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Of the many problems that confront us today, none is more vexing than that of the relation of Christianity to Western Civilization. None, certainly, causes more acrimonious controversy and internecine hostility between the members of the race which created that civilization. None more thoroughly counteracts their common interest in its preservation and renders them impotent and helpless. And that is not remarkable: What is in question is the essential nature of our civilization, and if there is no agreement about that, there can be no effective agreement on other questions.The question is obviously, perhaps fatally, divisive, but it cannot be evaded or ignored. The question is one to which even reticence is an answer; and hypocrisy is demoralizing. I have therefore undertaken the exacting and almost impossible task of presenting in these pages an objective and dispassionate summary of the problem, condensing into a few pages what would more properly be the substance of several volumes, themselves compendious.We live in a time in which there is much talk about 'religious freedom.' It is assumed that beliefs about the supernatural are a 'private matter' which every individual has a right to determine for himself. Thus we have the dogma about the 'separation of church and state' which was one of the basic principles of the American Constitution and survives today as one of the few bases of that Constitution that have not been officially repudiated or covertly abrogated.This conception of religion is a recent one. It was a novelty when the Constitution was written, and it was then a compromise that many of our people accepted only reluctantly. It has consequences that very large segments of our population are unwilling to accept today. And it is now a source of infinite sophistry, hypocrisy, chicanery, and befuddlement.
