July 1924
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
408
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j W ■ I Dag5;5B5H5g5g5gSZ5H5g5g5g5S5g5mW Ç !^gS?q?g^S?q?m ?q?qpq?q?TO^q?i?TOS?q?CTR?q7q?qpq?q?q?q?q?^q?'?q?q?W S?‘? t? i?T O T O 1i?.|gg.5g5a5H52SB5B5BE5g5Z5i Trie New Theology Rev., G. W . Ridout A chapter from a booklet bearing the title “What Is the Matter With Protestantism?” being an address delivered by Dr. Ridout at Asbury College Commencement, Wilmore, Kentucky, in the summer of 1923. Dr. Ridout is also the author of “ Present Crisis in Methodism,’| abandonment of faith in the Divine facts which have given birth to the Church, sustained it and always reanimated it after crises.” . . . “ The thing most to be feared in theol ogy is pure intellectualism. The entire man ought to be present in the search, the conquest of eternal truth, of the truth which ought to be the base of personal life.” I. In the Methodist Church the growth of Modernism is alarming. Referring again to a certain pulpit in New York State occupied by a “ Methodist Unitarian” we quote from a letter from a Methodist who attended the recent Annual Conference. He says: “ I have just returned’Yrom Annual Conference sick at heart and quite pessimistic concerning Methodism. Coue’s formula would have to be somewhat reversed to express the condition spiritually-^'Day by day in every way it is getting worser and worser.’ The conference put their whole hearted stamp of approval upon modern theology that rules out the Christ, the supernatural, the work of the Holy Ghost, everything that is near and dear to the heart of one who has been in contact with the only begotten Son of God.” Surely the time is ripe for a change in our Methodism. A voice is needed— a strong, powerful, prophetic voice to cry out against these things and to rouse the Methodists to the tragic fact that Methodism is being destroyed by men who are eating at her table, occupying her pulpits, living in her parsonages and enjoying her highest honors. Dr. Tittle, of Evanston, 111., the seat of a Theological In stitution, said recently: “The Church must discover a moral substitute for the old fear o f hell and the hope of heaven; both appealed to selfish ness. Such a substitute the church has ready to hand In Its recovered vision of the kingdom of God.” Now we know that the vision of the kingdom of God by means of Modernism is not Repentance, Regeneration and Holiness, but by means of hygiene reformation and the new world order of soup, soap and sunshine. They would substitute “ immanence” for incarnation, reformation for re generation, “ suppressed evolution” for “ the sin that lieth in us,” “ unripe goodness” for human depravity, sociology for salvation, hygiene for holiness and moral influence for the atonement. These men delete every distinctive Methodist doctrine, they denude the gospel of its apostolic power, the Bible of its Divine Inspiration and they hand us back instead— “W e have no wish to appear as a Rip Van W inkle in th eol ogy; and we would be the last to begin tying bandages over the eyes of research in the long pathway to truth. Do we therefore belie such, a profession if we express some surprise that when in a lecture before the Y. M. C. A. a well-known teacher was asked as to his views of the Atonement, and he answered T do not believe there is any atoning value in the blood o f Jesus Christ/ and when he was asked as to the V irgin Birth and he answered T personally believe that Joseph was the father o f Jesus/ and when he was asked as to the pre-existence of Jesus and his reply was T would accept it as a w orking hypothesis’-rÿthat same evening he should be w el comed in the leading Methodist Episcopal, pulpit of the city. “What is left when the foundations are blasted away? What is left of saving power to preach? What in fact do our churches then become except altruistic coteries, and our ser mons soothing anodynes, the very lethal chambers of Christian faith? Did that professor that night build or tear down our Methodist faith ?” II. Modernism has invaded our schools and the New Theology is rampant in the teachings of the ;great Protest ant Colleges and Seminaries. The Baptists are reaping a fearful harvest from the teachings of their big men at Chi cago University, Rochester, Crozier and other institutions. Professor Drake (Baptist) says: "The traditional conception of. Christianity as the only true faith and all others false, was a presumptuous and narrow conceit. . . . Jesus shared the ignorance of men. He knew no science, was possessed in the last months o f his years by a pathetic conviction which can only be called a pathetic delu sion.............In the Buddhist scriptures are many passages more truly inspired than the less inspired parts of the Bible.” Professor Vedder, of Crozier, in one of his lay sermons says: “Most theologians and preachers, declare very positively that there is a place called Heaven, where the ‘saved’ w ill forever be happy in the presence of God. There may be such a place; nobody can prove that there is not. But neither can the preachers prove that there is such a place. There is no ade quate ground for their confident assertions. When they tell us that there is a Heaven, and all about its conditions and life, as if they had actually been there and had brought back plans drawn to scale and complete specifications, they are just ‘push ing wind.’ They know no more about it than you or I know, and that is just nothing at all.” This same gentleman says, regarding the Blood Atone ment: “ Especially repugnant to our best ethics is the idea of sacri ficial expiation. Of all the slanders men have perpetrated against the Most H igh this is possibly the grossest, the most impudent, the most insulting.” Union Theological Seminary of New York, is notoriously liberal. Dr. McGiffert, the President, for example, in his book on “ The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas” says (on Page 206) that the changes in theological thought today mean, as he puts it, “ a revolution in the old conception of salvation;” and just what this “ revolution” is he makes plain when he says further: “What man requires is not regeneration in the old sense or a change of nature, but (Continued on page 467) A Pentateuch without Moses. , A Theology without Wesley. A Christ without Deity. A Creed without dogma. A Faith without Divinity.
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