There have been many transition periods in the history of the Christian Church. This is probably one of the most momentous of all the transition epochs through which the Church has passed. When the Church emerges from this period of transition, it will come forth more profoundly transformed than was the case at the Reformation. If that profound transformation here predicted does not occur, it will be because something more serious than transformation has happened. If the Church is too deeply entrenched in its ancient system and dogma to adjust to the new situation which confronts us and to the expansion of truth and light now going on, then the church will become a congealed and rigid institution, out of contact with the onward march of life and thought, left behind and useless as an organ of the Spirit. The 100% conservative may think he is “saving” the Church by his resistance to progress, but he is “saving” it only by a method of shrinkage and arrested development, which looks like another form of “losing” it. Failure to adjust to the progress of expanding life is another way of spelling death.
The issue now before us is not merely one between scientific interpretation of the universe and the Biblical interpretation of it. It is deeper than that. Some of the foremost scholars of the age and some of the greatest living scientists are in the Church, so we are not confronted with an array of non-Christian scientists lined up against a Church composed of untrained and ignorant men who are defending superstitions. The disturbing thing is the present widespread attitude of mind in the world around us toward organized religion. There is a serious loss of interest in it. It is treated as negligible by a great many persons, who, except for this attitude, are thoroughly good persons. However, there is no slackening of interest in vital religion, in a religion of life. When a book appears which presents in a fresh and living way, the essential features of religious faith, it immediately becomes a best seller. There is a good deal of evidence that religion is a live topic in our world today. If this is true, as I believe it is, that religion as a fundamental trait of human life is still quick and vital, while there is at the same time a prevailing lack of interest in the organized Church, in its ministries, its offices and its services, there is good reason for supposing that the Churches of our time need to undergo a profound transformation, if they are to interpret God and if they are to minister to life in the world today.
Rufus M. Jones
(1863 - 1948)
From The Faith and Practice of the Quakers
Introduction
Originally published in 1927