THE EARNEST AGNOSTIC
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER, by Margaret Isherwood; Victor Gollancz Ltd., English price 13/6. = INCE Mr. Gollancz first began to offer the fruits of his spiritual progress to "Timothy" and to the modern intellectual world, the firm of Victor Gollanecz’Ltd. has been employed (along with strictly temporal publishing activities) in laying the foundations of a new Church. For the sake of brevity one may call it the Church of Inbetweeners. For it is based upon the natural wish of every agnostic to retain the benefits of religion without the pains of actual religious commitment; and it aspires to lead our intellectual pugilists out of the ring where they are clinched so savagely _ With the World, the Flesh and the Devil, to a permanent and enlightened ringside seat. Miss Isherwood is a member of this congregation. She writes with evident sincerity, about what is perhaps the most difficult problem of all, the adjustment of religious education to the psychological requirements of a growing child. One admires her intention. But as the title of the book indicates, and its content confirms, her agnosticism is not neutral but militant. She quotes with complete aplomb St. Bernard, Ramakrishna, Keats, Hesiod, Adler, Eckhart and Charles Morgan, to support a syncretic programme of religious (continued on next page)
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(continued from previous page) education. There are many case_histories embedded in her text to expose the stultifying effect of dogma upon the minds of children and adolescents. With this exposure, on a basis of simple observation, one must concur. But Miss Isherwood’s sense of proportion fails her when she suggests that the spiritual devastation wrought by loss of faith can best be avoided by removing faith from the young, and replacing it with intellectual tolerance. Would any man willingly barter the power to say, "God help us," and mean it, for a dish of metaphysical porridge made from Indian grain, salted by Jung, and stewed
In a clinicr
James K.
Baxter
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 13
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327THE EARNEST AGNOSTIC New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 814, 4 March 1955, Page 13
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