can think of Christ as the personification of godliness because—barring his rejection of his mother (Matt. 13:54–58) and some bitter words about hell (Matt. 13:37–42; Mark 9:48; Luke 16:25)—he preached a code of conduct which, if generally practiced, would make even poverty an earthly paradise. I can praise Christianity for winning wider acceptance of moral ideas by transforming these into pictures, narratives, dramas, and art, and thereby helping to tame the unsocial impulses of mankind. In this sense I could think of Church leaders as religious statesmen who, whatever they themselves might
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