in the process of sifting the essential from the accidental in the
Christian tradition. It would be idle to pretend that the process has
reached its conclusion, or that there is any large measure of agreement
as to what constitutes the essence of Christianity. No one indeed
believes any longer in the whole Bible from cover to cover--not even
those who say they do. The fight for the creeds is more strenuous, while
Rome cannot afford to admit that any article of faith which has been
authoritatively defined may be treated as non-essential. But if I may
venture a personal judgement, I cannot see that even the Apostles' creed
will be able to retain its place as a summary of essential Christianity.
The articles which deal with the Descent into Hades and the Resurrection
of the Body, and perhaps those which deal with the Virgin-Birth and
Ascension of our Lord, are dubious, if not false, and cannot fairly be
regarded as indispensable. If I may attempt to forecast, I would say
that the ultimate cleavage is coming not over particular articles of the
Apostles' Creed, but over the value we set on the history and person of
Jesus. The choice will lie between a conception of God for which the
story and character of Jesus are final and determinative, and a vaguer
spiritual theism for which Jesus has no supreme significance. This is
not even the division between Trinitarian and Unitarian. The ultimate
parting of the ways turns on the question whether a man's faith in God
is Christ-centred or not. The significant cleavage of the future will
come between those who believe that Christianity--the belief in the
Fatherhood of God through Jesus Christ--is the final religion, and those
who hold that Christianity in this sense is destined to be swallowed up
in some still broader faith in God for which other revelations, through
nature and through other figures in history, are as significant as the
creed embodied in a tale in Galilee and on Golgotha nineteen centuries
ago. But whatever cleavage may appear hereafter in the religion of the
West, the search for the essence of Christianity, even when it works
through controversy, will contribute to lop off idle dissensions and
reveal fellowship in fundamentals where men had previously supposed
themselves to be hopelessly divided.

It is a little invidious to choose out any particular movements for
special reference, and in so doing I may merely betray personal bias
rather than critical judgement. Yet