568
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
December 1929
\ M II E D I T O R I A L C O M M E N T II L____________ .________________ I ..... aES
Shall We Cease Thinking? « GENERATION ago theological students were taught that theology was the Queen of the Sci ences, and that theological knowledge was the highest grade of scientific knowledge. But now l in an age which boasts that it is scientific, above all ages of the past, the science of the knowledge of God has been cast down from its lofty pinnacle by those who claim to be leaders of religious thought. Any effort to think accurately and clearly in matters of relig ion is likely to be treated by them as if it were an evidence of irrationality. To put one’s beliefs in the orderly form of a creed is anathema. Even theological seminaries must be untheological if they would be abreast of the times. They must teach that there is no finality of truth to be discovered anywhere, that truth is in fact fluid, not static, and that if we speak of “old truths” (using the language of accommodation) they must be tested and interpreted in the light of the latest conclusions of empirical science or philosophy. The man of the street is tempted to say, concerning all this, “What is it all about? And what is to come of it?” The up-to-date untheological theologian answers that he seeks a basis for unity and harmony by avoiding “fruitless theological discussion.” He would have all men gather in harmonious worship around “the religion of Jesus,” in order to escape from divisive discussions inci dent to what he terms “the old religion about Jesus.” He would discard all creeds in order to build a brother hood of man. Or, if, as a concession to some old-fash ioned folks, the form of some creed of the church must still be retained, it would be held with mental reserva tions and would, be interpreted and restated in the light of the latest conclusions of modern scholarship. By this latter phrase is meant the latest nebulous philosophy which has supplanted the Word of God as the final au thority in matters religious. It is conceded that with such restatement the creed will be made to mean the opposite of what the church has always believed and taught. Thus theology has been dishonored. And what is given in place of it? “The religion of Jesus,” as the modem liberal understands that phrase, will relieve the mind of such unnecessary (? ) theological questions as the incar nation of Christ, the virgin birth, and the resurrection of Christ. It will not be necessary to believe in miracles or to give them any thought, for the seeker after truth will be looking only for “reproducible experiences.” Jesus will have “the value of God” to the Christian, whether He be “very God of very God” or the natural son of Joseph. If he has to the believer “the value of God,” why worry, says the new religion, about such a puz zle as the hypostatic union of the divine and human na tures in Jesus Christ? In short, according to this “modern religious thought,” there is no need of, or room for, the kind of positive, ob jective thinking that has engaged the best minds of the church for nineteen hundred years. But such a religion is not scholarly. It is a negation of true scholarship, the
absence of constructive thinking. It is not charged that all Modernism is like this, for there are shades and de grees of modernistic religion. Furthermore, there is some evidence of a reaction against wild extremes of the critics of theology. This is the conclusion, also, of an editorial writer in the Citadel o f Truth for September, whose lan guage is worth quoting: The present wave of aversion to downright thinking can not last. Thank God here and there minds are emerging to declare in unequivocal terms that the things of God are certain and not conjectural, that the truth of God is positive and not relative, and any effort to avoid the issue between God’s Word to man and man’s word about God is both foolish and futile. He who would avoid theology avoids thinking, and instead of brand ing any other he but brands himself. The widespread self- imposed silence of our day upon the transcendent themes of theology shows not courage but cowardice. History has amply shown that the Queen of the Sciences cannot be dethroned by a haughty gesture or a groundless censure. “The talk that we hear today,” says Karl Barth, “can acquire meaning only if we are willing to go the way that Luther and Zwingli and Calvin went, the straight and rigorous way that leads from thought to action—and no other.” Spiritual action emerges from spirit ual thought, character issues from creed. It were like cutting the limb on which we sit to cast aside theology and expect any thing worthy the name of Christianity to persist. Scholarism or Evangelism O N all sides the lament is heard that evangelism of the old type is no longer successful or desirable. By many it is decried as wholly unsuited to our modern times. The type of evangelism which was apparently successful in the days of the Wesleys, Charles G. Finney and D. L. Moody, has been largely displaced by methods which, .whether passing by the name of evangelism or not, are totally different. What has brought about such a sudden and radical change in attitude toward the Gospel message and the method of presenting it? Sometimes the blame is laid to the excessive emotionalism which has occasionally appeared in evangelism, or to commercialism in connec tion with efforts for the salvation of souls. But the root of the trouble lies deeper. In the Biblical Review for October Dr. S. D. Chown has a most illuminating discussion of “some causes of the decline of the earlier typical evangelism.” He reviews the events of the last twenty-five years which have “diluted the strength of the earlier evangelistic message.” He finds no less of religious sentiment now than formerly, nor any decrease in good works on the part of Christians. But he argues that present-day Christian character is to a large extent the product of environment, using the term widely, and that there is lack of a “ forceful spiritual dy namic vitally energizing the inner divine life.” Dr. Chown feels that the loss of vital power in preach ing is due to “currents of intellectualism, which have changed . . . the character of the thinking of many preachers.” There has been an effort to “build a feas ible bridge between Christianity and the modern mind,” which has led to most unfortunate results. “First, the process of wisdomizing theology has di verted attention from it as an experimental science, and
Made with FlippingBook HTML5