T HE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S indeed, and is so recognized by an in creasing number of modernists. Pro fessor Edward Caldwell Moore, of Har vard, is right when he says, liberalists ‘ have minimized the function of wor ship.” Says a Unitarian preacher: “ I thought we Unitarians had reach ed the conclusion that things are done in this world by human effort and not by divine intervention. . . . Once we transfer men’s efforts from seeking help from heaven, whence no help comes, to a firm and confident reliance upon ourselves, success is assured.” . Professor Edward Scribner Ames, in his radically liberalistic book, The New Orthodoxy, points out that the divine is now believed to be within the human. The immanence of God renders the old view of prayer and worship inconsistent. “ For the modern man standing erect in his pride of power, the old ceremon ial full of passivity and surrender is the symbol of a dying age.” Consider ed from the viewpoint of modern liber alism Professor Ames is right. If God is not a personal Being, but an im manent force, and if man “ in his pride of power” needs no God, then he ought to cease to worship. Prayer and wor ship are inconsistent from this view point. It has been shown elsewhere that the Ethical Culture Societies have discard ed prayer while liberalistic churches have retained it in their public meet ings. These churches would lose the last vestige of an excuse for maintain ing the name of a church if they dis carded prayer entirely. Both the athe istic Unitarian preacher referred to in a preceding paragraph, and Professor George Burman Foster followed the custom of offering prayer,. when they conducted religious meetings. Their excuse is that belief in God is not es sential to prayer. It must be admitted that it is-the natural thing for man to worship something. If he refuse to worship God he will find himself wor-
21 shiping the creature. Idol worshippers may get some satisfaction from their worship. Need it be 3 aid that this can not be compared with true -Christian worship— that there is a world of dif ference between prayer that is practi cally atheistic (questioning the exist ence of a God who answers prayer) and the true worship of God? , Religious liberalists say, then, as a rule, that they derive benefit from prayer and are therefore justified in of fering prayer. But the question re mains, can there be an acceptable ex cuse for addressing their prayer to God when they deny that there is a God who answers prayer? Obviously the representatives of liberalism have not found it possible to formulate prayers to be addressed to the object of their* worship, hence they address their* prayers to God. If they addressed them to the powers from whence they expect benefit through prayer, the unreason ableness of liberalistic prayer would readily be recognized. In fact, it is strange indeed that the liberal theo logians expect us to accept the modern view of prayer and yet keep on praying. It is as if a physician would disclose to his patient the great value and true nature of bread pills. While it is true that for certain nervous disorders bread pills may prove beneficial to those who take them for medicine, no normal per son would continue to use bread pills after he has learned what they are made of. Unless there is an Objective Reality to which prayer is addressed— a God who hears and answers prayer— it will be the unthinking that may be found praying. When it is recalled that “ the founda tion truth of the new theology is the fundamental unity of God and man,” as an eminent new theology writer says, and that the modern immanent God is identified with man, it is clearly seen, that considered from this viewpoint, George Burman Foster is right when he
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