But they are not Christians and do not wish to be. No more, in
their hearts, are the modernists, and they should feel it beneath
their dignity to pose as such; indeed the more sensitive of them
already feel it. To say they are not Christians at heart, but
diametrically opposed to the fundamental faith and purpose of
Christianity, is not to say they may not be profound mystics (as many
Hindus, Jews, and pagan Greeks have been), or excellent scholars, or
generous philanthropists. But the very motive that attaches them to
Christianity is worldly and un-Christian. They wish to preserve the
continuity of moral traditions; they wish the poetry of life to flow
down to them uninterruptedly and copiously from all the ages. It is an
amiable and wise desire; but it shows that they are men of the
Renaissance, pagan and pantheistic in their profounder sentiment, to
whom the hard and narrow realism of official Christianity is offensive
just because it presupposes that Christianity is true.
Yet even in this historical and poetical allegiance to Christianity I
suspect the modernists suffer from a serious illusion. They think the
weakness of the church lies in its not following the inspirations of
the age. But when this age is past, might not that weakness be a
source of strength again? For an idea ever to be fashionable is
ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78