Do We Hate Each Other? by Bob Shuler Sr.
istic teaching would blot out the Deity of Jesus, the Blood Atone ment, the doctrine of the bodily resurrection and other fundamen tal doctrines, including the inspir ation of the Bible itself. They there fore soundly hate modernism , which does not mean that they would not gladly kneel at any altar and earnestly pray for the salvation of any penitent modernist. They can and should hate modernism while they pray with love for the souls of all modernists. On the other hand, modernists believe that fundamentalists are seeking to block a social kingdom of God on earth, correct attitudes economically, solutions in contests of labor and management, in racial relations, etc. They therefore hate the narrowness (as they describe it), the so-called bigotry, the dog matic doctrinal positions taken by their fundamental brethren. It does not necessarily follow at all that they hate the fundamentalist himself. For many years, my Bish op was a known modernist. He was what is called a Liberal in theology and politics. I was the opposite. But I never felt that Bish op Baker hated me. He was always kind and courteous. I know I did not hate him. We were as far apart as the poles in our thinking. But I believe he would have risked his life, if needs be, to have pulled me out of the river and I know that, had I seen his boat overturned and him fighting the water for his life, I would have shed my coat, kicked off my shoes and gone after him with all I had. I don’t call that hating each other. After we got out and dried off, we would no doubt have been just as positively on the opposite sides. I know a minister who says that he can love both fundamentalists and liberals because he has gotten in the middle (on the fence, is an other way to put it) and is neither a fundamentalist nor a liberal. He should read the 15th verse of the 3rd chapter of Revelation. It is not an easy undertaking—this thing of being on both sides and neither side of any question. END.
A very prominent minister in Los Angeles recently said that he could not be a fundamentalist because of their hatred for the modernists and he could not in turn be a modern ist because of their hatred of the fundamentalists. Sometimes I won der if these love specialists really know what love and hate are. Cer tainly, it is not hate to stoutly op pose what a man conscientiously be lieves are false ideals and doctrines. If so, Paul hated Peter, for he says, “When Peter came to, Antioch, I withstood him to the face.” At the same time, Paul in his letter to the Galatians tells us that he also found James and Barnabas sacrificing their convictions because it paid them politically to go along with the majority. He gave us to under stand that he didn’t like it in the least. But certainly he did not hate Peter or James or Barnabas. A man can have strong convic tions and defend what he believes is the truth, without in the least hating anybody. I do not hold my self up as an example but I am re ported to stand as vigorously for what I believe and against what I feel I must oppose as any man in these parts. But I can with true sincerity say that if there is any man in my acquaintance whom I hate, I cannot name him. There are many whose actions I detest. I can not love what some about me stand for. I try to follow in the foot steps of the Master in my feelings toward false prophets, evildoers and the workers of iniquity everywhere. Christ with great feeling referred to some as whited sepulchres, wolves in sheep’s clothing, false prophets, serpents and a generation of vipers, hypocrites. He said of them: “How can ye escape the damnation of hell?” But he did not hate them. He died for them. In fact, there is a great deal of hypocrisy in too much pious love for everything and everybody. I have learned long ago that over- Bob Shuler Sr. is editor of The Methodist Challenge (from which this article is re printed) and was pastor of Trinity. Method ist Church of Los Angeles for 40 years.
Criticism of Billy Graham
Even while crowds flock to ■ the Graham evangelistic cru- I sade meetings in San Francis- : co’s Cow Palace, there is a : deepening tide of criticism | among various evangelical ele- ! ments and leaders throughout l the country. Aimed primarily ; at Graham’s willingness to > work with any church which : will cooperate in a campaign, : the criticism appears to have ■ had its start during the New ■ York crusade groundwork in ! 1951. j What started as word-of- ■ mouth criticism has at the ■ present time flowered into a I powerful move, with numer- : ous magazine articles, book- j lets and leaflets broadcasting ■ the anti-Graham sentiments l throughout the country. : emphasis on love is sometimes pre tense. It is often a camouflage. It is mouthed oftentimes as a defense when inside the heart there is deep and abiding bitterness. A genuine Christian, honest and sincere, should hate not only every evil thing but the evil in men that causes them to do evil. Nor should he be so cowardly and unChrist- like as to profess to love the wrong that even now threatens to wreck humanity. I cannot agree that fundamen talists hate modernists and modern ists hate fundamentalists simply because of their difference in rea soning or failure to agree. Many fundamentalists believe with justi fication that if modernism pre vailed, the gospel message would be destroyed. They think that modern
The King's Business/June 1958
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