Maybe it is worth making an attempt to rewrite religion in modern thought idioms, and in modern English; but what are the chances of success? None; unless one has had sufficient experience to test the truths of religion to the limit. So what are my credentials?
Before answering that question, it is more logical to ask what Christianity is all about; because only when one knows that, is anyone in a position to decide whether my experience was a valid test of it, or not. Jesus Christ, whom I firmly believe saved mankind, saw himself as the Jewish Messiah, foretold by the prophets. He may have been right, or he may have been wrong; but that was how he saw himself. I do not think he had any alternative. The Jewish authorities of his day rejected his claims; but if he had claimed to be mankind’s Saviour in any other way, nobody would even have listened to him. A fine apology for him is Professor Sir John Seeley’s Ecce Homo, first published in 1865. And I gather Gladstone gave him the professorship on the strength of this book. He looked at things through Jesus’ own eyes, set out his claims to kingship, the partial legislative and judicial functions which he claimed, and showed how his life was consistent with this thesis. Essentially his Kingdom was to be a return to the theocracy of the early Israel; so civic duty became loyalty to himself!
Well, unfortunately he did not get the chance to put it all into practice in this world of flesh and blood; so whilst his example is incomparable, his teaching may not be all that much help to us today. If the Gospels are anything like accurate, Jesus Christ never recognised the civic duty of a man to work for the welfare of the community. If the story of the Gadarene swine has any truth in it, he tore up Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Yet we could not return to the theocracy of ancient Israel, even if we wanted to; and after the experience of the corruption of the later Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the Thirty Years War, heaven save us from another theocracy! So we are faced with the uncomfortable choice, that if we take the Sermon on the Mount literally it is an end to the Rule of Law and all civilized society; on the other hand if we insist on regarding the Rule of Law as one of the greatest blessings mankind has ever experienced, which must be retained at all costs, then we have no alternative but to substitute our judgement for that of Jesus. Yet what I have been slow to recognize is that his solution to the problem of conflicting loyalties, loyalty to his God and loyalty to his family, was to invoke the Divine Creativeness. He did this particularly in his healings, of which there are many stories; most of which I firmly believe to be true. There have been healers in every age, including our own. And my view is that to deny that healing happens from time to time is just perverse. By invoking the Divine creativeness I suppose he hoped to synthesize a greater whole out of the conflicting parts, and I expect he did. Furthermore, great leader that he was, if the Last Discourses in John’s Gospel are anything like accurate, he invited his followers to carry on from where he left off. So it is no disrespect to him to say that today we prefer to rely on our own judgement.
So what does Christianity stand for today, if indeed it stands for anything? Is it a road to Heaven in a world beyond death? Or is it an inspiration to live aright in this world, and a consolation when things go wrong, as they usually do? I suppose the answer is a bit of both. Historically the Church has been ambivalent about the secular world. Jesus called it “Mammon”, and told his followers they had to choose between God and Mammon. St.Paul in his letters exhorted men to be law-abiding, and as an encouragement told them that Judges were appointed by God. Actually he was unduly flattering to those exercising the power of appointment. Judges are appointed by cronyism; and I doubt if it was any different then. Certainly the Emperor Julian, if Gibbon is reliable, agrees with me. So does the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Bible’s book of secular wisdom. By the time the Book of Revelation was written, the pendulum had swung back. Rome was the “Great Harlot”.