Ascertaining what was the *original and fundamental purpose* of the great Christian movement - the *life and teachings* of Jesus, and the *dominant tendencies* of primitive Christianity, is imperative due to the impossibility of handling of questions so vital to the economic, the social, and the moral standing of great and antagonistic classes of men, without jarring precious interests and convictions, and without giving men the choice between the bitterness of social repentance and the bitterness of moral resentment. Men must overcome the temptations which made the wrong almost inevitable, and the points of view in which they entrench themselves to save their self-respect. Those who come after us will live in a world which our sins have blighted or which our love of right has redeemed. We must do our thinking on these great questions, not with our eyes fixed on our accounts [the entrenched fear, the blinders], but with a wise outlook on the fields of the future and with the consciousness that the spirit of the Eternal is seeking to distill from our lives some essence of righteousness before they pass away. [Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 1907, 1913 edition, [with additions]]
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