39. On the Character of the Present Day

This, my dear friends, can be clearly seen, and I have actually spoken of this perception here several times. We see how an actual conception of Christ is fading, especially in newer theology. We see how, according to the view of the modern theologian - one need only recall Harnack's 'Essence of Christianity', for example - for many modern theologians Christ is actually denied. “The Son does not belong in the Gospel,” says Harnack, ‘only the Father.’ It could therefore be said that there is no longer any real concept of Christ, only of the one God. There is no longer any awareness of how the Son differs from the Father. It is like a return to the Old Testament and an obliteration of the New Testament. But this is the way to penetrate to the ethereal unity without warming it with the Christ impulse. In short, one sees everywhere how people often unsuspectingly expose themselves to the forces that draw their powers from the ethereal spirits on the one hand and from the elemental spirits on the other.