GOD IS A NEW LANGUAGE

It is Dom Sebastian's belief that God must be either a totally new language or a wholly dead word in the modern world. By that he means that the traditional Catholic conventions about ""salvation,"" ""love of God,"" ""sin,"" ""morality"" and so forth are symbols which have ceased to correspond to the reality which they are supposed to represent, and that new symbols-not to say new meanings--must be developed which reflect not only the old realities but also the new needs of man. For the author regards the Christian message generally, and the gospels specifically, as nothing if not above all a call to reality. With that in mind, he examines many of the symbols to which he objects: God, Jesus, life, death, evil, Christian love, pointing out what is amiss in each traditional concept and what is the remedy for each malady. His style is delightfully unacademic, even racy, and readable by everyone from the highschool student to the hurried scholar; and his message is a deadly serious one: Christianity, if it is to survive, must learn to communicate in terms-intelligible to the twentieth century--and it has not done so yet. This book is a large step forward in the right direction.