606
October 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
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Striking Stories of God’s Workings GATHERED THIS MONTH FROM BIOLA WORKERS
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of soul. The spirit that gives birth to priceless convic tions and life-giving faith is expressed in a matchless way by Canon Dyson Hague: “ The desire to receive all the light that the most fearless search for truth by the highest scholarship can yield, is the desire of every true believer in the Bible. No really healthy Christian mind can advo cate obscurantism. The obscurant who opposes the inves tigation of scholarship and would throttle the investiga tions has not the spirit of Christ. In heart and attitude he is a medievalist. T o use Bushnell’s famous apologue, he would try to stop the dawning of the day by wringing the neck of the crowing cock. No one wants., to put the Bible in a glass case.” This search brought me into personal contact with Albert Parker Fitch, and something about his manner o f life, drew me to him. His spirit was different from a cer tain type of militant Fundamentalist ministers I had known. His genial and kindly manner attracted me to his rationalistic philosophy. His spirit found expression in these words: “ I have no quarrel with the Fundamental ists, I simply don’t agree with them.” I made the acquaint ance o f Harry Emerson Fosdick through hisl?‘Modern Use of the Bible,” “ Christianity and Progress,” etc.; George A. Gordon and his autobiography, “ My Education and Religion” ; L. P. Jacks through his books “ The Lost Radiance o f the Christian Religion” , “ A Living Universe,” and others. These and other liberal writers and their messages began to dim my faith in the redemptive work of Christ, weakening the foundations on which my expe rience had rested. I began to drift away from the funda mentals of the Christian position and my outlook upon life beicame increasingly rationalistic. One by one the bedrock essentials o f a living profession were scrapped and I was adrift upon the sea of materialism and skepticism. One who has been through the storm knows that his expe rience defies expression. Like love, it can only be expe rienced to be understood, and forever must remain his peculiar possession. But I was honest enough to realize that if I could never find again the faith I had lost, I could never give Modernism for long the allegiance of my mind. The current was sweeping me onward to blank, barren and hopeless atheism ; to a cold and materialistic and hedon istic philosophy o f life, compelling'me to embrace a corpse —a world without moral law, without mind, without pur pose. I know today that Kant spoke the truth when he said; “ Doubt can never be a- permanent resting place for the season; its function is transitional.” . It was so in my case; it was a doorway, leading me "into a fuller, more joyous, positive and living faith. God never deserts an honest heart. Honest doubt begets eventually a rich and vital Christian experience. It is dishonest doubt that leads into the shadows o f gloom and despair. G od ' s I nstruments t ; o D eliver Now it is interesting and also very puzzling to me, that two of the books which have energized faith for me, lead ing me out o f darkness, enabling me to “ give a reason for the hope that is -mine” were those two most severely criticized books, namely, “ The Christ o f the Indian Road”
From Boston to Los Angeles to Get Saved ! â GREAT crowd o f delegates to the World’s Sun day School Convention was surging about the en trance to the Bible Institute, where many o f the sessions were, held, when one o f our workers found an opportunity to say a word for Christ to a man who wore a convention badge but did not seem to impress one as being a real Christian. He was getting a drink at one of ou r drinking fountains and the text above the fountain gave opportunity to open the con versation : " I f any man thirst let him come unto me and drink.” The worker learned that the man was the superinten dent o f a large Sunday school in Boston. The plan of salvation, to him, meant simply “ having a smile for every one” and.' “ doing the best he could.” Several salvation passages were read to him, and suddenly the man ex claimed : “ Man, I am a Sunday-school superintendent, but I am without Christ. I must get saved.” Drawing the worker aside from the throng, he earn estly Sought to know more o f God’s way of salvation and after an hour’s studying together over the New Testa ment; the. man joyfully accepted Christ. As Soon as his confession was made, his first thought was for another delegate who had come to Los Angeles with him and arrangements were immediately made for the worker to-ideal with his friend. Here was a superintendent who had been leading a Sunday school for years, yet with no conception of what constitutes a Christian. “ No one ever told, me this before,” he said to the worker. “ I came, to the convention just for a good time, but I’m going back to Boston a saved man!” Adrift On the Sea of Skepticism B y H. R ichard R asmusson T HE writer o f these lines, H. Richard Rasmusson, is a graduate of one o f the largest colleges in the mid dle west, having received his B. A. degree in 1926. Two years before my graduation, I met the Person of Christ, giving Him the allegiance o f my heart. Prior to this experience of . God, mine had been a cheap, and second hand faith. , I had given the assent of the mind to a creed and dogmas which had never imparted life, and I was a stranger to- personal Christianity. When I returned to school in the fall, I began to examine the foundations of my new-found joy. The bent vof my mind was • such that I must acquaint myself with the positions of Liberalism and Evolution. The personal meeting with Christ had completely changed the tenor of my life. My dreams o f the profession o f law were super seded by the- call to the Christian pulpit. Therefore, I must seek to ‘ understand the position o f that group of scholars known as “ Modernists.” My spirit was the spirit o f Machen, who.would encourage students, if they can, to listen to the greqt masters o f materialistic criticism, desiring them to hear all that can be said “against the. Gos pel which they believe.” I believe that vital faith can come only from the crucible of mental agony and travail
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