The Rival Philosophies Of Jesus And Of Paul (1919) (Hardcover)

THE RIVAL PHILOSOPHIES OF JESUS AND OF PAUL THE RIVAL PHILO SOPHIES OF JESUS AND OF PAUL BEING AN EXPLANATION OF THE FAILURES OF ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY AND A VIN DICATION OF THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS, WHICH ARE SHOWN TO CONTAIN A RELIGION FOR ALL MEN AND FOR ALL TIMES IGNATIUS SINGER AUTHOR OF SOME UNRICOGNIZID LAWS OF NATVM, PROBLEMS or uri, ETC. LONDON GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W. C. i CHICAGO THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY TO ALL LOVERS OF THEIR KIND, WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF RACE, CREED, OR COLOUR PREFACE BY REV. J. CYRIL FLOWER, M. A. IT must have been a severe shock to any sincere person to realize how practically ineffective has been the witness and teaching of the Christian Church practically in effective, that is, in achieving the end which any unpre judiced student of religion would suppose to be its iciison detre. It has not, unfortunately, been ineffective in producing controversies, fomenting misunderstandings, erecting barriers. Nor, to do it justice, has it been in effective in producing many noble types of individual life and character. Its ineffectiveness has been social. It is pledged up to the hilt, and in all varieties of its organization and expression, to the promotion of the Reign of Righteousness and the Brotherhood of Man. We do not need the terrible object-lesson of the present ghastly war to compel us to recognize that progress towards these ends has been appallingly slow, if even taking place at all. Yet the realization of these things is of infinitely greater moment than either doctrinal orthodoxy or individual piety. This plain fact has been clearly envisaged by the author of this book, and he has with scientific honestyapproached the question Why is organized Christianity an ineffective instrument for the attainment of the supreme object for which it should exist if it really believed in Jesus The reply which is the result of an honest and un biased examination of the New Testament records under taken in the spirit and with the methods of science is likely to be astonishing and upsetting to many excellent and well-intentioned people. The truth is nearly always upsetting. And people with theological preconceptions are the most easily upset. But the earth moved round the sun in spite of the theological preconceptions of Brunos 8 PREFACE murderers and Jesus was a man, and a real man, in spite of the theological preconceptions of those who regard him as a mystery to be surrounded with pious words and mis understood titles, and not as a man, sage, and seer whose teaching lays the foundation of the science of social life. One of the most disquieting signs of the present time is the fact that people profess very widely to reverence the names and titles given to Jesus, while there is very little attempt to regard him as a real person. As Bernard Shaw has said, it is a sort of theological crime to speak about Jesus as if he were real. It is irreverent to speak about him except in terms of an ecclesiastically sanctioned mythology. It is difficult facing the facts of life to escape the conclusion that there has been a vast conspiracy on the part of the professed disciples of Jesus to evade the difficult task of understanding and applying his teach ing or even facing seriously the question as to whether it can be applied by loading him with mysterious titles of superstition, and surreptitiously removing him fromthe realm of the concrete and actual. This book, as the author takes pains to make evident, claims no infallibility. It is a scientific inquiry and analysis, and its thesis is set forth as a challenge to further honest inquiry for proof or disproof. It would be a remarkable thing if every conclusion of the authors were exactly correct, or immediately commanded the agree ment of any or every reader...