And to suggest that the historical Jesus, with his love for humanity, has the solution to all our problems, is a very dangerous doctrine. He knew nothing of science and nothing of war; and this doctrine means that we can solve all our problems, with his help, with an equal ignorance of science and war. And that, I would have thought, is sheer madness; the same madness that led to the appeasement of the 1930s, which made it impossible to stand firm at Munich, which in turn made War inevitable in which around 60 million people died. Not to mention the fact that had the Western Allies lost, Christian civilization would have been snuffed out in Europe, and a new Dark Age would have descended possibly on all the world.
If therefore he was the Saviour of the world, as I firmly believe he was, it is necessary to give him full credit for all his achievements; but not crediting him with achievements, which exist only in our wishful-thinking. And his greatest achievement was, of course, being himself. In some mysterious way he set our spirits free from the superstition and spiritual darkness of the past. Yet he had something to tell us about the Almighty, the Creator, both in his teaching, and even more in his life and death, that no-one else could tell us. And it is time we tried to distil his unique message from his repetition of the contemporary wisdom of the culture in which he grew up. However splendid the rhetoric of the Sermon on the Mount, I understand it was largely current thought in the Middle East at that time.
Christians naturally want to believe and proclaim that their religion is better than any other. And Professor Eucken, in his monumental work “The Truth of Religion”, expended a great deal of time and scholarship arguing that they are right. But even if they are right, it does not excuse the Church, throughout the Middle Ages and afterwards, torturing anyone who disagreed. And I would have thought it was elementary that no torturer, however conscientious, had any hope of getting into the heaven of the man who forgave those driving the nails into his hands and feet. That sort of intolerance excludes you, probably for good. And I would think it fairly safe to say that the Judges and torturers of the Inquisition excluded themselves permanently from the Salvation which they claimed to be upholding. At any rate, their conduct should make it obvious that great care is needed in selecting those features of Christianity that make it a better religion than any other.
For example, it is no good saying that Jesus in Gethsemane called God “Abba Father” and so gave his religion a unique intimacy with God. I understand that the pigmies of the African jungles pray to “God our Father”, adding “We are your children, surely you will save us?” Jesus may have refined primitive prayer to unequalled heights, but that is a matter of judgement, not of definition. Nor is it any good saying that the celebration of the Eucharist re-enacts the divine union between the soul and God, and this gives Christianity its unique position, because all religions have their mystical side, and I understand that the language of mystical union in all religions is virtually the same.