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Rh the product of social amelioration, culture and scientific planning. Jesus Himself according to this view, was the Pioneer of progress, the supreme Leader, the apex of the vanguard of the pilgrim host of humanity—not a terrific Being shattering history with the explosive word, "Before Abraham was, I am." Christianity sounded in men's ears as good advice, rather than good news: an exhortation to be up and doing, to fight the good fight and follow the gleam, not the announcement of something which God had already done, decisively and for ever. There was accordingly an inclination to regard the preacher as the purveyor of religious homilies and ethical uplift, not the herald of the mighty acts of God. So far did the prevailing mood push the tendency to "change the glory of the uncorruptible God into the image of corruptible man" that there actually appeared a plagiarizing hymn, "Nearer, Mankind, to thee, Nearer to thee": a sentiment, said G. K. Chesterton tersely if somewhat scurrilously, which "always suggested to me the sensations of a strap-hanger during a crush on the Tube." Characteristic of this whole attitude was the reduced emphasis upon a theology of atonement and redemption. Why should man, conscious as never before in history of his own vast potential resources, grovel as a miserable sinner, or confess himself immeasurably indebted to sheer unmerited grace?

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