Religion: The Civilized Christian

Calvinist Theologian Emil Brunner of Switzerland knows that “Christianity and Civilization” is a big subject. He does not even believe that there has ever been such a thing as a Christian civilization. “What is usually called by that name,” he says, “is a compromise between Christian and non-Christian forces.” But he chose to tackle the subject because he feels that no civilization can rightly be called “human” that is not based upon Christianity.

Brunner’s first series of Gifford lectures was delivered at Scotland’s St. Andrews University in 1947, and published last year. Published last week was his second series of lectures—Christianity and Civilization, Part 2 (Scribner; $2.50).

“Is It Not Shameful?” Brunner examines the specific application of Christianity to nine aspects of civilized life: technics, science, tradition, education, work, art, wealth, social custom and power. In putting each in its Christian place, he is not afraid to expose himself to the fire power of experts in the various fields. He tells scientists that there is nothing wrong with their subject except that it has grown too big for its britches. “Science knows what is, it does not know what ought to be … Speaking in general, science in our day claims more room within the totality of human life than it is entitled to. Instead of serving, it dominates; instead of subordinating itself, it wants to subordinate the whole of life; that is why it has, in part, dehumanizing effects … It is not from science that we have to learn what is the task of man and what is the meaning of his existence. These are questions which lie outside the range of science, in the sphere of faith.”

Theologian Brunner tells sociologists that the dehumanized quality of modern life is not the fault of technics (mass production, high-speed communications, etc.), but is to be blamed on the secularized, un-Christian men who put technics to work. Here, says Brunner, the Christian church has woefully let men down: “Is it not shameful for the Christian society that Confucian China was capable of suppressing the military use of gunpowder, while the Christian Church could not prevent . . . the development of a war machinery incomparably more dreadful?”

A New Spiritual Basis. Social reformers, politicians and revolutionaries should be instructed by Christian teaching, according to Brunner, that only from within a man’s heart can society be really transformed. That is why Christianity, “the most revolutionary force of world history, manifests itself under the guise of a conservative attitude. It is exactly by being so radically revolutionary that it takes a conservative appearance. The Christian knows that all changes that begin from without are no real changes.”

Brunner does not believe that a truly Christian civilization is just around the corner, but he is not pessimistic: “The terrible perspectives which are placed before us … have opened the eyes of many of our contemporaries to … the importance of the Christian tradition. It is not only the physicists and technicians, terrified by their latest results, who . . . are looking out for a new spiritual basis of life, but also the jurists, the sociologists, the psychologists, and . . . the artists and poets. The lowest point of secularization seems to be behind us.”