“The narrow gate of which Jesus had spoken had become so wide that countless multitudes were hurrying through it—many seeming to do so only in pursuit of privilege and position, without caring to delve too deeply into the meaning of Christian baptism and life under the cross.”8 In other words, Christianity had experienced a drastic cultural shift whereby people purported to enter into life with God and the church not by renunciation of the ways of the world system but by appropriating it through political and cultural power.
