Antiseptic Christianity

Charles A. Lindbergh "grew up as a disciple of science. I know its fascination. I have felt the godlike power man derives from his machines." But in the last decade Charles Lindbergh has "seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve . . . We are in the grip of a scientific materialism, caught in a vicious cycle where our security today seems to depend on regimentation and weapons which will ruin us tomorrow . . . Unless science is controlled by a greater moral force, it will become the Antichrist prophesied by the early Christians."

In a new book, Of Flight and Life (Scribner; $1.50), Lindbergh proposes a religious solution: "When we worship God and live by His spiritual values, the knowledge and infinite complexity of science are channeled by a wisdom beyond human capability . . . Then science gives us the material strength to protect our spiritual values." But Lindbergh's new religion is almost as nationalist as his old pre-Pearl Harbor politics: "For Americans, the doctrine of universal equality is a doctrine of death . . . Our survival, the future of our civilization, possibly the existence of mankind, depends on American leadership . . ."

The book is so much better written than "We" that his literary wife Anne (The Wave of the Future) clearly had a hand in editing it, but many Christians may find that Lindbergh's Christianity has a chilling, impersonal, antiseptic quality. "We must learn from the sermons of Christ, the wisdom of Lao-tzu, the teachings of Buddha," he declares. To Lindbergh, science "intensifies religious truth by cleansing it of ignorance and superstition." Once science has helped mankind to separate "the truths of God . . . from the dogma which surrounds them ... we still have the possibility, here in America, of building a civilization based on Man, where . . . leadership rests on the respect and confidence it instills in others, and whose standard of life is the quality of life itself."

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