izations; it has been enmeshed in history and culture; it has related
160 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER FAITHS
primary vertical relationship, between God and ourselves. Therefore, we need something more than a social philosophy, a revolutionary cause, a political ideal, or a crusade for a better world. We are commanded to seek above all the rule of God. Man—including Communist man—is made by God, is responsible to God, is in need of God.
When the Communist devotee calls our faith unscientific, super-
stitious, and antisocial, we do not answer him with a denunciation of his atheism. There is too much practical atheism outside of the Communist camp. Rather, we endeavor to make real to the Communist our faith that gives true meaning and value to life, a faith that is not measured by mortal minds alone, but dares to trust in the holy mysteries of infinity and eternity, a faith that rescues man from proud, self-righteous deification of his own achievements. We do not point with scornful finger at the Communist; we ask the Communist, if he will, to fold his hands along with the Christian, in worship of God who is also his God (though unrecognized) as much as ours. Some day, we pray, his antireligious scorn may change to humble and devout reverence.
2. Christianity has taken form in human structures and organizations; it has been enmeshed in history and culture; it has related
itself to many different political and economic systems. We do not agree with the Marxist that religion is simply the reflection of unjust economic orders before the advent of Communist society. Certainly the Christian Gospel in its historical manifestations has both given to and received from its environment. We admit the unfortunate associations of the Christian Church with imperialism and other political evils of the past. At the same time we know that the Church has grown and changed through self-criticism, repentance, and inner purification. Christianity cannot be torn from the loom of history or from its social milieu today. Yet we must continually strive to set the Christian faith free from those inequalities and injustices with which it has been involved or is involved at the present time, and to present it in its essential purity to a sinful and suffering humanity. When Christians admit before God their sins _ in relation to society and the family of nations they ask the Com-
munists to place themselves under the same judgment. We oppose
new slaveries as well as old slaveries, aggression in the future as
_ well as aggression in the past. The Christian call for radical repentance sounds throughout the world, to every nation and every —