Letter to The Times
by J. H. Oldam
Feast of St. Dionysios the AreopagiteAnno Domini 1938, October 3
The basal truth is that the spiritual foundations of western civilization have been undermined. The systems which are in the ascendant on the continent may be regarded from one point of view as convulsive attempts to arrest the process of disintegration. What clear alternative have we in this country? The mind of England is confused and uncertain. Is it possible that a simple question, an affirmative answer to which is for many a matter of course and for many others an idle dream or sheer lunacy, might in these circumstances become a live and serious issue? May our salvation lie in an attempt to recover our Christian heritage, not in the sense of going back to the past but of discovering in the central affirmations and insights of the Christian faith new spiritual energies to regenerate and vitalize our sick society? Does not the public repudiation of the whole Christian scheme of life in a large part of what was once known as Christendom force to the front the question whether the path of wisdom is not rather to attempt to work out a Christian doctrine of modern society and to order our national life in accordance with it?
Those who would give a quick, easy or confident answer to this question have failed to understand it. It cannot even be seriously considered without a profound awareness of the extent to which Christian ideas have lost their hold over, or faded from the consciousness of, large sections of the population; of the far-reaching changes that would be called for in the structure, institutions, and activities of existing society, which is in many of its features a complete denial of the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence; and of the stupendous and costly spiritual, moral, and intellectual effort that any genuine attempt to order the national life in accordance with the Christian understanding of life would demand. Realistically viewed, the task is so far beyond the present capacity of our British Christianity that I write as a fool. But if the will were there, I believe that the first steps to be taken are fairly clear. The presupposition of all else, however, is the recognition that nothing short of a really heroic effort will avail to save mankind from its present evils and the destruction which must follow in their train.
*J. H. Oldham (1874-1969) was a missionary in India and supported missions all over the world, especially in Germany and Africa. Along with Fr. Georges Florovsky, he was one of the the committee of fourteen who founded the World Council of Churches. Most famously, from 1938-1947 he convened "The Moot," a group of intellectuals (e.g. T. S. Eliot, Christopher Dawson, et al) who gathered several times a year to grapple with how to guide the west through the aftermath of WWI and through the trials of WWII.
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