Reflections on The End of An Era

Extract

Dr Niebuhr has given us a book’ not unlike M. Berdyaev's End of Out Time. Both works lead us to deplore the complacency of Conservatism (as we know it) and the hypocrisy of Mercantile Christianity. Both books drive us to an alternative; with M, Berdiaeff we must choose between the humanistic individualism of the Renascence and Christian individualism, while Dr Niebuhr in impressing upon us the pharisaical injustice of this closing era would induce (it seems) an aggressive and vindictive Christianity.

While M. Berdyaev may be more profound and nearer to Catholic vision, we cannot deny that the author of ‘Reflections on the End of an Era’ is more startling—may even give us more food for thought; and we are provoked to examine for ourselves the antithesis accounting for the attitude indicated in Dr Niebuhr's book—as much as to insist on the only true remedy-a Revolution based on the charity of Christ, Catholicism. The spirit of Conservatism, if we take it to mean the spirit of sheer negative laissez-faire in matters of economic justice, is derived largely from a sense of well-being, a personal satisfaction which we wish to prolong. We prosper: those who are our immediate responsibility prosper: at least we do not want; the business of blind and wholehearted conservatism is the Past; and the Present is no more than its legacy. Our concern for the future is limited to our care for our present ease.