1926

I had a letter from a young preacher today who told me how he was suffering for truth’s sake. He had merely been telling his congregation that Jesus was a great spiritual teacher, as was Confucius and Laotsze, and that the Christ idea was the product of Greek legend and ancient mythology. His good people were so ignorant, he thought, that they failed to show proper appreciation of his learning and resented his iconoclasm.

I find myself reacting violently to the sophomoric cocksureness of this young fellow. I suppose I am getting old and have made those compromises with the devil of superstition against which the editor of the Christian Register warns so hysterically. But for the life of me I can no more reduce Jesus to the status of a mere Galilean dreamer and teacher than I can accept the orthodox Christologies. The person who can make no distinction between a necessary symbolism and mythology seems to me no better than the wooden-headed conservative who insists that every bit of religious symbolism and poetry must be accepted literally and metaphysically.

It is not easy to define the God idea. Scientifically I suppose God is “the element of spirituality which is integral to reality,” but for all practical and religious purposes I find it both helpful and justified to define him by saying that “God is like Jesus.” The ultimate nature of reality cannot be grasped by science alone; poetic imagination is as necessary as scientific precision. Some of the supposedly ignorant peasants against whom my youthful friend is drawing his heroic sword may have more truth on their side than any fresh young theologue could possibly realize.