In preparing a different post regarding chapter 6 of Pagan Christianity I was researching a man Frank mentions named Horace Bushnell. Needless to say this guy was, and is, fascinating. He was a prolific writer and prominent theologian whose influence remains. Some titles of his works include “Moral Uses of Dark Things,” “Work and Play,” “The New Life,” and a work from which the following quote is taken, “Building Eras in Religion.” By the way, these are all between 350 and 450 pages!
What struck me most about the following text is how it seems Dr. Bushnell had some sight regarding the kingdom and the demise of the church system. Of course, having only touched his body of work it may be that this is a rarity – but it is still insightful. I am curious if any of you know more of this guy. Maybe he’s well known in academia but he is new to me. Also, I am curious as to your thoughts on this quote.
We have been split up, for example, by many thousand debates, trying to settle bases of unity by the settlement of opinions. But these notional points or entities breed, as we find, only sects and sub-divisions without end, and all our longings after the complete fellowship are disappointed.
But when these nits of opinion are all hatched, these dissidences all worn out, and the ” one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all,” begin to be felt as the uppermost fact and grandest faith, before which all opinions are to be schooled into their places, by that time we sink as it were in final gravitation downward on the state of unity. We shall flow together, most likely, with an ardor of brotherhood now inconceivable. The roadways will be rivers of men, crowding downwards on the centres of appointed fellowship, and the assemblies gathered will not be satisfied with anthems that are not as the waves of the sea.
And so again it will be, when the immense imposture of the Popehood goes down. When that priesthood and all priesthood goes down, letting God’s armies of believers forth into the enlarged liberties of his kingdom, it will be the new grand birth-day morning of Christian brotherhood. Protestant is no more, Catholic is no more, but Christ is all, and there will be no cathedrals large enough to be more than side chapels of the Grand Houses of Unity now required. St. Peter’s will now dwindle to a toy, and the great koinonials, if so we please to call them,—cathedrals they will not be,—will so far have their place.
There will here be no pulpits, it may be, or preaching-stands; no altar, for the sacrifice is ended, gone by for ever; no priest or priestly vestments, for Christ the only and last priest is gone up on high; there will be no . dividing screen behind which, in their choir, the canons are heard chanting out of sight in male voice only: but the whole wide space within, crowded from wall to wall with its many thousand worshipers, will be itself the choir, canons all themselves, male and female, lifting their own grand hymn, or Hallelujah together; so that, as the gospel itself is not a salvation for half the world but for all, the glorious sopranos will now have their part, floating clear above and fluting heavenly sanctities on the top of so great masses of sound.
Interesting, eh – especially for 1881!
Your thoughts?