Preaching and Paganism | Page 5

Social Message of the Modern Pulpit, and Dr. Coffin in In a Day of
Social Rebuilding, have so enriched this Foundation. Moreover, this is,
at the moment, an almost universally popular treatment of the
preacher's opportunity and obligation. One reason, therefore, for not

choosing this approach to our task is that the preacher's attention, partly
because of the excellence of these and other books and lectures, and
partly because of the acuteness of the political-industrial crisis which is
now upon us, is already focused upon it.
Besides, our present moment is changing with an ominous rapidity.
And one is not sure whether the immediate situation, as distinguished
from that of even a few years ago, calls us to be concerned chiefly with
the practical and ethical aspects of our mission, urgent though the need
and critical the pass, to which the abuses of the capitalistic system have
brought both European and American society. In this day of those
shifting standards which mark the gradual transference of power from
one group to another in the community, and the merging of a spent
epoch in a new order, neither the chief opportunity nor the most serious
peril of religious leadership is met by fresh and energetic programs of
religion in action. In such days, our chief gift to the world cannot be the
support of any particular reforms or the alliance with any immediate
ethical or economic movement. For these things at best would be
merely the effects of religion. And it is not religion in its relations, nor
even in its expression in character--it is the thing in itself that this age
most needs. What men are chiefly asking of life at this moment is not,
What ought we to do? but the deeper question, What is there we can
believe? For they know that the answer to this question would show us
what we ought to do.
Nor do our reform alliances and successive programs and crusades
always seem to me to proceed from any careful estimate of the situation
as a whole or to be conceived in the light of comprehensive Christian
principle. Instead, they sometimes seem to draw their inspiration more
from the sense of the urgent need of presenting to an indifferent or
disillusioned world some quick and tangible evidence of a continuing
moral vigor and spiritual passion to which the deeper and more potent
witnesses are absent. It is as though we thought the machinery of the
church would revolve with more energy if geared into the wheels of the
working world. But that world and we do not draw our power from the
same dynamo. And surely in a day of profound and widespread mental
ferment and moral restlessness, some more fundamental gift than this is

asked of us.
If, therefore, these chapters pay only an incidental attention to the
church's social and ethical message, it is partly because our attention is,
at this very moment, largely centered upon this important, yet
secondary matter, and more because there lies beneath it a yet more
urgent and inclusive task which confronts the spokesman of organized
religion.
You will expect me then to say that we are to turn to some speculative
and philosophic study, such as the analysis of the Christian idea in its
world relationships, some fresh statement of the Gospel, either by way
of apologia for inherited concepts, or as attempting to make a new
receptacle for the living wine, which has indeed burst the most of its
ancient bottles. Such was Principal Fairbairn's monumental task in The
Place of Christ in Modern Theology and also Dr. Gordon's in his
distinguished discussions in The Ultimate Conceptions of Faith.
Here, certainly, is an endeavor which is always of primary importance.
There is an abiding peril, forever crouching at the door of ancient
organizations, that they shall seek refuge from the difficulties of
thought in the opportunities of action. They need to be continually
reminded that reforms begin in the same place where abuses do,
namely, in the notion of things; that only just ideas can, in the long run,
purify conduct; that clear thinking is the source of all high and
sustained feeling. I wish that we might essay the
philosopher-theologian's task. This generation is hungry for
understanding; it perishes for lack of knowledge. One reason for the
indubitable decline of the preacher's power is that we have been
culpably indifferent in maintaining close and friendly alliances between
the science and the art, the teachers and the practitioners of religion.
Few things would be more ominous than to permit any further
widening of the gulf which already exists between these two. Never
more than now does the preacher need to be reminded of what Marcus
Aurelius said: "Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also shall be