“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.”

Lectures IV and V, "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty years, may fairly be called a victory of h…" by William James?
William James photo
William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910

Related quotes

Thomas Aquinas photo
Brigham Young photo
Anthony Crosland photo

“Theology is now called to listen fully to the world, even if such a listening demands a turning away from the church's witness to Christ.”

Thomas J. J. Altizer (1927–2018) American radical theologian

The Gospel of Christian Atheism (1966), Preface

Isaac Newton photo

“Henceforward the Christian Churches having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, came into the hands of the Encratites: and the Heathens, who in the fourth century came over in great numbers to the Christians, embraced more readily this sort of Christianity, as having a greater affinity with their old superstitions, than that of the sincere Christians; who by the lamps of the seven Churches of Asia, and not by the lamps of the Monasteries, had illuminated the Church Catholic during the three first centuries.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 13: Of the King who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every God, and honored Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Sam Harris photo

“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

2000s, The End of Faith (2004)

Florence Nightingale photo

“The Church is now more like the Scribes and Pharisees than like Christ… What are now called the "essential doctrines" of the Christian religion he does not even mention.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

As quoted in The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913) by Edward Tyas Cook, p. 392

Related topics