These things are for poets, and philosophers. Let's get the job done now, all this has been said, and said better, many times before, and I would not waste time and energy on it except that this philosophy of pragmatism has had and is having a very powerful influence upon Christianity today especially in America. And whatever touches the faith of Christ immediately, and with that kind of magnitude, becomes a matter of extreme interest to me and, I hope, to you also. The nervous compulsion to get things done is found everywhere among us. We are affected by a kind of religious tic, a deep inner necessity to accomplish something that can be seen and photographed and evaluated in terms of size, numbers, speed and distance.
Christian leaders compete with each other in the field of impressive statistics.
Right here is where the pragmatic philosophy comes into its own. It asks no embarrassing questions about the wisdom of what we are doing or even sometimes about the morality and ethics of it. It accepts our chosen ends as right and good and casts about for efficient means and ways to get them accomplished. When it discovers something that works, it soon finds a text to justify it, consecrates it to The Lord and plunges ahead. Any questions about the scriptural-ness of things or even the moral and ethical validity of them is completely swept away.