that is the life of a true, brave man who will take Christ and His mind for the truth instead of the clamor either of the worldly world, or of the religious world."

WHAT IS "MODERNISM”?1

We shall therefore use the term "Modernist" as denoting the movement in the Anglican church, and indeed, in other churches, which believes that religion needs to be interpreted afresh to the modern man and that it can be so interpreted without the loss of any essential element. It is prepared to welcome without reserve the results of historical criticism and scientific discovery with their new outlook on the world. It strives to preserve a real continuity with the past and is resolved to work within the church to which its adherents belong. At the same time it recognizes in varying degrees that the time has come when services, formulas, and doctrinal statements require revision. It needs, however, to be said very clearly that Modernism is not primarily the acceptance of a set of opinions and new dogmas, critical or scientific. Any given Modernist may or may not believe in the Virgin Birth or the empty tomb, or the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel. The essence of Modernism lies, not in its conclusions, but in the way they are reached and the temper in which they are held. Modernists agree that we can no longer appeal to the authority of Bible, creeds or church as something fixed and decisive; they agree that the Spirit of God is speaking in divers channels and by divers voices and that we must be ready to hear all that He saith to the churches; and they agree that truth flourishes best in an atmosphere of freedom and that the church must be brave enough to suffer a great variety of opinions within its walls.

1 By the late Cyril W. Emmett. The Modernist Movement in the Church of England. Journal of Religion. 2: 561-76. November, 1922.

THE ISSUE BETWEEN THE FUNDAMENTALISTS AND THE MODERNISTS 1 1

The fundamental issue is the conflict between the open and the closed mind. That exactly sums up the whole question. What at the moment is called fundamentalism is in reality an attitude of mind characteristic of man as far back as we can trace his thinking.

In order to appreciate this fully we must leave religion altogether and go to the fundamental science of biology. Prior to self-consciousness living things were governed by the vegetative nervous system and were under the complete dominance of the emotions and instincts. In the long course of our evolution there was gradually evolved a central nervous system ultimately finding its seat in the brain, and for the first time reason appeared.

At that moment began the inner conflict symbolically described in the third chapter of Genesis and called in theology the fall.

Now reason is relatively a late comer and all biologists are agreed that most men are still under the dominance of their instincts and emotions. One of the chief characteristics of this type of person is the craving for certainty, particularly certainty with reference to the future. And along with this phenomenon goes the dread, the sincere dread, of altering the status quo in matters religious.

This type of human nature, unaccustomed to independent thinking, has throughout all history fallen back for its guidance upon an external infallible court of appeal to which it can always go with absolute confidence as to the verdict.

In the time of Christ the representatives of this group were in the majority. The Pharisees had placed the

1 By Rev. Stuart L. Tyson, vice-president of the Modern Churchmen's Union. Christian Work. p. 18-19. January 5, 1924.

court of appeal in the law. They believed that God's final revelation was to be found there. Christ came affirming that God had new truth to impart. The fact that it was new condemned it, and because Christ continued to preach it, they determined to kill him.

At all stages in Christian history since that day this dead hand has been in evidence. Today the successors of these men are, as we have said, called Fundamentalists. Their essential characteristic is a mind closed to new truth. All alike, whether "Catholic" Fundamentalist or Protestant Fundamentalist, believe that in a particular period in the past the full revelation of truth was completed. If Protestant Fundamentalists, the period of completion will perhaps be the seventeenth century; if "Catholic" Fundamentalists, it will be the thirteenth.

Both alike living in the twentieth century, look backward for their inspiration. Each confounds that which the historian knows is but a human interpretation of truth adapted to a particular age with truth itself, and affirms that a man is loyal to Christ only in so far as he makes his own that interpretation.

Now it should be clearly recognized that these men are good men and also sincere. The Modernist has no quarrel whatever with them for holding this position. His studies have shown him in the clearest manner that there are diversities of gifts in different types of human nature, and he rejoices in a church which is comprehensive and many-sided.

His protest begins at the moment when this or any other type, in an egoism utterly alien to the spirit of the Gospel, affirms that its own intellectual conception of truth is more pleasing to God than another, and a great weakness of fundamentalism is its un-Christian utter-/ ances in this regard. It has made the mistake of confounding truth with a particular interpretation of truth.

What today is called modernism is a point of view. that stands for the open mind; the belief, namely, that

truth is not given all at once, but, on the contrary, to quote from the New Testament, is imparted "in many portions and in many manners," according as man is able to grasp it.

The Modernist believes, and he finds justification for his belief not only in the teachings of Christ, but in the universal witness of history, that the revelation of truth has been and is and will be progressive. At first, just as in the individual in childhood, so in the race as a whole, it is elementary and primitive.

When what has been given has been assimilated, more truth is imparted, and this added truth necessarily involves some modification of what up to that time has been believed. The process is again repeated. Still more truth is given and still further modification is required.

The Modernist is convinced that the process will continue so long as time shall last. With the greatest of all Christians, Paul, he is continually saying both to himself and to others, "Now I know in part."

It is not that he imagines truth itself to undergo alteration; truth is what is, but our conception of truth (which the Fundamentalist mistakenly confounds with truth itself) undergoes modification in each succeeding generation. This is in strict accord with the principle enunciated by Christ himself, who is reported to have said just prior to His death,

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye are not able to bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you unto all the truth.

Or to put it in other words, the Fundamentalist conceives of religion as static; the Modernist preaches it as dynamic. This is the real underlying issue of which we observe merely the manifestations in the different churches today.

Differences of belief between the Fundamentalist and the Modernist today are almost accidental. The Funda

mentalist, owing to his philosophical position, must necessarily express himself along one line; the Modernist, on the other hand, is desirous of consecrating every bit of new knowledge, from whatever source derived, to the religion of Christ, partly because he loves truth above all things, partly because he is eager to show men and women, trained in twentieth century habits of thought, that the Christian religion has lost none of its pristine vitality, and that it is possible to harmonize with its essential truths what these men and women have learned to be true in other departments of life.

As a simple illustration, Mr. Bryan, that eminent Fundamentalist, necessarily feels that the evolutionary hypothesis is antagonistic to the Christian religion because it contradicts the second chapter of Genesis. The Modernist, on the other hand, who reveres the religious teachings of the second chapter of Genesis quite as sincerely as Mr. Bryan, has come to realize that the form of the narrative is wholly symbolic and was never intended to be a historical fact.

Or as to the whole question of the miraculous: The Fundamentalist sincerely believes that these abnormal events described in the New Testament actually occurred, simply because the text of the New Testament says so. The Modernist has come to the clear realization that these are not in any sense religious, but purely scientific questions, and should be set aside for scientific investigators ultimately to pass upon them.

The Fundamentalist is absolutely convinced that belief in Christ is indissolubly bound up with not only the manner in which He is alleged to have entered the world, but also the way in which some New Testament documents affirm He departed from it. The Modernist says these matters are indifferent. My inner experience testifies to the reality of the living Christ. I do not know how He entered or how He departed from the world, and if I did my faith in Him, which in fact is based on my