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WHO IS NORMAL?
both be impoverished. Only by an analysis of the personality
can the real situation be disclosed in any particular case.
Before we can decide whether an individual’s religious point
of view is an expression of normality or otherwise we must first
distinguish real disturbances of function from variations within
the range of normal functioning. Two persons may be going
towards a certain destination. They are different in
temperament and native endowment, and their judgments are based on
different kinds of experience. They will probably travel by
different routes, choose different ways of realising their common
good. To each of these people the road taken by the other is a
‘deviation’ from his own; but both are normal. It is only those
who try to solve religious problems at their desks who believe
that normality means conformity to a rule. Unhappily there are
too many religious bodies where authority is vested in people
who like laying down the law, and deviations are not tolerated.
’They forget that spiritual growth is growth in freedom. Respect
for variations from religious normality is essential if violence
is not to be done to personality and the religious goals towards
which it strives.
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