The Big Questions

The first two books, numbers eight and nine respectively in Gollancz’s ‘Common Sense Series’, are the fruits of ecumenical thinking. Both writers are members of the Church of England, and share a broad, humane approach to world problems, and a strong tendency to shrug off formal definitions of belief. Mr Hadham has the harder task, for he has endeavoured to discover the basic elements in the life of the various Christian denominations, in Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam, which might serve as a common ground for co-operation in worship. He comes close in spirit to Matthew Arnold, the father of the Modernists, who defined God as ‘that power, outside ourselves, which makes for righteousness’ – and he continually slides over the real contradictions which need to be recognised. Can one equate, for instance, as Mr Hadham does, the Buddhist idea of peace with that peace proclaimed by angels in the Gospel story of the birth of Christ?

Canon Carpenter’s task is more rewarding. He can leave Buddhism to the Buddhists and speak directly from his own position – a thoroughly pragmatical one. The most vital portions of his book are those which deal with problems of the Christian conscience scandalised by modern warfare and the hydrogen bomb. He appeals, very properly, to what he feels Christ’s own attitude would be, and prefers the prospect of a world dominated by Communism to the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Harlow’s account of his own personal experience of paranormal phenomena – inkwells mysteriously shattered, ectoplasm, spirit voices, apparitions, telepathy, typewriting horses, apparent reincarnation – is patently sincere. The author claims that these experiences have strengthened his faith in personal immortality and enlarged his spiritual horizons. Yet his book has this in common with other spiritist literature – the written and spoken communications which he has received from the ‘spirit world’ would seem to indicate either that death makes morons of us all, or else that the inquirers are fooling themselves or being fooled.

1962 (268)