THE NEW MAN FOR OUR TIME
A POLARIZED GENERATION
Because Christianity exists, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the world, all mankind has a stake in the health of the Christian community. It is the function of the faith to remold civilization by providing a vision without which the people perish. This service cannot be performed unless the Christian community demonstrates the unity it seeks to engender. The redemptive process is hindered whenever the faith is fractured.
The sad contemporary truth is that the Christian community is seriously divided. Division is, of course, nothing new; what is new is the form that the division takes. The rift of our generation is not between denominations, which are increasingly similar in faith and in methods of operation. People find it possible to move from one denominational affiliation to another with such remarkable ease that they can hardly tell the difference. Moreover, the once acute conflict between Roman Catholicism and other forms of Christianity is vastly reduced. The employment of national languages in the mass, the practice of using lay readers of the Scriptures, and the growing probability of married clergy all help to bridge the gap that was once so obvious and seemed so hard to cross. But no sooner do we bridge old separations until new ones appear.
The new division that is really serious for the entire Christian Cause is not between denominations, but within them. A rift has appeared that runs right down the middle of countless local congregations and is felt in every segment of the total Christian community. The rivalry between sects has been succeeded by the rivalry between parties.
To be truly contemporary is to know where the line of battle is and, consequently, not waste time and energy upon outworn controversies. Those who are patterning their effort on the battles of the last war are very likely to lose the present one. It is accordingly time to say that anyone who loses sleep over denominational rivalries is really out of touch with his generation and also that anyone who fails to sense the seriousness of the rivalry of parties is equally out of touch. Woe to that person who does not know what time it is! "Why," asked Christ, "do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Luke 12:56). While there is a shallow contemporaneity that neglects the rich resources of the past, there is also a profound contemporaneity that makes men seek to concentrate upon those issues that are crucial at the present.