Bitter Tonic for our Time

Abstract

"Why does the Church need the world? This paper seeks to explore what today's Church might learn from secular 'apostles' and 'prophets' as part of its ongoing mission to, for and with the world that God so loves. In particular, it will investigate the role that poets, dramatists and other artists might play in identifying humanism's problem of downplaying moral realism- a problem that Church has often failed to critically grasp. The excursion will proceed via the engagement of the Scottish Congregationalist theologian Peter Taylor Forsyth (1848-1921) with one of his contemporaries, the Norwegian poet and dramatist, Henrik lbsen (1828-1906). Forsyth provides us with a model of how we might engage our world with candor, humility and gospel courage"