood of self-righteousness that is blind history. Rather it is a question o£ toe significance to toe fact that a Nazi is essentially still a man—an 0 £ society itsel£, of the power 0 £ a cultural discipline insidious self-righteousness that can without a shud- as against man’s original nature. der contemplate the conventional cartoon, now a It is a commonplace among students o£ human national institution, that makes a Japanese appear to culture and human psychology that toe savage in be a baboon. It is better to admit frankly that war man is ever near toe sur£ace. Human nature, in inevitably breeds hate than sentimentally to refuse any meaningful sense of the term, is more than what to face that reality. But for a Christian to lose his an individual possesses by virtue of his native inher- hatred of hate is to lose his Christianity. “It must itance, whether biologically or theologically con- be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom ceived. It is a collective achievement. Christianity the offense cometo.” It is a good thing for a min- itself is a communal phenomenon, and the Kingdom ister in these days to imagine himself a chaplain to of God, whether conceived eschatologically or devel- .opmentally, is realized only in spiritual community ﻣﻤﺲ prisoners of war and to consider whether he lose himself in the cure of souls. Redemption is profoundly individual in its reference, Equally urgent is it that we be not blind to the but it is communal in substance. “The Bible knows evil inherent in the suspension of liberties, the regi- nothing of solitary religion.” By the same token, mentation of life, the arbitrary exercise of power, grace is as truly social as it is individual in its .and toe grinding discipline that ،seeks to turn boys operation Hence the possibility of making a better world, human life supports it as a valid hope. We may embodies ״and a progressively more peaceful world, is not ex- grant that “Thy Kingdom eome on earth eluded by the most realistic view of the nature of a bit of New Testament eschatology, in that the was to be miraeulously transformed, but “ye ״individual man. The idea of a Christian society is “earth indeed quixotic if it means that a redeemed man are laborers together with God” has a temporal ceases to be potentially a great sinner, but if it is referenee whieh cannot be expunged without emascu- rooted in the efficacy of im m unity as a molder of lating the gospel. And part of that labor is a pro- human nature, which changes the pattern both of digious effort to eradicate war. man’s sins and of his virtues, all that we know of F. E. j. The Manger, The Cross and The Resurrection A Christian Interpretation of Our Time PAUL RAMSEY HRISTIANITY is not a compound of all the seek forgiveness, but because they know not what C sentimentalities. Nor is it simply a compound of all the sentiments, however fine they may be, Liberal Frotestantism has been overly concerned which we annually experience in our celebration of to refute the very probable and somewhat trivial the Nativity. “Christmas Christianity” is not Socratic truth that all men, whatever they do, do it enough! We must go on, if not to Easter, at least brause ffiey think it is good to do so. Our con- to Good Eriday. Not the Manger, but the Cross is ception of sin has been that of known wrong con- the symbol of the deepest meaning of the Christian sciously embraced, or known right deliberately faith- violated. If sin be this, then, according to Socrates, In Christ, it has been said, are met in one man’s no one ever sins; and we may use the word only ideal of what God ought to be, and God’s ideal of by the empty logical device of referring to a “class what man ought to te. Christ is a revelation of the without any members,” as we may, if we wish, nature of God’s love, and, at the same time, an ideal speak of those people at the north pole who are for human devotion and ethical endeavor. The Hottentots. In either case, sinners or polar Hotten- Cross, moreover, is a disclosure of the fact that man tots, there are none present. Consequently, literals who nailed Christ there is a sinner, and a revelation have set out to find deliberate sins, and finding them of the magnitude of human sin. At the Cross we to eradicate them severally. know that man is a sinner, and that he is a great Sin has other reality than this, however, and the sinner. But we also receive through the Cross a word sin greater meaning. Are not we ourselves profound insight into the nature of human sin when forced to speak of sin in a manner which indicates we hear Jesus saying, “Father, forgive them, for they our belief that responsibility for our actions can know not what they do.” (Luke 23: 34) penetrate below the level of consciousness of our This is what we need to have brought home to us, actions; and that, as a consequence, the deepest sin if we are to understand what is meant by saying is unconscious, not conscious? More important than that we, like all men, are sinners. It is altogether the petty actions of childhood, which may be the probable that the current increase use of the word conscious violation of known standards, are the “sin” has far outstripped the increased sense of sin unnumbered cruelties of children to children in the which it is supposed to indicate. Even while saying otherwise good organization of their gang life. A that we know that sin is something deeper than German Nazi youth may well serve his cause with merely “missing the mark,” it may still appear that such zeal and conviction that neither he nor many the chief business of our lives is to aim just a bit of his comrades or leaders are consciously sinful straighter, and that the principle result we expect in producing its cruelties. Do we not here recog- ,Christian exhortation is that people will tug nize that sin and responsibility may vary inversely ^ ٢٠؛ just a little harder at their bootstraps in their struggle rather than directly, with consciousness, so that for t^rfection. Sin is exhausted of its meaning by greater sincerity actually means greater sin? Our own the particular sins of which we are conscious, and responsible and sinful implication in social institu- from which one by one we may hope to turn away.
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