the conflict that he felt between his human interests and
his church membership. He had certain real estate holdings and other
investments from which he was making an excellent profit. Some of these,
however, were exploitive and in contradiction to the faith which he
professed. It was necessary, therefore, for him to keep the church and
the world separate; and his doctrine of the church made it possible for
him to rationalize the split between his faith and his life. We must not
think that Mr. Churchill engaged in this contradiction deliberately. In
part, his action was the unconscious means by which he held on to two
conflicting values without suffering from the conflict between them. We
must not think that Mr. Churchill is alone in this kind of separation of
belief and practice, of splitting the church from the world. We all have
our own individual forms of it.

It is because of our insecurity and fear that we develop these defensive
attitudes of parochialism and churchism. We huddle like frightened
children behind the doors of the church, whereas, as soldiers of Christ,
we should be struggling courageously on the frontiers of life where the
conflicts between love and hate, truth and prejudice, are being waged.

_Moralism_

The next member of the group who spoke up was Mrs. Strait, and she
voiced for herself and for millions of other church people the
moralistic understanding of the faith. Moralism is perhaps the most
widespread of all the concepts that we are now discussing.

Moralism is usually identified as belief in good behavior as a source of
life. A group of church people, many of them leaders of their respective
parishes, were asked to describe the Christian. It would be no
exaggeration to say that their descriptions of a Christian made it
difficult to distinguish him from a Jew, because, according to their
statements, a Christian is one who achieves his status as such by
obeying the commandments of God. He must live a good life by keeping the
law. The imitation of Jesus is the method, illuminated by a study of
His teachings, especially the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. And,
as Mrs. Strait indicated, they agreed that a Christian should set a good
example for other people.

When asked how they felt about this concept of the Christian life, many
of them admitted that they were not too enthusiastic about it, because
it was hard to achieve. They admitted that they failed often and
miserably. One man