It's a hard read, not least because it is sometimes poorly written, and when it compares Christianities with, say Marxism (which it does several times) it is quite shallow. But I stuck with it, and it had its rewards. However, I was nearing the end when I came upon this passage:
Moreover, in the social democracies in Europe and to some extent in America and other English-speaking societies, the new postwar prosperity, distributed not of course with anything like utter fairness but sufficiently spread around, had brought a situation where many of the grossest problems of hunger, shelter, poverty and worklessness were allieviated. In principle (it was often felt) the various social agencies should be able to mop up residual problems, and it was easy for the Christian Churches to see themselves as playing something of this supplementary role. It was traditional enough for it to be concerned with the poor. But of course, important as such a social task is in mending lives and helping those who are in despair, it does not represent an adequate destiny for a movement of such richness and power manifested so diversely over two thousand years. (p.306)
I have to say this made me quite cross. Not so much because he is essentially arguing against the church doing good works, but because of his avowed reason for so doing: "... it does not represent an adequate destiny for a movement of such richness and power...".
Well tough. It seems a perfectly fine and laudable result to me. And it doesn't detract at all from the myth, the numinous, the ritual (the magic) which he is quite taken by elsewhere.
Sigh. But maybe that's just me.
Rant over.
No comments:
Post a Comment