We all rather like beginning things at the wrong end, or
somewhere about the middle.
We talk about the rights and wrongs of capital punishment,
instead of beginning with the rights and wrongs of murder.
We argue about whether pacifism is good or bad, instead of whether war is
good or bad.
We discuss the question whether Christianity is a suitable religion for the
Modern Man,
without stopping to consider that the real question is whether Christianity
is true.
For, if it is,
the Modern Man must be judged in relation to Christianity,
not Christianity in relation to him.
We attach a lot of importance to our beliefs.
I believe this? or I cannot believe that.
Certainly it matters a great deal to us what we believe.
It affects our whole outlook and all our actions.
But our belief or disbelief does not make the slightest difference to the
truth of fact.
It makes no difference to things as they are whether or not our beliefs about
them are correct.
But it makes a lot of difference to us.
If you are going to Wigan,
the road by which you are travelling either leads there or it does not.
Your belief that the road leads to Wigan will not get you there unless the
road does in fact lead there.
Much of this confusion is due to wrong ideas about BELIEF.
When a Christian says 'I believe', he does not mean 'I rather think, but
of course I may be wrong'.
He means 'I STATE AS A FACT'.
When a Christian talks about 'faith',
he does not mean wishful thinking.
The faith that removes mountains is not magic,
but confident trust,
amounting to certainty,
that the Christian inter?pretation of the universe is in fact correct.
The CREED of the Christian is not meant as a recital
of guesses or pious hopes,
but as a PLAIN STATEMENT OF FACT.
People always want the beliefs of the Church to be 're-stated' in such a
way as to be acceptable to modern thought.
But a correct statement of fact cannot be 're-stated'.
There may indeed be room for changes of language,
to meet changes that come about in the meaning of words.
But that is not the sort of re-statement that the critics demand.
What they want is to change the meaning.
They want the Church to admit that its facts were wrong.
Whether the acceptance of this kindly suggestion would really
help the Church is, perhaps, a little doubtful.
It is not noticeable that those Christian bodies which claim to have done
with' outworn dogmas', and admit an almost unlimited latitude in the amount
of doctrine to which their adherents are obliged to subscribe, receive any
wider public support than those bodies which refuse to compromise.
It seems very likely that, if the Church as a whole did decide to produce
(supposing such a thing to be imaginable) a new religion conforming to all
the requirements of Modern Thought, the Church would find that it had been
badly sold.
To begin with, it would be told that while it was concocting the new religion
Modern Thought had moved on, and that the new religion was already in need
of restatement.
Again, the very people who had urged the change would turn round and jeer
at the Church for not having had the courage of its convictions
Lastly, the general public would take just as much interest in the new religion
as in the old, that is to say, very little indeed.
At the same time, Church people, and especially professional Church people,
are themselves not innocent of beginning at the wrong end in their attitude
towards this same general public.
They start off by assuming that people outside the Church know all about
the Christian religion, and that the public's indifference or opposition
must be judged on this assumption.
And so they are continually pouring out exhortations, which to them are full
of meaning, but completely fail to ring the bell in the mind of the average
citizen.
How often, for example, do we hear broadcast sermons, which urge the listener
to submit his life and will to the direction of God?
Admirable, and so simple!
The preacher knows perfectly well what he means, and supposes that if people
do not act on his advice it is through sheer perversity.
He does not seem to realize that to a vast number of his hearers his words
are absolutely meaningless, and that although they might be quite well disposed
to act on his advice, they have no real notion of what he wants them to do,
or how they are to set about doing it.
They do not share the background, which is commonplace to him, against which
his appeal is set, and without which it conveys nothing.
Where, then, ought the Churchman to begin his preaching and
the layman his thinking?
Common sense replies that in this, as in any other business matter, one should
begin by getting at the facts, and then see what consequences follow.
Let us put it this way: