Alfred North Whitehead and A New Kind of Christianity
I just came across this in Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1978):
When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received text of Western theology was edited by his lawyers…. The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly…. But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers, was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.
There is … in the Galilean origin of Christianity, yet another suggestion which does not fit in very well…. It does not emphasize the ruling Caesar, or the ruthless moralist, or the unmoved mover. It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love, and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. it does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present. (342-343).
This would have been a great epigram for A New Kind of Christianity.