Historical Character Of Christianity Obscured


Christ's mission is misunderstood to-day as well as His cosmic work.

In certain religious quarters where zeal is not balanced by learning,

His mission as the founder of a religious society is forgotten. To

those who are deficient in historic sense the continuity of the Church

down the centuries seems unimportant, and institutional religion a

hindrance rather than a help to the spiritual life of the individual

Christia
. Pietism of this kind has always been present in the church;

to-day it is prevalent. It nominally associates its piety with the

historic Christ, but actually it worships an ideal constructed by its

own ethical imagination. Such pietists spiritualise the faith. The

facts of the historic creed are to them little more than symbols of

religious truth. Spiritual resurrection, spiritual ascension are the

only miracles for them. This tendency to spiritualise everything is a

phase of monophysitism. It results from losing sight of the person of

the historic Christ, and resolving His assumption of human nature into

the assumption of a title.



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