"The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty years, may fairly be called a victory of healthy-mindedness within the church over the morbidness with which the old hell-fire theology was more harmoniously related. We have now whole congregations whose preachers, far from magnifying our consciousness of sin, seem devoted rather to making little of it. They ignore, or even deny, eternal punishment, and insist on the dignity rather than on the depravity of man. They look at the continual preoccupation of the old-fashioned Christian with the salvation of his soul as something sickly and reprehensible rather than admirable; and a sanguine and 'muscular' attitude, which to our forefathers would have seemed purely heathen, has become in their eyes an ideal element of Christian character. I am not asking whether or not they are right, I am only pointing out the change."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from the United StatesPsychologists from the United StatesPresidents of the American Psychological AssociationCritics from the United StatesParapsychologists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Lectures IV and V, "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William James
1842 – 1910
US-amerikanischer Philosoph und Psychologe
207 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William James →
Related Quotes
"The normal process of life contains moments as bad as any of those which insane melancholy is filled with, moments in…"
"Tro ej din vän , förrän i ätit upp en halfspann salt tillsammans."
"The stronghold of the determinist argument is the antipathy to the idea of chance...This notion of alternative possib…"
"The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his e…"
"What interest, zest, or excitement can there be in achieving the right way, unless we are enabled to feel that the wr…"
"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no rea…"
"But even the distant reader must allow that Clifford's mental personality belonged to the highest possible type to sa…"
"Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight …"
"All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods."
"Freedom is only necessity understood."