Article November 30, 1963 Issue

Signs of the Times

Monica Furlong

The Guardian

Monica Furlong, Columnist in The Guardian Manchester, Lancashire, England

I am deeply involved in formal religion myself, owe it an overwhelming debt, and am only brash enough to scoff at it 90 per cent of the time. But for those who have ears to hear and lips to tell, it is common knowledge that the foundations have shivered, that there are cracks a mile wide in the walls, that the hot ashes are falling like rain upon our piety, and that the lava is curling about our sacred objects. When we try to walk in the old paths of religion we find them broken and obliterated....

What has happened is that religion has been cracked wide open by much that is new and brave in human thought—most notably by science and psychology—as well as by instruments which are old and ugly, such as persecution and political pressure. Within the dingy sarcophagus of piety there is dust and emptiness and death. But the risible, wonderful, breathcatching thing Christians have to grasp about their faith is the teasing thing, as Peter himself had to learn at Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. The truth is not safely mouldering in the grave but is marching on as valiantly as ever. ...

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