Chapter XIII: Introduction

From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines?

In this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact connection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime importance. But we can see, for example, in this second division of our theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and how religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully warranted; and this is the main question.

If the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the thoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then it is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion will necessarily affect theological statement. Our inquiry as to the influence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins with religion.

The discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all that part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into the life with God.

The natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the subjects of the four succeeding chapters: (1) The social consciousness tends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; (2) it tends to emphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly mystical; (3) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; (4) it tends to emphasize the concretely historically Christian in religion.