The Church and Social Problems by Louis Berkhof

The greatest liberating force in the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. No other single agency can be pointed out that wrought such momentous changes. One needs but to read such books as Loring Brace’s Gesta Christi and Storr’s The Divine Origin of Christianity Indicated by its Historical Effects to be convinced of the regenerating force of the Christian religion. Yet we should not think that on the appearance of Christianity a complete new order of life immediately issued forth like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. The proclamation of the revealed truths of God to all the world did not result in a cataclysm. The transforming power of the Kingdom of Heaven is not compared to a sudden violent geological upheaval, but to the gradual fermentation wrought by the leaven. It has slowly and unobtrusively, overcoming many and mighty obstacles, been working its way from center to circumference. Christianity’s march through the ages has not been one of unhampered progress, but one of continual struggle with the powers of evil, that contested its every advance and often, turning the scale, led to retrograde movements. There has been action and reaction. Now the pendulum swung to the left and anon to the right. But in and through all the movements there has been continual progress. Man has been led to an ever clearer conception of the truth; nations that were waiting for the glad evangel have heard the voice of God; and the life of individuals and nations has been cast in a new mould.

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