FAITH THAT FULFILLS by JULIUS SEELYE BIXLER, 1st 1951ed

A Faith
That Fulfills

by
Julius Seelye Bixler

Published by Harper and Brothers Inc, copyright New York 1951, stated First Edition. Having 122 indexed pages, bound in cloth 5.25 by 7.75 inch hard covers, still in original dust jacket showing moderate exterior wear and tear, otherwise binding still internally strong, contents clean, and overall in good condition.

(text taken from dust jacket...)

Larger numbers of people than ever before, says Dr. Bixler, are receptive to a thoughtful faith to which they can give head and heart. His book, full of original insights into such a faith, will assist many in formulating a religious philosophy of life adequate for these demanding times.

Despite a much improved state of religious affairs in recent years, a vital faith has still failed to win the intellectual leadership of the nation, he asserts. One chapter, "A Faith that Falters" is devoted to what Dr. Bixler conceives as a major error in current religious thought: the morbid influence of the existentialism primarily stemming from Kierkegaard. He sees this as a perhaps subconscious escape from a world situation gotten out of hand with resulting pessimism and defeatism. Then, in a succeeding chapter which gives the book its title, Dr. Bixler finds in the later prophets of Israel the key to a faith that fulfills, not destroys, the best in human reason. From Micah and Amos, Hosea finally works out in his own life the conviction that only through suffering for the oppressed and outcast can he attain to a communion with a God of all peoples.

How such a triumphant faith may function in personality and world disorders, Dr. Bixler illustrates in chapters on "The Ministry of Pain" and "The Ministry of Art." The first suggests some valuable sidelights on the problem of evil and the second shows how religious feeling may infuse the arts, thereby bringing together morality and aesthetics.

At length one means for sustaining and enlarging faith is proposed, based upon the phrase "withdrawal and return" popularized by Toynbee suggesting alternation between the poles of action and contemplation.