Unofficial Christianity (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. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER OFFICIAL Christianity has had its day. That which is to be will not need the sanction of established authority. It will be because it must be. It will be the renascence of that prophetic oracle, --"I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it, saith the Lord." And it will be characterized broadly by the following traits. I. Democracy. Now is the judgment of this world on autocracy. Now is the emancipation of the imprisoned spirit of democracy. The kingdoms of the world are becoming the commonwealths of the people. The twilight of the imperial gods is here. Into every department of life and thought is the spirit of democracy filtering. Can religion escape it? Not for long, else it will pass into that limbo of myth and fable reserved for the worn-out superstitions of inanimate races. But some will say, "Religion is and always has been democratic." Unpatronized by kings and unformulated by councils, this may be true. True religion "bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the voice thereof, but know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth." Religion in a dogmatic straight-jacket has been and is the religion with which the world is most familiar. Religion formulated, crystallized, conventionalized, hobbled by the weight of majority votes in ecumenical councils, dressed out in obsolete verbiage and pranked out in disproved philosophies, --this is standardized religion, which would bend the free human spirit to wear its inflexible yoke, and intended by God to be a moving river of truth, become instead a stagnant dead sea. The undemocratic aspect of modern official Christianity is plainly noted in two directions: first, its creeds are rigid. Democracy demands that all forms of...