The Reconstruction of Religion

Extract

In the process of world readjustment incident to the war no department of man's life is likely to remain unaffected. Probably the more deeply we go into human nature, the more profound will be the reactions. On the surface the earth will not be the same. The scars which the Thirty Years' War left upon Europe have not yet been wholly effaced. Although the World War did not last as long, its far greater intensity and destructive force insure a vaster modification of outward nature. We already begin to see how powerfully government, society, and industry are to be affected. The whole order of life is being subjected to new pressures and set in new directions. The programme of education will have to be rearranged to meet the demands of a young manhood which has been tested ideally and practically as no other has ever been tested. Is it then likely that religion, that last resort of the human spirit, can hope to escape the challenge of the hour? To indicate certain tendencies which are already apparent and to point out the probable changes which they foreshadow—one can hardly hope to do more at this time—is the purpose of this article. It will have to do not merely with the attitude of the popular mind toward religion in general, but more particularly with the demand which it is likely to make upon the Church as the depositary and working instrument of religion.