The Second Christianity

In the contemporary world, John Hick argues, there are two Christianities. In one the Bible is seen as uniquely inspired and authorative, and the Christian worldview is accordingly identified with that of the late first-century church. The gospel is an offer of personal salvation and often a call to us-against-them religious patriotism. In the other, there is an overriding concern for our one world and our common humanity, leading to preoccupation with the global problems of nuclear destruction, the squandering of precious energy resources, the divide between rich and poor in the world and the population explosion. The great religious traditions are seen as representing different awarenesses of and different responses to a divine Reality which transcends all our human thoughts and images, scriptures and cults. Hick’s book describes the religious core of this ‘second Christianity’, the Christianity which is not the tribal religion of one section of humanity over against the rest, but rather one way amongst others of living out our common humanity in relation to a divine Presence which grasps us all. It has grown out of two earlier works, Christianity at the Centre and The Centre of Christianity.