Public Opinion and Theology (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1920 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI JESUS We are considering the forces which in the long run may be depended on to check the play of sudden gusts of popular feeling and to bring men back to those solider human values which mankind will in the end give the first place. Foremost among such steadying factors the Christian puts the teachings and life of Jesus. It is no part of our purpose to linger long on the critical questions raised by modern students concerning Jesus. We are not concerned with the relation of the fourth Gospel to the other three, or with the dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark, or with the possibility of rebuilding "Q" from the synoptics. It may be that our actual knowledge of the historical Jesus is much less than we have been accustomed to suppose. All our purpose requires is the existence in Christian consciousness of a fairly consistent picture of Jesus which is strong enough to influence the thought and deed of men. It has been said of Jesus that even though we know little about him we know that he was such a life as to attract to himself the best in the thought of every age. If this is true, the more we reduce the minimum of certain knowledge about him the more we increase the miracle of that spiritual magnetism which through the years marshals so much of the best in the world's thought and deed around himself as a center. The power of Jesus to pull so much around himself is no small marvel. Taking the picture of Jesus, then, as we find it in the Gospels, and as it has more or less thoroughly mirrored itself in the consciousness of the believers, we see first of all a Mind which looked upon man as he is. One element of the knowledge of Jesus is seldom questioned, namely, his knowledge of human nature. And that knowledge combined two main features--a recog...