If the Church is truly the “newness of life”—the world and nature as restored in Christ—it is not, or rather ought not be, a purely religious institution in which to be “pious,” to be a member in “good standing,” means leaving one’s own personality at the entrance—in the “check room”—and replacing it with a worn-out, impersonal, neutral “good Christian” type personality. Piety in fact may be a very dangerous thing, a real opposition to the Holy Spirit who is the Giver of Life—of joy, movement and creativity—and not of the “good conscience” which looks at everything with suspicion, fear and
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