Dr. Pittenger, philosopher and theologian, was a senior member of King’s College, Cambridge for many years, then Professor of Christian Apologetics at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, before retiring in 1966.
Published by Morehouse-Gorham Company, New York, 1954. This book was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.
SUMMARY
(ENTIRE BOOK) A primer of traditional Christian doctrine, including creeds, salvation, prayer, death, worship, practice and faith.
Chapters
- Preface
- Chapter 1: Why Do We Have Creeds?
Christianity is not the simple religion of God’s Fatherhood and man’s brotherhood, but rather the religion which finds God come to men for their wholeness of life in the person of Jesus Christ; and therefore finds in Him, in who He was, in what He did, in who He is, and in what He does, and in the consequences of those things, the whole substance.
- Chapter 2:<I> </I>What About Salvation?
Salvation means: 1. That we are given healthy lives, rightly adjusted to the things that are, and delivered from allegiance to the things that seem to be; 2. That we who are unwell in our inner spirits may have the healthy life of God’s charity; 3. That we are delivered by this fact from faithless fears and worldly anxieties.
- Chapter 3: Do We Need the Church?
We cannot live to ourselves alone, much less be saved alone. That is why the church is essential.
- Chapter 4:<I> </I>Can Prayer be Answered?
Prayer is to be seen as the relating of our wills to God’s Will.
- Chapter 5: What Happens After Death?
If we have in us any of the stuff of goodness, God will indeed take us to Himself. If we have no such stuff of goodness, we are, in fact, alienated from God — alienated by our own choice and desire. The former is Heaven; the latter, Hell.
- Chapter 6: Why Do We Worship Christ?
Christ was not just a very good man. The mystery of Christ is the union in Him of God and man, of true deity and true humanity.
- Chapter 7: The Unity of Worship and Prayer with Belief and Practice
Our faith, our worship, and our life are all knit together in the fact of our Christian membership in the Church.
- Chapter 8: The Nature of Worship
Worship is the offering to God of that praise which rightly belongs to Him.
- Chapter 9<B>: </B>Christian Worship
The Eucharist is the crown of Christian worship yet not the whole of it.
- Chapter: 10 The Personal Devotion<I> </I>of the Christian
The private prayer of a Christian will be given point and significance as it leads to and is itself enriched by regularity of attendance at the public services of the Church.
- Chapter: 11: Our Faith and our Living
The Christian is a citizen of two cities, that of God, which in the Church is partially realized; and that of Man, in which he must strive for the relative good which is possible in the realm of space and time.