The Church and the World

Résumé du livre

The claim of the secularizing theologians, or those who popularize what they say, is summed up by the statement of Bonhoeffer concerning the rejection of the religious premise and man's coming of age. In popular discussion, it seems to the author, this is taken to mean that by rejecting many of the external forms and the positive beliefs of Christianity man mysteriously becomes more Christian. But Christianity only had its impact on history because of those externals and beliefs, which were not contradictory to the spirit of Christ in the Church but a manifestation of it. Further, the very things which Western man is most proud of are a result of his Christian inheritance, an inheritance which he owes to the labours of traditional Christianity, strengthened and guided by its dogma, through hundreds of years. It is not secularization which will save modern man from his present predicament. It is a return to and a strengthening of the values and the institutions of traditional Christianity.