Androcles and the Lion (Shaw)/Preface to Androcles and the Lion

by George Bernard Shaw

On the Prospects of Christianity

• Why not give Christianity a Trial?
• Why Jesus more than Another?
• Was Jesus a Coward?
• Was Jesus a Martyr?
• The Gospels without Prejudice
• The Gospels now unintelligible to Novices
• Worldliness of the Majority
• Religion of the Minority. Salvationism
• The Difference between Atonement and Punishment
• Salvation at first a Class Privilege; and the Remedy
• Retrospective Atonement; and the Expectation of the Redeemer
• Completion of the Scheme by Luther and Calvin
• John Barleycorn
• Looking for the End of the World
• The Honor of Divine Parentage

Matthew

• The Annunciation, the Massacre, the Flight
• John the Baptist
• Jesus joins the Baptists
• The Savage John and the Civilized Jesus
• Jesus not a Proselytist
• The Teachings of Jesus
• The Miracles
• Matthew imputes Bigotry to Jesus
• The Great Change
• Jerusalem and the Mystical Sacrifice
• Not this Man but Barabbas
• The Resurrection
• Date of Matthew's Narrative
• Class Type of Matthew's Jesus

Mark

• The Women Disciples and the Ascension

Luke

• Luke the Literary Artist
• The Charm of Luke's Narrative
• The Touch of Parisian Romance
• Waiting for the Messiah

John

• A New Story and a New Character
• John the Immortal Eye Witness
• The Peculiar Theology of Jesus
• John agreed as to the Trial and Crucifixion

Christianity

• Credibility of the Gospels
• Fashions of Belief
• Credibility and Truth
• Christian Iconolatry and the Peril of the Iconoclast
• The Alternative to Barabbas
• The Reduction to Modern Practice of Christianity
• Modern Communism
• Redistribution
• Shall He Who Makes, Own?
• Labor Time
• The Dream of Distribution According to Merit
• Vital Distribution
• Equal Distribution
• The Captain and the Cabin Boy
• The Political and Biological Objections to Inequality
• Jesus as Economist
• Jesus as Biologist
• Money the Midwife of Scientific Communism
• Judge Not
• Limits to Free Will
• Jesus on Marriage and the Family
• Why Jesus did not Marry
• Inconsistency of the Sex Instinct
• For Better for Worse
• The Case for Marriage
• Celibacy no Remedy
• After the Crucifixion
• The Vindictive Miracles and the Stoning of Stephen
• Paul
• Confusion of Christendom
• Secret of Paul's Success
• Paul's Qualities
• Acts of the Apostles
• The Controversies on Baptism and Transubstantiation
• The Alternative Christs
• Credulity no Criterion
• Belief in Personal Immortality no Criterion
• The Secular View
• The Higher Criticism
• The Perils of Salvationism
• The Importance of Hell in the Salvation Scheme
• The Right to refuse Atonement
• The Teaching of Christianity
• Christianity and the Empire