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Page 4
[Sidenote: Some Influential Facts.]
[Sidenote: A Great Mistake.]
[Sidenote: Doctored Heathenism.]
Whatever relation the fact may have as a cause, it is noteworthy that as
to time, this new era of doubt largely coincides as to its beginning
with the movement to revise the New Testament. The variations of the
manuscripts, the interpretations, the comparatively late date of the
oldest manuscripts were before this in possession of scholars only. The
daily press have made them the possession of the Christian world. The
shock to traditional confidence through this was very great. The
Congress of Religions at Chicago had a similar effect. The mistaken
liberality which permitted Christianity to appear on the same platform
with the ethnic and imperfect religions contributed largely to doctrinal
indifference. The taking and uncandid misrepresentations of these
religions convinced many that there was at least no better foundation
for Christianity and no better content therein than for and in the false
and imperfect faiths. Many of these were defended by men who had had an
English education and had come into contact with Christian vocabulary
and civilization. They did not hesitate to read into these religions
ideas wholly Christian and wholly foreign to the original teachings.
[Sidenote: What Remains?]
These and other considerations lead me to ask what remains that we may
and do believe? While far from admitting as finally proved the radical
conclusions reached by some as to authorship and inspiration of the
Bible and Divine authority for doctrines deduced therefrom, it must be
profitable for us to ask, "What remains if some of these conclusions
stand?"
Recall that I do not admit all these for a moment, or any of them as
final. Some are probably true. But taking the worst and most
iconoclastic as true, are we compelled even then to surrender our
Christian faith?
[Sidenote: The Apostles' Creed.]
Let us take the separate articles of the Apostles' Creed and see how
they stand affected:
[Sidenote: The Fatherhood of God.]
"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."
[Sidenote: A Christian God.]
Surely this remains untouched and in full force. Huxley, to requote what
has before been quoted, says: "I can not see one tittle of evidence that
the great unknown stands to us in the light of a Father." What a
contradiction is here! He knows that the great unknown can not be proved
to be our Father. Then he must know of the great unknown the negative
aspects so minutely as to be sure that no Fatherhood is in the great
unknown. Then he knows the great unknown much better than he is willing
to admit, better than an agnostic ought.
[Sidenote: An All Pervasive Spirit.]
[Sidenote: His Commandments.]
[Sidenote: The Divine Ideal.]
Yet that the idea of God may remain in power and not as a "passionless
impersonality," it must be less interpreted by the teachings of Moses
and more by the teachings of Christ. Human tempers and passions must be
eliminated from our Divine Ideal. He must not be made an angry and
jealous God as men count these. He must not be thought of as a
vindictive personality, never so well pleased as when scaring His
children into panic. In the thought of the Church He will be an
all-pervasive Spirit whose nature is unfolded by the universe He has
made. In that universe He will be felt to be immanent as the power of
development, order, and destiny. All ages show Him to be "the power
which makes for righteousness." The commandments are not only His
because they are found in the Bible, but because they are perceived to
be necessary laws of conduct proceeding from such a Being as we know God
to be for such beings as we know men to be. Thus we perceive them to be
the Divinely authorized bond of society and the guarantee and obligation
of the Divine Ideal of humanity. All nature and all history are
scrutinized for traces of the Supreme. These being found to coincide
with the Christian Revelation of Him, men will read with new reverence
those wonderful books which make up the Book, and which beyond all
others anticipate the latest results of scientific inquiry and natural
ethical canon.
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