“For the Christian affirmation is that there is indeed
another history, the history which God makes, and which takes place in and
through the events of human history.
This history of salvation can be seen only with the eyes of faith and
its external manifestation is a sign, the sacrament which is the church. Yet this instrument of Christ’s revelation
has, in cold historical fact, obscured his face and failed to proclaim his message. This the church has done not through malice
but simply because she is human. Her
members are therefore themselves in some sense unbelievers, and must share
responsibility for the unbelief of the world around them. This world in turn cannot be absolved from
its own guilt, for there will always be men who freely choose to live in
darkness rather than in light. Yet what
the Christian must guard against, when he and his church present themselves to
the world in which they live, is that this world should not encounter in them
that portion of darkness which is theirs.
This we all pray for, that the light which is Christ may break through
our darkness, and that contemporary unbelief may find in the church a sacrament
of Christian faith.”—American Roman Catholic theologian Fr. John Courtney
Murray (1904-1967), “The Unbelief Of The Christian,” originally published in The
Presence and Absence of God (1969), republished in American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King Jr., edited by Michael Warner (1999)
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