“Draft:The Good News”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The Good News is a theological book by Bernard Iddings Bell, adapted in 1921 from a series of instructional lectures delivered to college and parish congregations, and to Wellesly Conference. It explains some of the foundational doctrines of Christian religion in plain, practical language for young adults who had grown disillusioned with the Church. In addition to its use of non-doctrinal language, there are many similarities between it and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, such as the rhetorical structure, which scaffolds the previous chapter's content on the next: the effect being a growing revelation from skeptical agnosticism to religious orthodoxy. Although Lewis and Bell certainly crossed paths during Bell's frequent tours through Oxford and Cambridge—and Bell's Crisis in Education was informed by Lewis' Absolution of Man^[1]—there is currently no evidence to suggest that Lewis had written an apologetic "version" of the The Good News.

Background

While stationed in the Navy during World War I, Bell observed that roughly four-out-of-five soldiers expressed indifference toward the Christian religion and doubted its usefulness amid combat.^[2] Having mostly grown up in the Church, they retained belief in God and desired to lead moral lives, but felt that religion, at best, was nothing more than a benign social convention^[3] or, at worst, a harmful and outdated way of manipulating groups of people.^[4]

He discovered that their cool feelings toward religion were, in reality, the result of ignorance. They possessed a misunderstanding of what the Christian religion was and why it mattered, and Bell was forced to conclude that the Church had become "astonishingly inefficient at passing on the Faith."^[2] He spent the next year listening to soldiers' doubts and feelings, and carefully recording them in his journal. Meanwhile, he worked out explanations that would generally satisfy their questions, and was encouraged by their positive response.

After the war, he adapted his journal notes into a series of lectures aimed at high school and college students, and eventually was prompted by popular demand to set them down in book form. The book is notable for its lack of theological jargon and its emphasis on the practical, personal aspects of religion. By way of explanation, Bell stated that people generally dislike hearing language that had wholly or partially lost its meaning, claiming that doctrinal terms like 'original sin' or 'the grace of the Lord' sounded "stupid and unreal" to the average American.^[5] He presented catholic Christianity as it spanned all denominations, excluding certain sects which had significantly altered or rejected its Creeds (e.g. Christian Science, Unitarianism, certain Congregational Churches, etc.). Though he admitted loyalty toward the American Episcopal Church, he openly criticized its shortcomings along with Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Chapter Summaries

The Unknowable God

People often confuse being religious with being moral, but the two are not the same thing. Moral living is a result of religion, not even particular to Christianity. Rather, religion is a way for people to unite with God and thereby gain the strength to live up to moral standards. The problem is that people cannot and, therefore, do not live up to these standards. Bell provides the example of prisoners whom he met while ministering at Bridewell in Chicago: they all knew right from wrong and always intended to 'get clean', but once released, fell back into their old habits because they lacked willpower. To a lesser degree, that is the problem with everyone. We continually fall short of moral standards, even personally imposed ones, because we do not have sufficient resolve to live up to them.

God is the source of our necessary resolve, and religion is our main way of becoming close to God. However, because many of us see little need for practicing religion, we have lost our closeness to God: our image of Him is blurry, vague, a passing thought in our busy schedules.

By way of reintroduction, Bell reflects on God's creative presence throughout all time, His infinite vastness, and His desire for intimacy with humans. It is here that Bell displays his characteristic approach to harmonizing modern scientific discoveries with orthodox religious beliefs. He specifically references God's involvement in the Ice Age, the formation and evolution of the solar system, and even hints at the possibility of a Big Bang, calling it the "central pole" or the "heart of the universe", despite the theory's not being proposed for another six years by Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître. Throughout, he admonishes those who feel self-important in the face of such complexity and immensity, to adopt an attitude of reverence and humility. However, the chapter concludes by mourning the impossibility of such a vast God relating to limited human beings.

The Knowable God

The previous chapter represents the agnostic's dilemma: that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God has no way of revealing himself comprehensibly to a finite human, and it is best to remain content in ignorance.

Christians, however, believe that God limited himself in the form of Jesus Christ so that he might become knowable. Bell provides several analogies explaining the necessity for God's condescension.

References

1. ^{{Cite book|title=Crisis in Education|last=Bell|first=Bernard Iddings|publisher=McGraw-Hill Book Company|year=1949|isbn=|location=New York, London, and Toronto|pages=63}}
2. ^¹{{Cite book|title=The Good News|last=Bell|first=Bernard Iddings|publisher=Morehouse Publishing|year=1921|isbn=|location=Milwaukee|pages=2}}
3. ^{{Cite book|title=Beyond Agnosticism: A Book for Tired Mechanists|last=Bell|first=Bernard Iddings|publisher=Harper & Brothers Publishers|year=1929|isbn=|location=New York and London|pages=30}}
4. ^{{Cite book|title=Unfashionable Convictions|last=Bell|first=Bernard Iddings|publisher=Harper & Brothers Publishers|year=1931|isbn=|location=New York and London|pages=11}}
5. ^{{Cite book|title=The Good News|last=Bell|first=Bernard Iddings|publisher=Morehouse Publishing|year=1921|isbn=|location=Milwaukee|pages=7}}