RT Article
T1 The Essence of Christian Belief
JF Religious studies
VO 12
IS 2
SP 231
OP 237
A1 Shepherd, John J.
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 1976
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1686959990
AB In his powerful anti-Christian polemic, The Misery of Christianity, J. Kahl charges Christianity with suffering from a rock-bottom lack of identity. ‘Theologians …have been looking for a continuous thread which will lead them out of the maze of contradictory forms of Christianity …into the open. They would like to be able to say with binding force what Christianity really is.'1 But, he urges, they cannot. P. van Buren agrees, but sees in this no cause for concern. ‘Christianity has been changing since its beginning, the religion of the past constantly being adapted to the conditions of each new present. Once we see this character of Christianity, we are released from the misconceived task of trying to identify its unchanging essence.'2 Again more recently J. Hick has urged, in effect half agreeing with van Buren, that although there is an unchanging element in Christianity, it is restricted to ‘the originating events from which the moving stream of christian history has flowed'. ‘Christianity is an ongoing movement of life and thought, defined by its origin in the Christ-event and by its consciousness of that origin. It cannot be defined in terms of adherence to any doctrinal standard, for its doctrines are historically and culturally conditioned and have changed as the church has entered new historical and cultural situations.'3
DO 10.1017/S0034412500009197