Religious Reality

Religious Reality

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Title: Religious Reality
Author: A.E.J. Rawlinson
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RELIGIOUS REALITY
A BOOK FOR MEN
A. E. J. RAWLINSON
Student of Christ Church, Oxford; Examining Chaplain to the Bishop
of Lichfield; Priest-In-Charge of St. John The Evangelist, Wilton Road,
S.W.; Formerly Tutor of Keble College and Late Chaplain to the
Forces.
WITH A PREFACE
BY
THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD
1918

PREFACE
BY
THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD
This is a book which is wanted. Thoughtful men, in every class, are not
afraid of theology, _i.e._ of a reasoned account of their religion, but
they want a theology which can be stated without conventions and
technicalities; they do not at all care for a religion which pretends to do
away with all mystery, but they are glad to be assured of the essential
reasonableness of the Christian Faith; they do not expect a ready-made
solution of the problem of evil, but they wish to see it honestly faced;
above all, they want to know how Christian truth bears on the real
problems of life; the best of them are not at all afraid of a religion
which makes big demands on them, but they know well enough the
difficulty of responding to those claims, and their greatest need of all is
to find and to use that life and power, coming from a living Person,
without which our best aspirations must fail and our highest ideals

remain unrealized.
These needs seem to me to be satisfactorily and happily met in the
following pages. My friend and chaplain, Mr. Bawlinson, has had good
means of knowing what men are and what they want. He has had to do
with the undergraduate, with officers and men in the Army, and with
the ordinary civilian in parish life. He has been able to see the nature
and needs of our British manhood at different angles, and he is the sort
of man with whom men are not afraid to talk. He has had good
opportunity of diagnosing the situation, and this book shows his skill in
dealing with it.
I do not find myself in agreement with everything in these pages, but
when I am conscious of difference of view, I am no less grateful for the
stimulus to thought. I am specially thankful that the writer has been so
courageous in tackling the most difficult subjects.
I know that the author's one desire is to help men to be more real in
their religion. I share his hope, and I believe that this book will do
much to accomplish it.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book has grown out of the writer's experience in preparing men
and officers in military hospitals for Confirmation. It represents, in a
considerably expanded but--as it is hoped--still simple form, the kind of
things which he would have wished to say to them, and to others with
whom he was brought into contact, if he had had more time and
opportunity than was usually afforded him. It seemed necessary to
write the book, because there did not appear to be in existence any
reasonably short book on similar lines which covered the ground of
Christian faith and practice as a whole, and which approached the
subject from the point of view which seems to the writer to be the most
real.
The writer is consciously indebted in the first chapter to the discussion
of our Lord's teaching and character in Dr. T. B. Glover's fascinating
book, The Jesus of History. It is possible that there are other and
unconscious obligations which