All Christianity divided ...

... into three parts: Anarchy in the age of the spirit. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Cox recognises the risks associated with some of the features of the age of the spirit – its fundamentalism, say, or the prosperity gospel. But he argues they can't last. They are essentially reactions against modern biblical scholarship, which means "a religion based on subscribing to mandatory beliefs is no longer viable". Hence the emphasis on the spirit. Neither does he worry that Christianity today so often feels like a Jesus-centred personality cult. Rather, Pentecostalism is a positive force, part of "an inexorable movement of the human spirit whose hour has come".

Here is something from a piece about Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and Romano Guardini: "The celebration of the liturgy is the true self-fulfillment of the Christian, and therefore in the struggle over symbolism and the liturgy, what is at stake – Ratzinger notes, following Guardini's teaching – is the development of the essential dimension of man."

I don't think Cox understands this.