September, 1940
323
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S of O u r
F a dd i s t s
Fa i t h
By A. W . TOZER* Chicago, Illinois A HOBBY may benefit its pos sessor; a fad never does. A hobby sometimes helps as a tonic to one’s general health, because it allows the mind to play; but the fad dist must slave at his job, for it is the nature of fads to demand full-time at tention from their victims. It is in religion that faddism works its deadliest ruin. Descended of an evil line of ignorance, bigotry, and intoler ance, it does not hesitate to put on bor rowed priestly robes and stamp straight into the sanctuary itself to offer strange fire upon the altars of fundamental Christianity. We must distinguish, how ever, between the evil teacher of reli gious fads and the honest believer who may, for a time, be led astray. Many sincere Christians are captivated at first by these teachers, but later they see their mistake and renounce them. Yet the true religious faddist seldom returns to sanity. He i3 inspired by seducing spirits to teach doctrines of demons, and a seared conscience prevents him from seeing his fatal error. If we should seem too severe in iden tifying the religious faddist with the evil teachers of whom Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 4:1 to 6, let it be noted that the passage expressly names celibacy and vegetarianism as two of the fads taught by seducing spirits. Neither celi bacy nor vegetarianism, when practiced for private reasons, is an evil in itself,' but they become evils when they are riveted onto the consciences of God’s people as a necessary part of the Chris tian faith. The Physical Immortality Theory A few years ago, a man came to the grounds of one of our summer Bible conferences and distributed t r a c t s
among the people. The tracts contained a new revelation: No Christian need ever die, but might live on until the Lord’s return, no matter how remote that event should prove to be! Two lines of argu ment were advanced to support this idea, one from Scripture, the other from science. The Scripture used was John 11:26: “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” That the historic church had not seen in this text any hint of the immortality of the believer’s body mattered not at all. The church had simply been in unbelief, and as a consequence, she had seen her members die. The second line of argument had to do with certain experiments which had been performed on flatworms. By proper diet and controlled fasting, the lives of these worms had been extended to thirty times their normal length. By analogy it was reasoned that, with prop er dietary manipulation, human life could be extended to thirty times its usual length. Seventy years is the Biblical span of life; thirty times seventy are 2,100; thus the life of the individual would be 2,100 years. If this fad seems to be a matter of lirije consequence, a mere eccentricity, let me point out that its practical im plications are serious. An elderly gen tleman who believed his body to be im mortal lay in the throes o f approaching death. His family stood around refusing
The Great Pyramid Theory A fad which has gained considerable favor and has succeeded in gaining some fairly respectable patronage is the Great Pyramid theory. I first read of it many years ago in the writings of Pastor Russell, of the Millennial Dawn move ment. This theory was adopted by a number of otherwise reputable Bible teachers who proceeded to popularize it in certain circles until many Christians deserted the clear Word of God to go wriggling through the dark and dusty passages of the Great Pyramid, looking to believe that he could die. His agony became so great that he broke down and begged for something to relieve his pain. To minister to his dying needs would have been to deny their faith, so they would do nothing for him. After hours of physical torment the man died —> death itself was more merciful to him than were the poor, misguided Christians who had refused him the simplest min istrations o f comfort. A creed which provokes such conduct can be only a grotesque parody on the true faith.
* Pastor , Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle.
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