283
T H E K ING ’S BUS INESS
much that is taught in the German and American Universities!). As a matter of fact, a narrow little semi infidel world of German leadership has been arrogating to itself for half a century the name of scholarship, and a somewhat servile world of American and British modernism has been trying to make itself worthy of that fellowship by accepting all its postulates and admitting all its con clusions. When we turn | from the Christol- ogy of modernism to that of the Bible, we are struck with the con trast. The Christological atmosphere of the Twentieth century is frankly Arian or semi-Arian. It must be so. It is, of course, quite possible for a philosophic mind to completely re state both the Humanity and Deity of Christ, and yet acknowledge in some sense that He is both God and man. Yet how to assimilate the apostolic view of the Deity of Christ with the Loofs-Sanday denial of the Virgin Birth, the bodily Resurrection and Ascension, is a conundrum that a Teutonic theologian only can solve. It’s the Schleiermacher-Ritschlian at tempt to excogitate a Christology out of the philosophic consciousness con cerning the “Urbild” or Ideal Man. BACK TO THE BIBLE. A few words in .conclusion: It seems to me that our foremost need as modern clergy is to go back to the Bible. One fears that we read non multum sed multa, and that in the pursuit of problems and questions, we are side-tracked from the main ob ject of our lives. We are too much ashamed of-a child-like acceptance of the Word of God, and the continuous preaching of the Living Christ and the Living Word. We are liable to preach a Christ after the flesh, who is a Leader, a Teacher, an Exemplar, rather than the Christ Divine who
is the Saviour of the soul, and em phasize the salvation of the body rather than the salvation of the soud. The fallacies of Christian Science are working like leaven, and permeating vhe age-consciousness. Christian Science is supremely a religion for the body, and men forget that they can reach the bodies of people through their souls a thousand times better than they can reach their souls through their bodies. And it is the Divine plan, if St. Paul and St. Peter are to be trusted. In the second place, it seems to me our duty is to get rid of the terror that the German-scholarship bogey has too long inspired. If a few lead ers have retreated or gone over to the enemy, that is no reason why the rank and file should give way. There is a fine passage in Pascal’s Provin cial Letters, which tells how he once stood alone and battled with terrific earnestness for the truth against the whole of the Port-Royalists. After an exhaustive argumentation Pascal sank into unconsciousness through sheer physical exhaustion. These are his words: “When I saw those whom I regarded as the persons to whom God has made known His truth, and who ought to be its champions, all giving way, I was so overcome with grief that I could stand it no longer.” APPALLING FACT. The supremacy of German thought in criticism and theology for the past fifty years has been simply appalling. Germany has long imposed upon the world of theology and scholarship. She has strutted as a dictator. Her leadership has been accepted. Every bold advance of so-called Scientific Research on the part of the Germans, from Reimarus to Schweitzer, and from S'chleiermacher to Harnack, has been marked by a retreat on the part of leading British-Americaii theolo-
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker