276 religious revolution nowhistory of Christianity, of its relation to Judaism, and of its reformation,
and of the faiths that it helped inspire, he knows himself powerless to
tell in advance. He hopes that Christianity can itself become the reli-
gion of the future. But he hopes even more that the experience of this
struggle may help men and women not just in the future, but also right
now, become more human by becoming more godlike.
Such an attitude is a kind of prophecy. It is, he may have reason to
think, more suitable to an experimentalist and demo cratic society than
either the petrifi ed religion or the formulaic secular humanism of to-
day. It has at least the potential to change us and to help us invent a new
form of life.
Th e believer who examines his faith in this spirit will need to cast his
net widely, considering both the main line of Christian orthodoxy and
the chief instances of heresy, schism, and insurgency, within the his-
tory of the religion. His aim will not be the systematic interpretation of
the body of doctrine, in the manner of a theologian, an apologist, or a
catechist. It will be to identify what in the traditions of orthodoxy and
of heresy serves or defeats his revolutionary purpose. He dare not assume
that the orthodoxy is the problem and the heresy the solution. If heresy,
or reformation, in the traditional form it has taken in the history of
Christianity were the solution, Christianity would already be the reli-
gion of the future.
Considered in this light, the main line of Christian orthodoxy pres-
ents two connected obstacles to the revolutionary cause. Th ey have
persisted throughout much of the history of the religion. Th e fi rst ob-
stacle is the compromise of the Christian faith, and of the Church as
its agent, with the regimes prevailing in the societies in which Christi-
anity has been believed and practiced. Th e second obstacle is the mar-
riage of Christian philosophy, centered on God’s dramatic intervention
in history, with Greek philosophy, or ga nized around the category of
being.
As a religion of immanence and transcendence, Christianity must
not leave society alone. It must have a proposal for the remaking of our
earthly state and insist that the work of salvation begins in historical
time. Unlike Judaism aft er the destruction of the Temple and unlike
Islam, it cannot rely on a body of sacred law as a proxy for such a vision.
Th e natural law-thinking of Christian theologians and jurists is no sub-