Preackers and Evolution What a Methodist Preacher of Los Angeles Has to Say o f Those Who Scrap Their Ordination Vows to Preach Doubt
wild hills, but it will be as empty and meaningless as the wail of a lonely wolf when the mooa is gone. In cul ture and scholarly attainments he may excel, but in ability to lead a thirsting soul to a fountain of refreshing he will undoubtedly be a blind, groping, stag gering guide. Those whose selfish and sinful lives are most easily justified by discussions far removed from sin and grace, from death and life, from eternity and its two homes on either shore of the gulf no mariner shall ever traverse, may get great comfort from sitting under the messages of such a minister, but the little lost sheep, thorn-pierced and moaning its woe to the crags and,peaks, will never be brought back to the fold by such as he. There can be no positive note, no fire of zeal, no mighty passions for the souls of the lost in such a man or in such a message. “What I have said as to the effect of the size of God upon the preaching of His ministers, I say with emphasis as to the result upon that same ministry of the size of God’s book. These short er Bibles simply shorten God. These abbreviated .Scriptures are little less than efforts to squeeze Deity into' little man-made molds. Revelation is as rea sonable as God and when you question the inspiration of the Bible you simply brand the forehead of Jehovah with a question mark. A Bible according to the scholarship of men is not a Bible according to the revelation of God, and the sooner the ministry chooses between these two varieties, the sooner will we settle the question as to I whether
ET me •say something con cerning evolution, sired in the brain of agnosticism, nursed at the breast of infidelity and
nurtured best in the atmosphere of atheism,” says Rev. “ Bob” Shuler of Los Angeles, in his monthly paper. “ By evolution, I do not mean devel opment, progress, advance. Nor does the evolutionist mean these things by his doctrine, save as a lure to the simple. By evolution, I mean the effort that doubting and often hostile men have made to rob God of the credit for having created by the simple process of his authority and power all things that are. God says: ‘In the be ginning God created.’ Evolution says: ‘From a. beginning creation is self-crea tive.’ God says: ‘And the Lord God formed Man.’ Evolution says: ‘Man evolved from a squirming, jelly-like, lowest form of semi-living organism. God’s declaration is one of supreme abil ity and unbounded resources, resulting in life and being, in man and the universe. Evolution’s declaration is a cunning challenge of the claims of God. “Without a moment’s hesitation I affirm that any preacher whof brings God down to the size that the evolu tionist’s God must assume will split his own spiritual power asunder and divide the influence and gripping hold of his message many times. That preacher’s brain may remain as large as though he had a simple faith in the -God of revelation, but his soul will dwarf like a rose in the desert. His eloquence may be as superlative as the music of the laughing rivulets of the
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