WHITHER CHRISTIANITY?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26853, 18 August 1948, Page 2

WHITHER CHRISTIANITY?

THE APPROACH OF MATURITY Behold the Spirit. By Alan W. Watts. John Murray. 18s 6d. This is probably one of the most interesting books about religion to come out for many years. Churchmen all over the world have long been lamenting the decay of church-going. Father Watts, who is an Anglican, or Episcopalian, but who is also, and by no means incidentally, deeply versed in Oriental religions, here states a thesis which is startling and of the very deepest interest to the many thousands of people who feel to-day that the orthodox churches fail to give them what they are seeking for in religion. Taking his argument from a study of the history of religion as a periodic phenomenon in the life of humanity, Father Watts argues that Christianity has reached a turning point in its existence. He claims that all religions pass through three phases, childhood, adolescence, and maturity, followed by a decay which is often merged in the childhood of a new religion. Mediaeval Catholicism was, he says, the childhood of Christianity. Protestantism was its sceptical and difficult adolescence. And he claims that its period of maturity is just beginning. This maturity will be marked by a change of emphasis. The emphasis in the childhood phase was on the fatherhood of God. In the adolescent phase, Christ, the Son, became the central figure. And in the mature phase the emphasis will be ofi the Holy Ghost. This will mean that the churches, if they are to regain their hold will have to reorient themselves and to recognise that new times demand new methods. He considers that there is clear evidence of a return to archaic forms of liturgy and symbolism in the churches, in response to this shift of emphasis, not in a spirit of reaction but because the mature religious mind prefers a symbolism that is clearly archaic, since it has learnt or is learning to recognise symbols not as things in themselves, which is a habit of childhood, but as cloaks for reality, and finds it easier to keep this in mind where the symbols are openly archaic in form.

The most interesting part of the book, however, is his blending of the lessons of Christianity with those of Buddhism, and particularly of Zen Buddhism, where he stresses that modern man has need of mysticism in his religion, but points but that the specifically Christian mysticism is the mysticism of the Incarnation, by which God accepted and sanctified'the flesh, that is, the everyday world. Like a Zen master, he preaches the presence of God in every action we perform and everything we see and experience. He deals with the problem of evil in a new and interesting manner, and deals also with the difficulties and moral dangers present in this type of thought. In other words, St. Augustine’s “ Love and do what you like ” must not degenerate into "do what you like," since the word " love" implies that the doer has first attained a very high degree of moral awareness. This book will infuriate many people. The author has some very caustic things to say about some Protestant religious practices and about some modern “ dramatic ” clergymen. But it is a very hopeful book, and while it deals in no uncertain manner with the many modern cults which have persuaded such thousands of genuine seekers after God, every argument is broad based on sound doctrine and buttressed by very good authority. Father Watt’s strictures may upset some neo-Buddhists of the HuxleyHeard persuasion, if they read them with open minds, and they will certainly cause considerable searching of the foundations of their beliefs among cultists of many varieties, but to many others both Protestant and Catholic, the doctrine set out in Behold the Spirit will be welcome indeed. It is a book that is deeply optimistic for the future of Christianity as a world faith, and that roundly rejects the many counsels of despair that have been heard for so long. P. H. W. N.