2. THE ESSENCE AND THE SUBSTANCE - page 3

What is essential in Christianity is the teaching of divine love and all-human brotherhood; the teaching of God as the All-Father, as the Creative Principle that abides not only in and beyond the cosmic sky but also in the "Heaven" that is immanent in every individual, that is the "Kingdom within". What is essential is the Mystery that God descends toward man, as man ascends toward God; and that both can be united in the eternal and universal Christ Jesus, Who can be "everyman" — you and I, now or in some distant era, according to our readiness, faith and courage. In this Mystery reside the source of the worth and dignity of every man and the fact that in every man the potentiality of true individual responsibility, freedom and creativity is inherent. And this is the essence of democracy.

In such an essential Christianity there is still room for the idea of "salvation", because where there is love there also is the will to save whoever is "lost" and to heal whoever is sick. But salvation can be interpreted in various ways and at several levels. Above all, the feeling-quality and the means essentially used in the process of salvation and of healing can be very different.

Every civilization features some characteristic human traits, positive and negative. As it glorifies some mental faculties or life-attitudes, it has likewise to deal with the "shadow" of these virtues. Where there is a deep and helpless collective sense of guilt and "father complex", there, to the emotional and immature personality, salvation appears possible only in terms of some external and vicarious atonement. Deliverance from an entitized and concretely oppressive evil seems beyond all individual effort; only the tangible and realistic sacrifice of a divine Being appears powerful and efficacious enough to overcome fate.

The conditions and needs of humanity however change. The Image of God which has fired the imagination of multitudes for centuries becomes pale and empty of spiritual meaning in the eyes of succeeding generations. A new Image becomes necessary. As it takes form in the minds of the few who have vision, then spreads over the many, it becomes the new focus through which flow new vitality, new inspiration, and the power to transfigure, to save and to heal — the power of divine light and divine love.

These "Images of God" are the very souls of civilization; from them, not only religion and ethics, but all aspects of culture are derived — as a plant derives from its original seed. European Christianity worshipped at the feet of the crucified Savior whose death redeemed from a remote Original Sin which men were obviously powerless to eradicate. Now, Christianity should refocus its faith and its allegiance around a new Image of God the Father — an Image of radiant creativity — and a new Image of Christ, the Transfigured Christ, whose life heals and whose illumined love saves from all shadows and all psychological conflicts. If this is done, effectively and soon, we would indeed see "a new heaven and a new earth"; and there would be joy and peace among men.

This is the challenge to us who live in the transition between two eras. We must build new Images and give to essential Christianity a new formulation. The radical social and human changes which have occurred on earth since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution demand such a creative effort from us all — not more production and more machines, not bigger and better weapons or stronger medical drugs, but new Images of God, of life, of man. A new Christianity can be recrystallized around these Images and once more feel and radiate the creative vitality and the power of mind and soul which stem from the spirit, and only from the spirit.