The style of religious awareness that will be essential in the next century comforts us. For, it tells us that religion is not shattering apart as much as it is transforming. Man is on the verge of freeing religion from the exile. Somehow, it was a watertight compartment before. It is certainly an important part of life man needs a religion that cannot be kept compartmentalized. That is it cannot, anymore confine itself to churches, special occasions, or great catastrophes. As we begin to appreciate the intrinsic religious meaning of life, we will shed the symbols and habits of an age during which we thought that religion and this world were adversaries for man’s soul. We will be wiser when we have accomplished this, of course, but we will also have to live far more truthfully and responsibly. Membership in an institution will not be enough to acquit us or our religious obligations because the realm of religious behaviour will be as wide as man’s hopes and dreams. We are all involved in working through this new religious sense of the universe. No one can safely ignore it because, whether we acknowledge it or not, we will feel its effects in our own lives. The quest for spiritual and emotional fulfilment will lead us over this ground into future
Faith Alive
