“Our main object was to create in our hearers contentment with their lot, and even some joy in it. That was … the central thought of all we said and did, giving shape and tendency to everything. We admitted nothing which did not help us in that direction, and everything which did help us. I felt as if somehow, after many errors, I had once more gained a road, a religion in fact, and one which essentially was not new but old, the religion of the Reconciliation. This surely has been the meaning of all the forms of worship which we have seen in the world. Pain and death are nothing new, and men have been driven into perplexed skepticism and even insurrection by them, ever since men came into being. Always, however, have the majority, the vast majority of the race, felt instinctively that in this skepticism and insurrection they could not abide, and they have struggled more or less blindly after explanation; determined not to desist till they had found it, and reaching a result embodied in a multitude of shapes, irrational and absurd to the superficial scoffer, but of profound interest to the thoughtful. I may observe, in passing, that this is a reason why all great religions should be treated with respect, and in a certain sense preserved. It is nothing less than a wicked waste of accumulated human strivings to sneer them out of existence. They will be found, every one of them, to have incarnated certain vital doctrines which it has cost centuries of toil and devotion properly to appreciate. Especially is this true of the Catholic Faith [White, a Protestant, is meaning the Christian Faith here, Mbird], and if it were worth while, it might be shown how it is nothing less than a divine casket of precious remedies, and if it is to be brutally broken, it will take ages to rediscover and restore them. Of one thing I am certain, that their rediscovery and restoration will be necessary.” (pp. 192-193, 1998 reprint)
This blew me away. Thank you.
He sounds a little too much like pantheist and universalist Shane Hipps, who claims that all religions are different shaped sail capable of catching the wind of God.
In Shane's apostate Christianity, the Christian religion is a really great sail, but other mishappen sails, like Islam, can still catch the wind.
I appreciate the attempt at refuting modern atheists, but Christian's don't primarily proclaim "ethics of great utility", but Christ crucified for our sins.
I don't know much about Hipps and his "ethics of great utility," but White seems to be pointing not to ethics, but to reconciliation and remedy. Most importantly it should be noted that White does not point to other religions of speaking of the same God or wind, but of the anthropological importance each religion serves, of which Christianity it is "especially true".
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/06/on-conversion-and-the-clash-of-orthodoxies