Family and class and state were dominant
factors then. But we have seen how, in the Renaissance and the
Romantic Movement, individualism supplanted these values. Now,
Protestantism was contemporary with that new movement, indeed, a part
of it. Its growing egotism and the colossal egotism of the modern
world form a prime cause for the impoverishment of worship in
Protestant churches.
And so this brings us, then, to the real reason for our devotional
impotence, the one to which we referred in the opening sentences of
the chapter. It is essentially due to the character of the regulative
ideas of our age. It lies in that world view whose expressions in
literature, philosophy and social organizations we have been
reviewing in these pages. The partial notion of God which our age has
unconsciously made the substitute for a comprehensive understanding of
Him is essentially to blame. For since the contemporary doctrine is
of His immanence, it therefore follows that it is chiefly through
observation of the natural world and by interpretation of contemporary
events that men will approach Him if they come to Him at all.
Moreover, our humanism, in emphasizing the individual and exalting his
self-sufficiency, has so far made the mood of worship alien and the
need of it superfluous. The overemphasis upon preaching, the general
passion of this generation for talk and then more talk, and then
endless talk, is perfectly intelligible in view of the regulative
ideas of this generation.
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