These lecture and articles by the author of The Coming of the Third Church form a cohesive, wide-ranging, thoughtful whole concerned with attitudes of mind not statistic. Fr Buhlman remains undauted by the ‘crises’ facing the Church and adduces theological reasons for his sober optimism.
The disciples going disconsolately home to Emmaus did not understand that “these things had to happen” until the risen Lord explained the meaning of the scripture; we in our day have to learn to read the signs of the times, past and present.
No man’s life is meaningless; every life, like every event, has a place in God’s plan of salvation for all men. If we acquire a sense of salvation history still in the making, our deeper understanding will strengthen our faith in the power of Christ’s victory and bolster our conviction that the Holy Spirit will never desert us.