This is a book about religion.
There are already vast numbers of books about religion, and some excuse seems
to be needed for adding yet another.
It is not as if this book could claim to be original.
If it contains any original statement, that statement is probably wrong.
In fact, I do not think that there is any statement in the book, which does
not rest on some respectable authority.
If there is any excuse for the book, it lies in the line of approach.
Clergymen write most religious books.
That is quite right; they are the professionals and the trained experts.
But religion is not entirely, or even mainly, a matter for the professional
and the expert.
It concerns everybody equally.
In fact, the professional is, in some ways, at a disadvantage.
Just because he is a professional, people are apt to be a little suspicious.
After all, it is his job; it is what he is paid for.
This is, of course, unfair, but it is a point of view.
If a gentleman assures you that Bungo Is Best, and you happen to know that
his livelihood depends on maintaining and increasing the sale of Bungo, you
do not necessarily conclude that his statement is incorrect, but you view
it with some reserve.
You are much more likely to be impressed if a friend, whom you know to have
no interest in Messrs. Bungo Ltd., tells you that he has tried the stuff
and has found that it is really quite good.
Another difficulty about the professional is that he knows too much.
He has forgotten more than the rest of us have ever learnt about his subject.
It is very hard for him to realize that, even when he means to be most simple,
he is often talking a language that the ordinary layman cannot understand.
This is not his fault.
The chances are that he has been immersed in religion and theology all his
adult life.
He cannot know from first-hand experience the religious background, or absence
of background of the layman;
and the layman doesn't give him much chance
to find out at second hand.
This is the trouble about so many of the books which a recent writer has
summed up as 'Christianity And'.
You know the kind of thing Christianity
And War, Christianity And Capital Punishment, and so on.
They are apt to begin a stage too far on.
They assume that everyone knows what Christianity is, and only needs to be
told how to apply it.
Then again, the professional is hampered by his own decency.
When dealing with people outside his own flock, he would no doubt very much
like to say:
'Come and join my Church. It is the best, in fact the only genuine Church.'
But in practice he can't say this, not because he doesn't think quite genuinely
that his Church is right, but because decency and Christian charity prevent
him from saying publicly in so many words that the other Churches are wrong.
Besides, two can play at that game.
And so, when addressing the public in general through a book or a newspaper
article or a broadcast talk, he is forced to avoid positive or controversial
statements and to deal in generalities, harmless and admirable enough, but
lacking in practical effectiveness.
Of course, in his own pulpit or in the specialist religious publications
he can be, and is, as downright as he likes;
but this does not touch the
general public.
The only means by which he can get at the general public are the ordinary
newspapers and the radio;
and all the general public gets are talks and articles
which eliminate all reference to the Church or the Sacraments and concentrate
perforce on the ethical teachings of Christianity, to which almost everyone
pays lip-service.
The inevitable result is that the public believes, and has every excuse for
believing, that the essence of Christianity lies in these ethical teachings.
There is, then, a gap to be bridged between the professional Churchman and
the ordinary, non-Churchgoing Englishman;
and the only people who can bridge
that gap are those who have a foot in each camp, namely the lay people who
are also Church people.
But they are largely inarticulate;
and so the unprofessional people who write
about religion are usually those who want to attack orthodoxy or to put forward
a personal point of view.
This book also gives a personal point of view.
It is entirely unofficial.
At the same time it is quite disinterested.
It grinds no axe.
To the professional it will no doubt appear ignorant, crude, and over-simplified.
'Fools rush in', and the rest of it.
But if wise men cannot manage to forge some link that will reconnect the
Church with that great body of the general public that either has no religious
association or has dropped away from active participation in Church life,
it is up to one of the fools to have a try.
And so the book has a double purposedefensive and offensive.
I object, as a citizen, to anyone regarding me as a credulous half-wit because
I believe in a set of exploded myths.
So I want to go into the evidence for myself and find out whether Christianity
is or is not a thing that can be accepted by an ordinary, hardheaded, twentieth-century
man.
And, if I conclude that it is, then I must, to the best of my ability, such
as it is, endeavour to set down the results, in the hope that they may be
of some assistance to others.
For, if I believe certain things to be true and important for myself, I must
believe them to be equally true and important for everyone else.
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