Christianity and the World Religions

Ease of communications brings all men together: but the contiguity of bodies does not necessarily entail the crossfertilization of minds, and the mere fact that we can now move round the world at incredible speed does not mean that we are any better equipped to appreciate the ideas and cultures of other lands. Indeed it can be argued that the enormous development of the tourist traffic in Europe has done more to emphasize national peculiarities than to promote international good will: mere physical contact between nations does not necessarily lead to better understanding. That there is need for better understanding, however, few would deny; and it is only since the last war that Europeans have come to realize it. For it is quite certain that the last war put an end to European supremacy for ever; and Europeans, so long the master race, will now have to learn the hard way how to get on on equal terms with peoples they had previously dominated. Moreover, their recent attainment of freedom has given the Asiatics a new self-confidence and a new faith in their ancient civilizations. Christianity benefited greatly from the imperialist expansion of nominally Christian powers, and Christian missions have made most progress where European political power has been strongest. With the retreat of Europe from imperialism all that has changed, and the newly liberated peoples of Asia see Christianity not so much as a rival religion to be judged according to its own merits as the religion of their late masters who so often seemed to behave in a singularly un-Christian way.