According to the separate traditions, Moses, Confucius and the Buddha all had a period of some forty years in which to establish a way of life among their followers. The Prophet Muhammad had twenty-two years for passing on the revelation that was bestowed through him. Yet within little more than thirty months Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed something and did something and was something that immediately fired the imagination of the common people.

Though we may not understand what he meant by it, we know what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was: "The time has come; the Kingdom of God is almost here; turn your minds round and believe the good news." Here is the keynote of the faith of Jesus of Nazareth. Here is the word which, on his lips, moved people with such extraordinary power. If we could resuscitate that declaration so that it conveyed in the terms and in the experience of our world the essence of what it meant to his, might it not stir the pulse and quicken the imagination of a new generation in our own day and restore a clarity of purpose to the churches?"