French Christianity

Extract

The more I get on in years, the more certain I am that a Christian is nothing without Christ, even from a purely human point of view; that the unimaginable gift, which we have received without having in any way deserved, has this terrible counterpart that in betraying it we fall lower than the most inferior men, becoming monsters in the etymological sense of the word. If Christians felt this fearful truth profoundly they would no longer be tempted to despise the sceptics and to divide mankind into two parts, the Good and the Bad, placing themselves, of course, among the former. They would understand that the amazing privilege which has been bestowed upon them forbids them setting themselves up too easily as judges of those to whom it has been denied. They would especially refrain from having those disinherited brothers butchered by machine-guns, on the excuse of honouring Good, and of suffering with Christ on the Cross.

The great unhappiness of this world, the great tragedy of this world is not that there are atheists, but that we are such indifferent Christians; for I am more and more convinced that it is we who are sending the world to perdition, that it is we who are attracting to it the lightning of the Wrath of God. What a folly to pretend to justify ourselves by proudly boasting that we alone are in possession of the truth, of the whole and living truth, of the kind which can liberate and save, while it remains impotent in our hands, or while we remain pitifully on the defensive behind a sort of Maginot line spiked high with prohibitions and inhibitions, as if we had nothing better to do than to guard the Law, whereas our natural and spiritual vocation is to fulfil it.