20–3581
“Prof. Fitch likens the present day to other great periods of transition; the time of Jesus’s advent, of the Mohammedan invasion, of Luther’s protest. The church today stands for the old order. It has attempted to keep abreast of the times merely by tacking new social programs on to an outworn philosophy. This method is doomed to failure from the beginning. If the church is to survive it must mold progressively its fundamental conceptions. And its most fundamental conception, its attitude to the Jesus of history, must be based on an appreciation of his moral grandeur. A quickened conscience, resulting from a clearer apprehension of the moral value of Jesus’s teaching, is far more important for the church than any new Christological formulation. This moral awakening will itself have religious content in its devotion to eternal and transcendent values.”—Springf’d Republican
“We looked to the last sections of the book for something to guide and inspire the church so unsparingly criticized. There is no program offered. This is a fatal weakness. What is needed now is not a negative criticism but a constructive program.”
− Bib World 54:645 N ’20 210w
“Anything from the pen of Dr Albert Parker Fitch is certain to be clear, colorful and aggressive. His latest little book is no exception.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 Ap 5 ’20 330w
FITCH, ALBERT PARKER.[[2]] Preaching and paganism. *$2 Yale univ. press 204
20–19512
“The Amherst professor describes the permanent element in religion—the sense of God—in contrast with two forces that are in control of our present day thinking and acting, humanism and naturalism. He shows how these alien factors have entered and subtly taken possession of worship and even preaching, and he pleads for the religious view which, while acknowledging God in nature and in man, refuses to set up either man or nature as its norm and guide.” (N Y Evening Post) “The book is the forty-sixth of the series of the Lyman Beecher lectureship on preaching in Yale university and is the fourth work published on the James Wesley Cooper memorial publication fund.” (Boston Transcript)