ALBERT SCHWEITZER'S THEOLOGY

"More is to be found in the words of the beloved theologian-physician-musician-humanitarian, Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer spent years in the most searching and conscientious study of Christian history. In the end, he summed up his conclusions in one sententious paragraph that can be found in his work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This Jesus, he says--who came forward, as others did, with the announcement that he was the Messiah; who proclaimed the near coming of the Kingdom of God, and urged men to repent that they might be prepared; and who sealed and consecrated his message by his death--this Jesus never existed. He stands to the world as a character conceived by liberal theological doctrinism and projected into historicity by the heads of the Christian religion... Facts themselves have become the strongest critics of this supposititious history. It is not the Jesus of the Gospels who can be meaningful for our time, says Schweitzer, but the Christ that can be known within the arena of man's inner experience. The theologians had been sure that mankind could be saved and brought to the glorification of the inner life by the propagation of faith in the Nazarene biography authenticated as history. But, this tactic has failed according to Schweitzer. It was bound to fail, as will all doctrine that looks to a source other than man's own innate, divine potential--which is one with, part of, the true Christ, the divine ground of all. We thought, says Schweitzer, that we could use the Jesus of history to lead the world to the mystic Jesus who is the living, spiritual power today. But the road leading through the historical Christ to the brooding Christ-spirit proved too forbidding and never brought the pilgrims to the longed-for Mecca. What is more, this detour has now been closed by genuine history."

A Rebirth for Christianity, "Jesus and the Christos," by Alvin Boyd Kuhn, pp. 188-189 (2005)