Religious Reality: A Book For Men - free ebook by A. E. J. (Alfred Edward John) Rawlinson

RELIGIOUS REALITY

Student of Christ Church, Oxford; Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield; Priest-In-Charge of St. John The Evangelist, Wilton Road, S.W.; Formerly Tutor of Keble College and Late Chaplain to the Forces....

12 minute read

Read Chapter

PREFACE

This is a book which is wanted. Thoughtful men, in every class, are not afraid of theology, i.e. of a reasoned account of their religion, but they want a theology which can be stated without conventions and technicalities; they do not at all care for a religion which pretends to do away with all mystery, but they are glad to be assured of the essential reasonableness of the Christian Faith; they do not expect a ready-made solution of the problem of evil, but they wish to see it honestly faced; a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This book has grown out of the writer's experience in preparing men and officers in military hospitals for Confirmation. It represents, in a considerably expanded but—as it is hoped—still simple form, the kind of things which he would have wished to say to them, and to others with whom he was brought into contact, if he had had more time and opportunity than was usually afforded him. It seemed necessary to write the book, because there did not appear to be in existence any reasonably short book

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INTRODUCTION

Vital religion begins for a man when lie first discovers the reality of the living GOD. Most men indeed profess a belief in GOD, a vague acknowledgment of the existence of "One above": but the belief counts for little in their lives. GOD, if He exists at all, must obviously be important: and it is conceivable that He prefers the dogmatic atheism of a man here and a man there, or the serious agnosticism of a slightly larger number, to the practical indifference of the majority. "There are two att

57 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I

It is best to begin with a study of the teaching and character of Christ. Scholars for about a hundred years have been studying the Gospels historically, "like any other books." It is now reasonably certain that the first three Gospels—those which we know as the Gospels according to S. Matthew, S. Mark, and S. Luke—though not, of course, infallible or accurate in their every detail, reflect nevertheless in a general way a trustworthy portrait of Jesus as He actually lived. The sayings ascribed t

13 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II

It was characteristic of the ancient Jews that they had a vital belief in the living GOD: and belief in GOD, and that of a far more real and definite kind than the modern Englishman's vague admission of the existence of a Supreme Being, was a thing which Jesus was able to take for granted in those to whom He spoke. GOD to the Jew was the GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, holy and righteous, gracious and merciful: active and operative in the world, the Controller of events: having a purpose for I

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III

To know GOD and to find Him revealed in Jesus Christ is not enough. To have set before one in the human life of Jesus an ideal of character, a pattern of perfect manhood for imitation, if the message of the Gospel were regarded as stopping short at that point, could only be discouraging to men conscious of moral weakness, of spiritual impotence and incapacity. It is probable that one of the reasons why the plain man to-day is so very apt to regard Christianity as consisting in the profession of

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV

God, as Christianity reveals Him, is no cold or remote Being, no abstract Principle-of-All-Things, reposing aloof and impersonal in the stillness of an eternal calm. He is rather the boundless energy of an eternal Life—"no motionless eternity of perfection, but an overflowing vitality, an inexhaustible fecundity, the everlasting well-spring of all existence." He is the eternal Creator of all things; not indeed in any sense which commits us to a literal acceptance of the mythology of Genesis, but

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V

But are not the evil and misery of the world, is not all that which we know as "sin" and pain, in manifest contradiction to this Christian conception of a GOD of Love? Most certainly they are: and it has been the strength of Christianity from the beginning that—unlike many rival systems and philosophies, including the "Christian Science" movement of modern times—it has always faced facts, and in particular has never regarded pain and sin, disease and sorrow and death, as anything but the stubbor

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI

The Gospel affirms that men are called to be sons of GOD; to be perfect, as the heavenly Father is perfect. The correlative of this ideal view of man as he is meant to be is a sombre view of man as he actually is. "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of GOD." Sin is essentially a falling short, a missing of the mark, a failure to correspond with the purpose and the will of GOD. It need not necessarily invo

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII

The GOD and Father of Jesus Christ loves every human being individually, cares for each and has a specific vocation for each one to fulfil. This doctrine of the equal preciousness in the sight of GOD of all human souls is for Christianity fundamental. But the correlative of Divine fatherhood is human brotherhood: just because GOD is love, and fellowship is life and heaven, and the lack of it is hell, GOD does not redeem men individually, but as members of a brotherhood, a Church. The Church is s

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII

The last chapter sketched the ideal of the Church and her essential mission. The realization of that ideal in the existing Church, visibly embodied here in earth is extremely fragmentary and imperfect. The Church that is one, and holy, and apostolic, and catholic, the brotherhood in Christ of all mankind, knit into unity by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, remains a vision of the future, though a vision which, once seen, mankind will never relinquish until it be accomplished. "I believe in the

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX

It is sometimes asked whether the sacraments of the Christian Church are two or more than two in number. The answer depends in part upon how the term "sacrament" is defined. But the wisest teaching is that which recognizes in particular sacraments—such as Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—the operation of a general principle which runs throughout all human experience, in things both sacred and profane. "I have no soul," remarked a well-known preacher on a famous occasion, "I have no soul, becau

25 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X

"It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment." "He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose Kingdom shall have no end." "I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." Jesus Christ spoke in symbolical language of His coming in the clouds of heaven as Son of Man with power and great glory, and declared that the Divine verdict upon the lives and deeds of men should be determined by their relationship to Him and to His ideal

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XI

The clergy are not the Church. They are a specialized class within it. They are men who believe themselves to be called by GOD to give themselves for life to the particular work of caring directly for the spiritual interests of their fellows. To this end they are set apart by ordination. They hold the commission and authorization of the Church to minister the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel in the name of Christ and of the Brotherhood. Their task is high and difficult. It is not wonderful if t

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII

The Bible is the "sacred Book" of Christianity, as the Koran is the sacred Book of Mohammedanism; with this difference, however, that Christianity, as the religion of the Spirit, can never be, like Mohammedanism, a "religion of the Book," any more than it can be, like ancient Judaism, a religion of the Law. The Biblical writings include two main collections of books, known as the Old Testament and the New Testament respectively, of which the latter alone is distinctively Christian. Intermediate

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I

Christianity in practice means the dedication of life to the unselfish service of GOD and man, in the light of the ideals of Jesus Christ, and in the power of an inward spiritual life which is hid with Christ in GOD. The Christian, renouncing such merely worldly ideals as self- advancement, personal or family ambition, the accumulation of money, or the enjoyment, for their own sake, of the things which money can buy, is called to seek first and in all things GOD'S Kingdom and His righteousness,

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II

The three traditional enemies of the Christian life are symbolized under the headings of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, and the classification has a certain convenience. The "World" stands in this connexion for human society in so far as it is organized apart from Christ. It is obvious that "the way of the world," as represented by the general outlook of conventional society, is in many respects in manifest conflict with the principles of the Gospel. The existing social order is the produc

7 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III

Sins of the flesh include all forms of slackness and bodily self- indulgence. A Christian is called to assert the supremacy of the spirit over the flesh by controlling his bodily impulses and disciplining his desires. There is, therefore, a true Christian asceticism. But asceticism, in so far as it is genuinely Christian, is never an end in itself. It is a discipline which promotes efficiency. It is to be compared to an athlete's training, not to the self- mutilation of a fakir. There is in Chri

12 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV

The devil is from one point of view a figure of Jewish and Christian mythology. The Jews, like other early peoples, believed in the existence of evil spirits or demons, to whose malignant agency they ascribed various diseases, both functional and organic, and in particular those unhappy cases of obsession, fixed idea, and multiple personality, which we should now class under the general head of insanity, and treat in asylums for the mentally deranged. The New Testament writings are full of this

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V

Christianity in the last three chapters has been considered on its negative side as involving a conflict against temptation. But the Christian ideal is positive rather than negative. We have only to think for a moment of the character and life of Christ in order to realize how ludicrously impoverished a conception of the Gospel righteousness is that which regards it as exhausted by the meticulous avoidance of sin. "Christian purity," it has been said, "is not a snowy abstinence but a white-hot p

10 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI

This chapter ought properly to be written by a layman who is also a Christian man of business. It is inserted here mainly to challenge inquiry and to provoke thought. The writer has no first-hand acquaintance either with business life or with business methods. He desires simply to chronicle an impression that the level of morality in the business world has been declining in recent years, and that the more thoughtful and candid of Christian laymen in business are beginning to be deeply disquieted

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VII

Labour problems have always existed, but the development of industrialism as we know it to-day is comparatively modern. It dates from the introduction of machinery and mechanical transport, and coincided in its beginnings with the vogue of the so-called "Manchester School" in political and economic theory. The modern world of industry has been built up by the enterprise of capitalists working upon the basis of unrestricted competition. Joint-stock companies and "trusts" are simply capitalistic c

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VIII

Politics at their worst are a discreditable struggle between parties and groups for selfish, and sectional ends, full of dishonesty and chicanery and corruption. It is often recognized at the present time as desirable that none should be for party, but all for the state. The Christian ideal goes further than this: it is that none should be for party, but all for the Kingdom of GOD, and for the state only in so far as the state is capable of being made the instrument of that higher ideal. The Chr

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IX

Christianity is opposed to war, in the sense that if men and nations universally behaved as Christians, wars would cease. The ideal of the Kingdom of GOD involves the reign upon earth of universal peace. War is, therefore, in itself, an unchristian thing. It is, moreover, a barbarous and irrational method of determining disputes, since the factors which humanly speaking are decisive for success in war, viz. the organized and unflinching use of superior physical force, are in principle irrelevant

5 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER X

No element in Christian practice has been more widely challenged in modern times than the Christian ideal of marriage. Our Lord's standard in these matters was simple and austere. "Whoso looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already in his heart." "Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication" (the exceptive clause is of disputed authenticity) "causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." The

11 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER I

The practice of Christianity depends for its possibility upon the existence and maintenance within the soul of an inward principle of spiritual life towards GOD. The reason why so many nominal Christians fail conspicuously to manifest the fruits of Christianity in their lives is simply that they have no vital personal experience of the power and efficacy of the life in Christ. They have never been effectually gripped by the religion which they nominally profess. They are not transformed, or in p

4 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II

Prayer is a difficult matter, both in theory and in practice. But it is essential to learn to pray. It is important to recognize that the scope of Christian prayer is much wider than mere intercession or petition. It is the communion of the soul with GOD, and its purpose is union with the life of GOD in identity of purpose with His will. The beginning of prayer is a sursum corda , a lifting up of the heart to GOD. It is well to remember that true prayer is never a solitary act, even when a man p

8 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER III

"The unexamined life," said Plato, "is not worth living." Similar advice was given by Marcus Aurelius. The practice of self-examination, therefore, is not distinctive of Christianity: it is an obvious dictate of wisdom, wherever life and conduct are regarded seriously, that a man should from time to time take stock of himself in the light of his ideals and learn to know and recognize in detail where and how he has fallen short, and what are the besetting sins and weaknesses against which he must

9 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER IV

The really essential thing is the Communion. There may be minor outward differences as to the manner of its celebration: you shall find in one parish a tradition of Puritan bareness, in another a full and rich ceremonial symbolism, with lights and vestments. A man may have his personal preferences, but it is a mistake to attach undue importance either to the presence or to the absence of the external adjuncts of worship. What matters is the Body and Blood of Christ. A man must have his own regul

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER V

It is to be feared that the habit of reading the Bible in private for purposes of devotion has largely dropped out of modern usage, partly by reason of the general stress and urgency of modern life, and partly because men do not quite know what to make of the Bible when they read it. They are aware of the existence of what are called "critical questions," but they do not know precisely the kind of differences which criticism has made. It is a pity to acquiesce in an attitude of this kind, and it

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER VI

The two things were originally closely connected. Men fasted in order to give to others the savings which resulted from a reduced expenditure on personal needs. "Lent savings" represent a modern revival of this idea. The essence of Christian almsgiving is that it should be the expression of Christian charity or love: and love means the willingness to serve others, at cost to self. Gifts and subscriptions which represent merely the largess of a man's superfluity and cost nothing in the way of per

3 minute read

Read Chapter