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TITLE: RELIGIOUS REALITY
AUTHOR: A. E. J. RAWLINSON
EBOOK: E04044 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

RELIGIOUS REALITY

A BOOK FOR MEN

A. E. J. RAWLINSON

Student of Christ Church, Oxford; Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of
Lichfield; Priest-In-Charge of St. John The Evangelist, Wilton Road,
S.W.; Formerly Tutor of Keble College and Late Chaplain to the Forces.

WITH A PREFACE

BY

THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD

1918

PREFACE

BY

THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD

This is a book which is wanted. Thoughtful men, in every class, are
not afraid of theology, _i.e._ of a reasoned account of their
religion, but they want a theology which can be stated without
conventions and technicalities; they do not at all care for a religion
which pretends to do away with all mystery, but they are glad to be
assured of the essential reasonableness of the Christian Faith; they
do not expect a ready-made solution of the problem of evil, but they
wish to see it honestly faced; above all, they want to know how
Christian truth bears on the real problems of life; the best of them
are not at all afraid of a religion which makes big demands on them,
but they know well enough the difficulty of responding to those
claims, and their greatest need of all is to find and to use that life
and power, coming from a living Person, without which our best
aspirations must fail and our highest ideals remain unrealized.

These needs seem to me to be satisfactorily and happily met in the
following pages. My friend and chaplain, Mr. Bawlinson, has had good
means of knowing what men are and what they want. He has had to do
with the undergraduate, with officers and men in the Army, and with
the ordinary civilian in parish life. He has been able to see the
nature and needs of our British manhood at different angles, and he is
the sort of man with whom men are not afraid to talk. He has had good
opportunity of diagnosing the situation, and this book shows his skill
in dealing with it.

I do not find myself in agreement with everything in these pages, but
when I am conscious of difference of view, I am no less grateful for
the stimulus to thought. I am specially thankful that the writer has
been so courageous in tackling the most difficult subjects.

I know that the author's one desire is to help men to be more real in
their religion. I share his hope, and I believe that this book will do
much to accomplish it.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This book has grown out of the writer's experience in preparing men
and officers in military hospitals for Confirmation. It represents, in
a considerably expanded but--as it is hoped--still simple form, the
kind of things which he would have wished to say to them, and to
others with whom he was brought into contact, if he had had more time
and opportunity than was usually afforded him. It seemed necessary to
write the book, because there did not appear to be in existence any
reasonably short book on similar lines which covered the ground of
Christian faith and practice as a whole, and which approached the
subject from the point of view which seems to the writer to be the
most real.

The writer is consciously indebted in the first chapter to the
discussion of our Lord's teaching and character in Dr. T. B. Glover's
fascinating book, _The Jesus of History_. It is possible that there
are other and unconscious obligations which have been overlooked. Here
and there acknowledgment is made in footnotes, and an occasional
phrase, "lifted" from some other writer, has been placed in inverted
commas.

In Chapter VIII. of Part I. the author has echoed the thought, and to
a certain extent the wording, of parts of his own essay on "The
Principle of Authority" in _Foundations_.

For help in the correction of the proofs, and for criticisms and
suggestions which have led to numerous modifications and improvements
in matters of detail, the thanks of the writer are due to various
friends, and more particularly to his brother, Lieutenant A. C.
Rawlinson, of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars; to the Rev. Austin
Thompson, Vicar of S. Peter's, Eaton Square; and to the Rev. Leonard
Hodgson, Vice-Principal of S. Edmund Hall, Oxford.

_November_, 1917.

CONTENTS

PREFACE BY THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD

INTRODUCTION

PART I

THE THEORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

CHAP.

I.    THE MAN CHRIST JESUS

II.   THE REVELATION OF THE FATHER

III.  THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SPIRIT

IV.   THE HOLY TRINITY

V.    THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

VI.   SIN AND REDEMPTION

VII.  THE CHURCH AND HER MISSION IN THE WORLD

VIII. PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC

IX.   SACRAMENTS

X.    THE LAST THINGS

XI.   CLERGY AND LAITY

XII.  THE BIBLE

PART II

THE PRACTICE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION

I.    THE CHRISTIAN AIM

II.   THE WAY OF THE WORLD

III.  THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH

IV.   THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL

V.    THE KINGDOM OF GOD

VI.   CHRISTIANITY AND COMMERCE

VII.  CHRISTIANITY AND INDUSTRY

VIII. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS

IX.   CHRISTIANITY AND WAR

X.    LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE

PART III

THE MAINTENANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

I.   HOW TO BEGIN

II.  PRAYER

III. SELF-EXAMINATION AND REPENTANCE

IV.  CORPORATE WORSHIP AND COMMUNION

V.   THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE

VI.  ALMSGIVING AND FASTING

INTRODUCTION

Vital religion begins for a man when lie first discovers the reality
of the living GOD. Most men indeed profess a belief in GOD, a vague
acknowledgment of the existence of "One above": but the belief counts
for little in their lives.

GOD, if He exists at all, must obviously be important: and it is
conceivable that He prefers the dogmatic atheism of a man here and a
man there, or the serious agnosticism of a slightly larger number, to
the practical indifference of the majority. "There are two attitudes,
and only two, which are worthy of a serious man: to serve GOD with his
whole heart, because he knows Him; or to seek GOD with his whole
heart, because he knows Him not."

The ordinary Englishman is in most cases nominally a Christian. As a
rule he has been admitted in infancy by baptism into the Christian
Church. But he is ignorant of the implications of his baptism, and
indifferent to the claims of a religion which he fails to understand.
These pages are written with the object of explaining what, in the
writer's judgment, the faith and practice of the Christian Church
really is.

PART I

THE THEORY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION


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