In every part of the world the Protestant movement finds itself beleaguered by the forces of militant nationalism -- a nationalism which represents for the most part an utter denial of the Christian faith. The precariousness of the position of the Protestant churches consists in the fact that the nature of nationalism is such that it can isolate sections of the Protestant community and destroy these sections in detail. Though the destruction of the universal elements in the Protestant faith has progressed further in certain sections of the German church than anywhere else this same process is actively present in American life. An environment favorable to this process has been created by some of our foremost educators, philosophers and theologians. It has been created by men who are quite unconscious of the indirect consequences of their intellectual assumptions, and who as individuals would energetically oppose the extension of the authority of national culture over the whole range of life. Yet such an extension is actually taking place as a result of the religious attitudes which these men have adopted, and as this extension takes place
it carries with it a mortal threat to the integrity of the Christian faith. This situation obviously requires the immediate attention of those who have at heart the future of the American Protestant churches.
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