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It is very difficult to maintain the right balance, and the danger of morbidity through emphasis on sin is undeniable. Yet it seems to me that the worst errors of Calvinism and Evangelicalism in this regard have lain in a tendency to theological formalism and a failure to keep in touch with real life.
As Scharnhorst, quoted by Baron von der Goltz, said, 'We have begun to place the art of war higher than military virtues. The eminent authority who thus expressed himself wrote the words before the great catastrophe of Jena; and, with prophetic insight sharpened by his fear of the menacing tendency of peace-training formalism and unreality, added his conviction that 'this has been the ruin of nations from time immemorial.
The awful tediousness of some of the Sunday sermons; the emptiness of the prayers, written in advance and spoken with conventional unctuous voice, and gestures to suit; and the apathy of the people who, dressed out in their best, came to listen, how early I divined its hollowness, and how deep was my disappointment, and how cruel the disillusionment oh! the disheartening formalism of it all!
The theory is now confronted with the opposite danger, that of materialism, or moral promiscuousness. Let me illustrate this full swing of the pendulum from formalism to materialism by briefly summarizing certain well-known types of religious philosophy.
From the barrenness and formalism of the earlier period, we now have the demand made that the school should throughout take into account the real and practical necessities of life.
Was there in this formalism a life which escapes us, as we handle the dry bones of antiquarianism? In the first place there may be a danger that we underrate the value of formalism itself. It spells routine, but routine is not without value in the strengthening of character.
Phrase after phrase following in the same order of ideas, and with the same pitiably limited vocabulary, appear week by week in them. How much better to enrich this painfully individualistic formalism with something of the corporate glories of the whole body of Christian believers.
This view of the Church shows the immense importance of a live, intelligent, and active personal faith. It puts a ban on religious indifference and mechanical worship. It destroys formalism, ceremonialism, Pharisaism in the affairs of religion.
Formalism and materialism always die slowly: play in the Board School was interpreted as something that had to be dictated and taught: the gifts, occupations and games were organised, and appeared on the time-table as subjects side by side with Wilderspin's theology and object-lessons.
Constitutionally endowed with little vitality, he suffered mentally as well as bodily from languor and lassitude. His lack of enthusiasm, his cold-blooded formalism, caused comment even in an age which prided itself in self-command and decorum. His very malevolence proceeded from a flaccidity which meanly envied the activities and enthusiasms of other men.
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