RELIGION AND CHANGE
By
The secular character of our time is unprecedented in Western history. The question now arising is whether the one world of the future will be completely secular. In pursuing it, the author, Dean of King's College, Cambridge, examines the social, psychological, and intellectual challenges to traditional Christian dogma that have arisen. He concludes that neither Protestant Fundamentalism nor conservative Catholicism are likely ever again to be powerful in the West. But if our ""post-Christian"" society is confronted by problems in its search for a new religion, these problems are not as great as those faced by Westerners seeking a religious substitute for Christianity. Asian religions are found to have much the same kind of problems. Is it possible, then, to have a new shape of Christian belief and of the Christian church? On these two points, the book is less satisfactory than in its analysis of the present religious situation. The new church would seem to be ecumenical but along lines congenial to--say--Anglicanism; and the new faith at times takes for granted matters that some would regard as being in question. There is some tendency, also, for the book to accept uncritically the value of some religious experimentation in the past two decades. Its major contribution is the comprehensive survey of the present situation.