Perhaps you've asked these same questions about the Christian faith
By WASH INGTON GLADDEN
W hen we dig down through the layers of indifference and hos tility under wh i ch men often keep their consciences covered from the appeals of God’s Word, we sometimes strike into what may he called the butandif- erous formati. It is a conglomerate of objections and excuses; and, like the Pennsylvanian coal measures, it is practically inexhaustible. The “buts” and the “ ifs” which are un earthed by every exploration into the consciousness of those who re fuse to enter upon the religious life are as many and as various as the fossils in the paleozoic rocks. “ I should be ready to enter upon the Christian life,” says one who comes clad in the garb of a philos opher, “ if it did not demand of me the abdication of my manhood. You tell me that I must intrust myself to Christ; that I must submit to be instructed and guided and helped by Him; that my will must be merged in His. But this is what no man must do. No man should submit his will to the dictation of any power outside of himself. Every man must be the arbiter of his own conduct. The humility and dependence which the religion of Christ enjoins are inconsistent with true manhood.” Your objection is a radical one, my friend philosopher, and it is not an uncommon one. In one form or another it is often urged. Mr. Mill tells us, that what we
dwelling, and he cannot help him self. All he can do is to submit. If he does it gracefully, so much the better for him: if he chafes and struggles, it makes no difference whatever with the storms or the tides or the currents or the planets. Man is surrounded on all sides with barriers which he cannot transgress. He may beat his life out against them, but he cannot overthrow them. They will confine him, and he must yield to them. He is obliged not only to sub mit, but also to depend. He must depend upon the sun and the show ers for his crops; he must depend upon the air he breathes for life; he must depend upon the laws and forces of nature for all his opera tions. He is all the while de pendent. Now, is it not quite absurd for a creature subject to so many lim itations, compelled to submit to superior power and to depend upon superior strength every moment of his life, to set himself up and say, “ I will not submit. I will not de pend. It is cowardly to submit. It is weak and unmanly to depend” ? That is a false theory of life which rests upon such foundations. Before Lord Bacon’s day, philos ophy had been led perpetually in a mad dance after all manner of vagaries. The sages had said, “Man is the lord of creation: it belongs to him to lay down the laws of cre ation.” So they had been sitting CONTINUED
want in this world, or at any rate in some parts of it, is less of Chris tian self-denial, and more of pagan self-assertion. Of that part of the world which Mr. Mill inhabited, this may be true; but it does not seem to me to hold good of regions hereabout. Yet even here there are voices which give forth the same sound; and the method of our re ligion which requires the subordi nation of the heart to a master, of the life to a ruler, is attacked as being unsound and unmanly. Man vs. the Elements Nevertheless the necessity of submission and dependence is pret ty clearly established without going to the New Testament to seek its foundations. Lordly and self-re liant as man is, he is yet constantly compelled to submit. Water will run down hill, let him will the contrary however stoutly. His firm est resolutions and his most vig orous endeavors are inadequate to keep the sun above the horizon a moment beyond its time of setting. The tides will ebb and flow in spite of him; the rain and the snow fall many times quite against his will; the storm drives his ship upon the breakers without asking his con sent; the thunderbolt shatters his This article is included in Being a Christian , What it Means and How to Begin , by Washington Gladden, The Com mission on Evangelism and Devotional Life, New York.
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THE K IN G 'S BU SINESS
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