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CAN I BE A CHRISTIAN
[The writer is an Oxford undergraduate, aged zr] IHAVE just passed several weeks in a Franciscan friary, where for the first time in my life I have seen that most terrific of powers, Corporate Christianity, in action, and I have been astonished and impressed beyond words at the spirit and work of the Brown Brotherhood. Such men are the salt of the earth and the glory of their religion. My stay there made me ask myself with peculiar force the ques- tions which have occurred several times in this series of articles. Why has Christianity, which can be so magnificent, lost its hold on modern youth ? Why have so many perfectly normal young people passed beyond the stage of indifference to that of active disbelief not merely in the theological dogmas but even in the moral principles of Christianity ? It is as a member of this group that I write, and I will try to state some of the points of their case.
The first point of doubt is the divinity of Christ. The usual approach is historical, and criticism concentrates on such points as the value of the gospels in the light of recent research, Christ's own words on His Godhead in the light of the world-wide tendency to deify great men (even the agnostic Buddha is now worshipped as a god !), and the importance of what appear to be later accretions to the story, such as the virgin birth and the raising of Lazarus. However remarkable he may have been, is the evidence really strong enough, reliable enough to prove His Godhead ? A matter-of-fact legal friend of mine once summed up the argument thus : " If Christ was tried in an English law court on a charge of being divine, the evidence of the gospels would not be sufficient to secure a conviction."
Of course, this in no way detracts from his supremacy as man, but there is a great difference between revering the most righteous and inspiring of men and worshipping a saviour. The effect of this on one's belief in orthodox theology is obvious. Christ's teaching becomes fundamentally no different from that of anybody else—such superiority as it has will be due to its own power and not to the fact that it is a revelation from God. Christ's character becomes of more importance than His teaching, His righteousness than His words on marriage or peace. His moral precepts are no longer superhuman with a superhuman sanction. Indeed, it is doubtful if it is ethically desirable that morality should be dependent on a superhuman sanction, and in point of fact Buddhism and nineteenth-century rationalism, both agnostic creeds, have produced men worthy to stand beside any Christian saint. At any rate, to the young man of today, it is the desire to do right and not the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom.
The theological and moral teachings of the gospels, too, are frequently criticised from modern intellectual standpoints. The legacy of Darwin is still with us, and evolution, at least as generally understood, postulates an impersonal, detached system of laws which slowly and relentlessly work out their purpose, rather than the personal Father who loves all men as His children. Marxism, which claims that ideas and morality are merely the product of social and economic environment, and that religious teachers therefore are but the spokesmen of certain sections or groups, contains sufficient truth to serve as a good point of attack on Christianity. Similarly, there is psychology, with its emphasis on the power that is within man to the exclusion of reliance on any outside source of strength, such as God.
The intense interest in politics which is such a feature of modern youth, particularly in the Universities, undermines rather than openly attacks Christianity The Free Traders of a century ago began their meetings with prayers, garnished their speeches with texts, and declared that free trade was "the international law of God Almighty," but modern political programmes are essentially secular movements for secular ends. The implications are immense and indirectly sap Christian belief. A new standard of values is set up—the " good of the community " comes before everything, and such sections of it as resist are to be " liquidated." Men are regarded as social or economic units, not as human beings ; the whole outlook is impersonal, and in great contrast to the Christian emphasis on individuality. The conviction conies that a largely non-Christian society cannot be changed by Christian means, for practical reforms are needed and personal righteousness is of little avail. Why should not such great forces as mass-hatred be used ? Divine help is ignored— man can and must work out his own salvation with his own resources. Moreover, the energy and idealism of youth are diverted to this new cause. At Oxford, for instance, the Labour Club is certainly the largest, the most enthusiastic and the most efficient of all University clubs.
So far doctrine. What about Institutional Religion ? In my opinion, it is impossible to deny that the Church, for most of us the Anglican Church, is a sad stumbling-block. One naturally, if illogically, judges a body of doctrine by its exponents, and it is idle to pretend that the youth of today is inspired or even attracted by the mass of the clergy. Take, for instance, a summary of the Oxford undergraduates who are taking Orders. As a rule, they are rather second-rate members of the public-school class, and their intellectual average is low, much lower than, say, that of the candidates for the Home and Indian Civil Services. Neither are they conspicuous for character, and in the only way in which young men in their circumstances are in serious temptation, sex, their standards are no higher than those of anybody else. Of course, there are exceptions—some of the men I like and admire most, including my best friend, arc taking Orders— but on the whole clerical undergraduates are not of a type to win much respect among their fellows.
One frequent charge against the Church, which has not been allayed by the recent Report, is that of vagueness of doctrine. It is pointed out that the clergy cannot give a clear decision on the Christian attitude towards such important questions as war, divorce or spiritualism, and they do not even know whether their Church is sacramental or not, and thus whether their authority is derived from ordination or from the inner light—or from having passed certain examinations ! This and the fact that so many of the clergy arc members of the upper classes, which indeed often seems their main qualifica- tion, turn many people away not merely from the Church but from the religion it preaches. Those opinions will be supported, I think, by a study of the Oxford Group Movement, which bears all the signs of being a reaction against contem- porary upper-class religion, while the High Church doctrines now prevalent may be regarded as the weapons whereby the Church hopes, however unconsciously, to recover its lost authority, as it did in the days of Newman and Pusey.
Of course, it is not denied that the clergy perform many useful social functions—have they not been termed the Ministry of Social Lubrication ? But as a " community of Christlike men. . . ." No, they simply are not good enough. If the clergy had a little more of the devotion, energy, and almost incredible self-sacrifice of the friars with whom I lived, there would_ be fewer complaints of the apathy and hostility of modern youth to Christianity.
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