Henry - A History of Biola University Since 1908

9 [. about the development of "Hebrew ideals.'' The ethical values of the cross began to take precedence over the traditional view of the substitutionary atonement. Liberal ministers began to cast discredit upon the doctrine of the virgin birth. They appealed more to the "experience of Christ" as the basis for religious authority, than to his deity. The theory of evolution gained recognition during this era so that a "reasonable" gospel replaced a "miraculous" one. Volumes have been written on the issues of liberalism versus fundamental ism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The impossibility of a pro- . ject such as this to present a complete account of the issues limits the presentation to a brief summary. Perhaps the best summary one could use is the one provided by the editor of Christian Century, a liberal publication, in 1924. "Chrisitanity according to the fundamentalists is one religion; Christianity according to the modernists is another religion. Which is the true religion is the question that is to be settled, in all pos- sibility, by our generation. There is a clash here so profound and as grim as between Christianity and Confucianism. Amiable words cannot hide the difference. 'Blest be the Tie' may be sung till doomsday but it cannot bind these worlds together. The God of fundamentalism is one God, the God of the modernist is another. The Christ of the funda- mentalist is one Christ, the Christ of the modernist is another. The Bible of the fundamentalist is one Bible, the Bible of the modernist is another. The Church, the kingdom, the salvation, the consumation of all things: these are one thing to the fundamentalist and another thing to the modernist. Which God is the Christian God, which Christ is the Christian Christ, which Bible is the Christian Bible, which A SUMMARY OF THE BASIC ISSUES

Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter