Unbelieving
Religions of America. Edited by Leo Rosten. (Heinemann, 21s.) The Road to Happiness. By J. W. C. Wand. (Muller, 16s.)
Judge Not. By Aymer Roberts. (Linden Press, 16s.)
IT is with great pleasure and curiosity I ap- proach these books of Christian thought— pleasure to be able to read what is often so beauti- fully and ingeniously expressed and to share, if not the beliefs, at least the humanity that drives beneath; curiosity to learn afresh what these beliefs are. The books vary in quality and dogma, some are Catholic, some Protestant, some subtle, some simple, one—Religions of America— serves most usefully as a catalogue, giving an outline of each belief, as stated by prominent believers, and including Judaism and Bertrand Russell on agnosticism, who seems, as always, unanswerably mild and noble.
All that the Christians write bears witness, as it must, to the Covenant between God and Man (the Monstrous Bargain, the Writ of Scandal to the unbelieving) by which the Father God accepts the death of His Son, to pay for the sins of the world and save its children from everlasting death. The subtle reasoning that has expounded this doctrine of the Covenant blurs its outline and seduces the intelligence, and nearly 2,000 years of familiarity has dulled its impact, but monstrous it must seem to unbelievers and a cause of sickness in the minds of Christians. For this doctrine bites secretly and festers in the heart, and out of it comes that dual aspect of Christianity, the sweet- ness and the cruelty, that marks with so heightened a nervous temper its passage through history.
I cannot too highly recommend the two Fon- tana books. Of Herbert Butterfield's Christianity and History I can only say that it is good to have this great book that is so beautiful in its style— running like a stream—so quiet and loving and yet so abominable, at such an easy price. As one reads Mr. J. B. Phillips's The Gospels in Modern English, this serious yet most lithe and vigorous translation, with its slight softening of the severer passages—e.g., 'Alas for you, you Scribes and Pharisees, play-actors that you are'—and its curious use of 'did' that gives an effect most poignant and human (agnostics may think)—'Yes, I did come from the Father'—the story lives again freshly, yes, and with a fresh sense. Only at the beginning of St. John does this learned and modest translator falter, as who must not? . . . 'At the beginning God expressed Himself. That Personal Expression, that Word, was with God and was God.'
Now for the new books. God and Us claims to be chiefly an account of what God has said of Him- self, but there is a good deal of what the author says too. If one follows this fascinating writer's spiritual footfall one soon finds oneself committed to a variety of propositions, such as that syncretic theories are false, that the faithful of other religions who reject Christ do so at their peril, that Christ said that the Queen of Sheba should judge the unfaithful Jews, that the evidence of Himself that God continually offers is to be found in the regularity of rain and harvest, and that man's position vis-d-vis God is without rights and God may harden a man's heart and damn him for it.
Stones or Bread? is a very interesting com- mentary on the Temptation, raising points t must often have puzzled people, especially a: how much Christ while on earth, Perfect Man Perfect God, may be believed by the ortho' to have known or not known of the whole pose of God, a matter openly at issue in His It statement that only the Father knew the time the Second Coming. This book is very charita in tone and is addressed chiefly to the Cath' laity. There are a few of the usual referer to the especially sinful cruelty of our tin which seem, as always, parochial, and in any c fall oddly from churchmen's lips; but it is teresting.
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Also interesting, in a less friendly sense. Zsolt Aradi's The Book of Miracles, becaus shows how much human beings will stand for the matter of esoteric conviction. Here are stone madonnas weeping real tears, here are miracles of Lourdes, with pictures of testify doctors of anti-clerical views looking awkwt here is Our Lady of the Golden Hair with thi] three appearances to her loving credit, and h too; among the ancient and modern miracles, the devil's false wonders—possessions, occulti ghosts and hobgoblins. In one of , the pictu Padre Pio's hand bleeds with the stigmata-wou in another the blood of St. Gennaro liquefies the presence of celebrating bespectacled prie The general argument is not free from asperit I pass with relief to Dr. Wand, who by con- trast seems hardly Christian at all, especially when, on the missionary function of the Church, he observes so mildly : 'If we believe that God Himself has pointed out the right road, it would be a breach of charity not to say so,' But, for all that, there is something at times almost comical in this great Anglican's bland style. A true believer he is, and with much to say of good sense, as well as religious orthodoxy, on the subject of false gods, meaning false values. The book is meant for ordinary readers who may, perhaps, be envisaged as a happy band of shareholders whose popular chairman is presenting a first-rate balance sheet.
Judge Not, by Aymer Roberts, calls itself an autobiographical confession and shows, in the most fascinating, absurd way possible, hoW an eccentric English gentleman—soldier, barrister and theological student—a gay, friendly creature with homosexual leanings, enormous intellectual appetite and some brave and hilarious adventur- ing, notably in India, can square being at every moment every inch his own not always edify n8 but most honest self with Christ, faith and fond- ness. Incidentally, what he says about homo- sexuality is very sensible.
Well, there you are. . . . Christian thought in all its variety of incidence but firmly rooted as to essence. Will people always hanker after religion, must they always have it, will they never, for conscience' sake, put it away, be good for good- ness' sake, not God's? . . . as I heard a woman say to her little child the other day : 'For good- ness' sake, be good.' Will they ever do that?
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