After Pentecost

195:9.1Do not over­look the value of your spir­i­tual her­itage, the river of truth run­ning down through the cen­turies, even to the bar­ren times of a ma­te­ri­al­is­tic and sec­u­lar age. In all your wor­thy ef­forts to rid your­selves of the su­per­sti­tious creeds of past ages, make sure that you hold fast the eter­nal truth. But be pa­tient! when the pres­ent su­per­sti­tion re­volt is over, the truths of Je­sus’ gospel will per­sist glo­ri­ously to il­lu­mi­nate a new and bet­ter way.

195:9.2But pa­ganized and so­cial­ized Chris­tian­ity stands in need of new con­tact with the un­com­pro­mised teach­ings of Je­sus; it lan­guishes for lack of a new vi­sion of the Mas­ter’s life on earth. A new and fuller rev­e­la­tion of the re­li­gion of Je­sus is des­tined to con­quer an em­pire of ma­te­ri­al­is­tic sec­u­lar­ism and to over­throw a world sway of mech­a­nis­tic nat­u­ral­ism. Uran­tia is now quiv­er­ing on the very brink of one of its most amaz­ing and en­thralling epochs of so­cial read­just­ment, moral quick­en­ing, and spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment.

195:9.3The teach­ings of Je­sus, even though greatly mod­i­fied, sur­vived the mys­tery cults of their birth­time, the ig­no­rance and su­per­sti­tion of the dark ages, and are even now slowly tri­umph­ing over the ma­te­ri­al­ism, mech­a­nism, and sec­u­lar­ism of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury. And such times of great test­ing and threat­ened de­feat are al­ways times of great rev­e­la­tion.

195:9.4Re­li­gion does need new lead­ers, spir­i­tual men and women who will dare to de­pend solely on Je­sus and his in­com­pa­ra­ble teach­ings. If Chris­tian­ity per­sists in ne­glect­ing its spir­i­tual mis­sion while it con­tin­ues to busy it­self with so­cial and ma­te­rial prob­lems, the spir­i­tual re­nais­sance must await the com­ing of these new teach­ers of Je­sus’ re­li­gion who will be ex­clu­sively de­voted to the spir­i­tual re­gen­er­a­tion of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly sup­ply the lead­er­ship and in­spi­ra­tion req­ui­site for the so­cial, moral, eco­nomic, and po­lit­i­cal re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the world.

195:9.5The mod­ern age will refuse to ac­cept a re­li­gion which is in­con­sis­tent with facts and out of har­mony with its high­est con­cep­tions of truth, beauty, and good­ness. The hour is strik­ing for a re­dis­cov­ery of the true and orig­i­nal foun­da­tions of pres­ent-day dis­torted and com­pro­mised Chris­tian­ity—the real life and teach­ings of Je­sus.

195:9.6Prim­i­tive man lived a life of su­per­sti­tious bond­age to re­li­gious fear. Mod­ern, civ­i­lized men dread the thought of falling un­der the dom­i­nance of strong re­li­gious con­vic­tions. Think­ing man has al­ways feared to be held by a re­li­gion. When a strong and mov­ing re­li­gion threat­ens to dom­i­nate him, he in­vari­ably tries to ra­tio­nal­ize, tra­di­tion­al­ize, and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ize it, thereby hop­ing to gain con­trol of it. By such pro­ce­dure, even a re­vealed re­li­gion be­comes man-made and man-dom­i­nated. Mod­ern men and women of in­tel­li­gence evade the re­li­gion of Je­sus be­cause of their fears of what it will do to them—and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The re­li­gion of Je­sus does, in­deed, dom­i­nate and trans­form its be­liev­ers, de­mand­ing that men ded­i­cate their lives to seek­ing for a knowl­edge of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven and re­quir­ing that the en­er­gies of liv­ing be con­se­crated to the un­selfish ser­vice of the broth­er­hood of man.

195:9.7Self­ish men and women sim­ply will not pay such a price for even the great­est spir­i­tual trea­sure ever of­fered mor­tal man. Only when man has be­come suf­fi­ciently dis­il­lu­sioned by the sor­row­ful dis­ap­point­ments at­ten­dant upon the fool­ish and de­cep­tive pur­suits of self­ish­ness, and sub­se­quent to the dis­cov­ery of the bar­ren­ness of for­mal­ized re­li­gion, will he be dis­posed to turn whole­heart­edly to the gospel of the king­dom, the re­li­gion of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth.

195:9.8The world needs more first­hand re­li­gion. Even Chris­tian­ity—the best of the re­li­gions of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury—is not only a re­li­gion about Je­sus, but it is so largely one which men ex­pe­ri­ence sec­ond­hand. They take their re­li­gion wholly as handed down by their ac­cepted re­li­gious teach­ers. What an awak­en­ing the world would ex­pe­ri­ence if it could only see Je­sus as he re­ally lived on earth and know, first­hand, his life-giv­ing teach­ings! De­scrip­tive words of things beau­ti­ful can­not thrill like the sight thereof, nei­ther can creedal words in­spire men’s souls like the ex­pe­ri­ence of know­ing the pres­ence of God. But ex­pec­tant faith will ever keep the hope-door of man’s soul open for the en­trance of the eter­nal spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the di­vine val­ues of the worlds be­yond.

195:9.9Chris­tian­ity has dared to lower its ide­als be­fore the chal­lenge of hu­man greed, war-mad­ness, and the lust for power; but the re­li­gion of Je­sus stands as the un­sul­lied and tran­scen­dent spir­i­tual sum­mons, call­ing to the best there is in man to rise above all these lega­cies of an­i­mal evo­lu­tion and, by grace, at­tain the moral heights of true hu­man des­tiny.

195:9.10Chris­tian­ity is threat­ened by slow death from for­mal­ism, overor­ga­ni­za­tion, in­tel­lec­tu­al­ism, and other non­spir­i­tual trends. The mod­ern Chris­tian church is not such a broth­er­hood of dy­namic be­liev­ers as Je­sus com­mis­sioned con­tin­u­ously to ef­fect the spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion of suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of man­kind.

195:9.11So-called Chris­tian­ity has be­come a so­cial and cul­tural move­ment as well as a re­li­gious be­lief and prac­tice. The stream of mod­ern Chris­tian­ity drains many an an­cient pa­gan swamp and many a bar­bar­ian morass; many olden cul­tural wa­ter­sheds drain into this pres­ent-day cul­tural stream as well as the high Galilean table­lands which are sup­posed to be its ex­clu­sive source.