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Creed or Chaos
“It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everybody knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred knows what the church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ … Theologically, this country is in a state of utter chaos, established in the name of religious tolerance, and rapidly degenerating into the flight from reason and the death of hope. We are not happy in this condition and there are signs of a very great eagerness, especially among the younger people, to find a creed to which they can give wholehearted adherence ...
“Take away theology and give us some nice religion’ has been a popular slogan for so long that we are apt to accept it, without inquiring whether religion without theology has any meaning … [T]he reason why the churches are discredited today is not that they are too bigoted about theology, but that they have run away from theology ...
“… [I]f we really want a Christian society we must teach Christianity and … it is absolutely impossible to teach Christianity without teaching Christian dogma ...
“If Christian ministers really believe [theology] is only an intellectual game for theologians and has no bearing upon human life, it is no wonder that their congregations are ignorant, bored, and bewildered … If the ‘average man’ is going to be interested in Christ at all, it is the dogma that will provide the interest. The trouble is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has never been offered the dogma. What he has been offered is a set of technical theological terms which nobody has taken the time to translate into language relevant to ordinary life.”
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“It is the dogma that is the drama – not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to kindness and uplift, not the promise of something nice after death – but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that a man might be glad to believe ...
