The Constructive Quarterly (Volume 5); A Journal of the Faith, Work and Thought of Christendom

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1917. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE CONSTRUCTIVE QUARTERLY The Church and the World. By J. K. Mozley, B.D., Fellow and Dean of Pembroke College, Cambridge. The times which have come upon us make true thought on the subject of the relations between the Church and the world an urgent need. It is urgent for the world, since the Church is far too great a fact for the world to be able simply to ignore it; the world must react either towards it or away from it. But, in so far as the reaction is a thing of the mind and the will, and not of uninstructed feeling alone, it ought to be induced by a true knowledge of what the Church stands for, and what its presence means for the world. Criticism of the Church there must be, but the kind of criticism not rarely met with in the Press and in current literature, shrewd and pointed though it often may appear, lacks the higher values of a searching judgment. The critics may be kindly or hostile; but their frequent indifference to theology handicaps them when they come to deal with a Church which has no power to escape from theology except by an act of suicide which would involve the triumph of those gates of Hades, which her Lord promised should not prevail against her. Contempt for theology is the worst starting-point in the criticism of a theological Church. For the Church, clarity of outlook is still more essential. The peace and security of her inner life, the power and effectiveness of her testimony and of her missionary labours, depend upon the consciousness of an understanding of her vocation. That vocation is a vocation in the world and to the world. But a sense of vocation by itself is not adequate. There may be plenty of zeal and, a scarcity DEGREESof DEGREESintelliggflQe. In this case what is needed is not only a true self-knowledge, but a true knowled