The next six chapters began with a Quaker discussion group, which I was asked to chair. They are not a resume of the discussions; they are a resume of the homework I did before each discussion took place. If the discussion went well, I was content to draw out the opinions of others, and said little about my own views. If the discussion began to falter, I had a fund of thoughts with which to help things along. The choice of subject was somewhat haphazard; as one evening ended, the subject for the next meeting was chosen.
So these are individual essays, written up after the discussions were all over, at a time when the atrocity of the 11th September was very much in mind. I have altered them little. They are essays on science and religion, and religion and war. Not all Quakers are Christians, and half are pacifists. If I was to chair the discussions, I had to accommodate such views as much as I possibly could. So many of the opinions expressed in these essays were never voiced in the discussions; they were the homework I did beforehand, to help the discussion along if need be. If the discussion was going well, politeness and tact demanded I did not voice opinions which some of those present might have found provocative. Maybe traditional Christian pieties were less respected than usual. But they were happy evenings.
The essays on the thought of Jesus were written afterwards, but very much as a sequel to the discussions. I would not have written them, had the discussions not taken place.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS.
If Thomas a Kempis said one thing profoundly true, it was that a few sentences of Jesus were worth all the writings of the Saints put together. Yet much of the Sermon on the Mount, if taken literally as it was pretty clearly intended to be taken, is completely irresponsible in the changed social conditions today. Christ’s experience, and therefore his knowledge, was very limited. Human nature may not change; but the social conditions are as dramatically different as can be imagined from what they were in his day. What Jesus said about the relationship of God to man may be timeless; but it would be surprising if he gave much useful advice on how to cope with the problems of everyday life.
In War every great commander knows that every campaign and every battle is unlike any other, and demands of him a completely fresh appraisal of the situation as he sees it, and all the facts bearing on it, not least the ability of himself and his men to accomplish what he has in mind. His outstanding intellect must understand profoundly what is to take place. He must be confident in his own judgement, and never follow slavishly the plans of successful commanders in the past, however attractive. To do so, and force them to fit new situations, is the road to catastrophe.
I know that this is equally true of the civilian world. Every significant legal case demands the same kind of appraisal; and the way to present it must be thought out afresh. Nowhere in the Gospels do you find this secular wisdom. I do not believe Jesus was attempting to give serious guidance about conduct in the secular world; the parable of the unjust steward is trivial in comparison. If he was, then I have no hesitation in preferring my own lifetime’s experience to anything Jesus may have said. He preached the good-news of the kingdom of heaven. And the question everyone must ask himself, who takes Jesus seriously, is whether the Christian life is an attempt to get into heaven, or is it an attempt to live life properly in this world, which must include getting involved in the secular world? The medieval mystic, John Ruesbroke, wrote that the perfect life was not the contemplative life; the perfect life was when a man had perfected his contemplation, and then gone out to live an ordinary life in the community. Was he right? Or does the Christian seek a perfection that keeps him unstained by the secular world?