I know that vast sums of accumulated wealth are expended in these days for the betterment of the race. But the prime social question is not what a man does with his money but how did he get it. If like the Roman generals and the robber barons of the Middle Ages he gets it by the wasting of the land, the pillage of cities, the enslavement of the people, it matters nothing if he builds a temple to Jupiter or a Christian cathedral. What the world demands today is not charity in the modern sense, but justice. Liberal Christianity and orthodox Christianity are equally responsible for the world as it is. They equally stand sponsor for the capitalistic, militaristic system which now rules the world. They equally hate the pacifist-communist mode of life which Jesus preached and practiced and under the rule of which the Christian community carried on its work for the first four hundred years of its history and conquered the world. In those days of greatness there was a distinction between the church and the world; the world hated the church and the church defied the world. Today there is not the slightest distinction between the church and the world. unless it be that the world is master and the church the slave. The capitalist, militarist, political system has in the past ten years made the church particeps criminis in the slaughter, with unspeakable cruelties, of from fifteen to twenty million of the choicest men of this generation. And the capitalist, militarist system, having the church in bondage, goes on with its exploitation of the people as if these twenty million were all dead and done for. But they are not dead and done for. Such a crime must inevitably have a penalty. As Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, seeing in its present sin its future downfall, so the sensitive soul stands aghast at the awful plight of western, so-called Christian civilization, foreseeing in its present evil its future disaster. And in view of this vision, the squabbling bishop and rector are as if they were two French nobles in the days of the Revolution, quarreling about their pedigrees as they were riding in the tumbrel to the guillotine. HOW THE NEW TESTAMENT CAME TO BE1 This brief historical study of the origin of our New Testament has demonstrated twelve significant facts: (1) That the original authors of the different books never suspected that their writings would have the universal value and authority which they now rightfully enjoy. (2) That they at first regarded them as merely an imperfect substitute for verbal teaching and personal testimony. (3) That in each case they had definite individuals and conditions in mind. (4) That the needs of the rapidly growing church and the varied and trying experiences through which it passed were all potent factors in influencing the authors of the New Testament to write. (5) That certain books especially the historical like Luke and Matthew, are composite, consisting of material taken bodily from older documents, like Matthew's Sayings of Jesus and the original narrative of Mark. (6) That our New Testament books are only a part of a much larger early Christian literature. (7) That they are unquestionably, however, the most valuable and representative writings of that larger literature. (8) That they were only gradually selected and ascribed a value and authority equal to that of the Old Testament writings. (9) That there were three distinct stages in the formation of the New Testament canon 2: the gospels were first recognized as authoritative; then Acts, the Apostolic Epistles, and the Apocalypse; and last of all, the complete canon. (10) That the canon was formed 1 By C. F. Kent. Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament. p. 83-4. Copyright (1913) by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by permission of the publishers. These statements of Prof. Kent would probably be accepted by almost all informed students of the Bible, whether liberal or orthodox. 2 The "canon" is the list of accepted and authoritative writings. |