From the INTRODUCTION.
The religious situation in America to-day seems far from being ideal. On the surface there is criticism, pessimism, belligerency, neglect, or honest bewilderment. The reasons for these conditions are not primarily moral as in the days of the Wesleys in England, but intellectual. This term, intellectual, is used in the sense of beliefs and would express the fact that men of to-day are searching for religious truth which they can believe. We believe that there is present to-day among us an active idealism, and moral qualities of inestimable value. But we feel hampered because of the absence of absorbing, captivating, soul-stirring, religious beliefs.
The sources of this situation are plainly discernible. The middle of the last century marks the beginning of present religious thinking. At that time there was a distinct uniformity in the presentation of what Christianity is and teaches. The main items were: Hell fire; eternal damnation; the inspiration of the Bible; no salvation for the heathen; salvation by faith; the grace of God; sin; baptism; and heaven for those who believed and were faithful. Salvation was individual and not social. To doubt was one of the greatest of sins.
A spirit of unrest and of revolt began then to express itself, which, when fortified by the acquisition of new knowledge has been functioning ever since. The concrete evidence of the working of this new spirit is the presence of the many varieties of present-day isms. There is the Mental Science movement initiated by P. Quimby now manifest in its two large branches. Christian Science and New Thought. There is Spiritualism, Mormonism, and all the others. But the three movements which have profoundly influenced religious thinking are: Evolution, the Higher Criticism and Socialism....