Word: casserley
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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...current retreat from Christianity, as Anglican Casserley sees it, is not solely a modern phenomenon; other times have had their lapses too. What distinguishes the retreat now is its confusion, and one of the two "avenues" it takes. The first, the retreat into the "vacuum" of irreligion, has always been a passing phase. The second is far more dangerous. It occurred when disciples of the "scientific outlook" or "atheist humanism," who began their movements as a protest against Christianity, fell prey to substitute "religions" of their own devising. "[This] retreat from Christianity into religion . . . may fill that [spiritual] vacuum . . . giving...
...Pantheon. There are three modern retreats from Christianity into religion. The first, "natural religion," grew out of the optimistic rationalism of the 18th century. It survives as a faith that man's reason and philosophy can provide the only valid moral standards. The second substitute religion is what Casserley calls "comparative religion." Its disciples strip Christ of his divinity and Christianity of its divine mission, but concede that Christianity contains certain "basic" ethical truths. The result: "A Christ who would never have inspired the martyrs ... a Christ who would be quite happy in a pantheon, His image tolerantly rubbing...
Third, and most dangerous, there is the "pseudo-divinity of the modern state . . . a divinity thrust upon it by masses of insecure and frustrated people, insistently demanding some powerful and venerable object of faith and trust." Author Casserley compares the modern revolutionary movements to "the more discreditable phases of church history." Their symptoms: "A minute and hairsplitting dogmatism enthusiastically engaged upon for its own sake: the persecution of deviant shades of opinion; an enthusiastic cult of the [human] savior...
...Christian hope." It is unrealistic to think that political and administrative machinery can weld mankind into "a rationalized mass without first transforming [it] into a fellowship." Here again a substitute religion has too limited a goal, hardly the advance on Christianity that it hoped to be. Concludes Author Casserley: "Surpassed Christianity indeed! We have none of us yet caught up with...