XIII. MAKE THE "SCHEME OF REDEMPTION" TAKE INTO ACCOUNT INSTITUTIONS AS WELL AS INDIVIDUALS

The religion of Jesus has something to say to society as well as to the soul. It is as much concerned with the reconstruction of the social order as it is with the redemption of the individual. In the mind of Jesus there was no contradiction between personal and social religion. There is no such thing as the "spiritual" gospel and the "social" gospel being offered to mankind as alternatives.

XIV. MERGe the Sacred and the Secular

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Traditional theology has blighted life with a dangerous dualism that has made religion consist in the doing of special things. The religion of Jesus is not the doing of special things, but the doing of all things in a special way. Spirituality is not "a something" that life uses; it is the tone and quality of life as a whole.

I offer these as suggestions only, not as a complete program. I have left out many really fundamental things. I have been interested only in suggesting a method of approach.

THE RELIGION OF A LIBERAL CHRISTIAN1

Why is it that Christian people-and even those who might not venture to call themselves Christians-seem never nearer to one another than when they are singing together the best of the old hymns?

The music has something to do with it. Memory and old association have a part in it. But there is another reason. The really fine hymns have no theological definitions in them. They utter pure emotion in the language of simple faith.

"How firm a foundation," "Jesus, lover of my soul."

1 By Henry van Dyke. Outlook. 136: 177-8. January 30, 1924.

"Jerusalem the golden," "Lead, kindly light," "Jesus, the very thought of Thee," "There's a wideness in God's mercy," "Abide with me"-these are hymns that lift and strengthen our hearts and bring us into harmony with all who love and seek God. While we sing them we do not ask whether they were written by Catholics or Protestants, Fundamentalists or Modernists. We are "compassed about with songs of deliverance" (Psalm xxxii: 7).

The sharp doctrinal controversy which is now disturbing so many of the churches may possibly have some good results. (Almost everything that happens in this mixed world has that possibility.) If it should lead to a closed and more intelligent study of the Bible, a better understanding of Christian history, a clearer conviction that there is no antagonism between reverent science and reasonable religion, that would surely be good.

But the trouble is, at least for the present, that the unhappy features of the controversy are more in evidence that its possible benefits. In the first place, it starts out with two vague, pretentious, and misleading names. That method of procedure leads to nothingexcept strife.

What are the Fundamentalists?/"We are the people," they answer, "who are trying to keep religion on its old foundations and build up the faith once for all delivered to the saints." Undoubtedly that is true of many of them-men of piety and sincerity and goodwill. But it is not true of all who use this name, certainly not of those who are openly trying to drive out of the church all who will not accept their precise definitions of dogma. To these men we say: "You are not really Fundamentalists at all. You assert authority to lay down the essential tests of faith for others, disregarding Christ who says 'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out;' disregarding St. Paul, who declares that no man can lay any other foundation than Jesus Christ.

You are 'New Foundationists.' We don't want to cast you out; we believe in a comprehensive Church of Christ the divine Saviour; and we firmly claim the right to stay in it, in spite of the fact that we can't accept your definitions."

What are the Modernists? The name, I believe, came into general use during a controversy in the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. It is a foolish and footless name. Some to whom it is applied are, no doubt, unbelievers in any divine revelation, unbelievers in Christ as God manifest in the flesh; they accept no superhuman mystery in religion, nothing that is not new, but nevertheless they try to serve humanity in honest love. For these men I have no enmity, but sympathy, and a special admiration when they say that they can no longer claim the name of Christians.

But others who are called Modernists are in a different class. They take the Bible as a true record of man's search for God and God's progressive revelations to man; not an inerrant text-book of science and history, but a sure guide of faith and conduct. They adore Christ and try to follow him, as the Son of God and the Son of Man, the divine Redeemer who lived and died to save the world from sin; but they do not press for a clinical explanation of the mode of his incarnation. They rather dislike the materialistic tone of many of these curious genealogical inquiries. They do not think them essential to a true faith in Christ as the supreme Revealer of God and Saviour of men.

Now what sense is there in grouping these two types of teaching under one name as "Modernist?" They are much farther apart than the moderate conservative and the reasonable progressive. It is the "falsehood of extremes," the bitterness of irreconcilables, that makes all the trouble in the church.

Why not sweep away these two silly and misleading names, "Fundamentalists" and "Modernists?" They only becloud the issue and confuse the mind of the plain

folks. The real difference (which I pray may not become a division) is between the literalists, who interpret the Scripture according to the letter, and the liberals, who interpret according to the spirit.

We liberals have no wish to exclude the literalists from the church. But the literalists are more warlike. They say the liberals must go out. Among the Presbysterians a few men plainly say the church must be divided and the literalists left in possession of the endowments. Now this proposition (which has a certain commercial flavor) is definitely schismatic-that is to say, it seeks to split the church.

But there is another thing that must strike the plain man who likes to take words in their ordinary sense. The so-called "five points of essential doctrine”1 which are put forth by the literalists as tests of Christian faith are not consistent with one another.

Take an example. The first point is the absolute freedom of the Scriptures from error of any kind. The second point is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, as told in the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke. Now suppose a plain man accepts this story as it is told, and believes, as I do, in the virgin birth. Then he reads on and finds (Luke ii: 33) that Joseph and Mary are distinctly called "the father and the mother" of Jesus. Then he turns back and finds (Matthew i: 16) that the descent of Jesus from David and Abraham is definitely traced through Joseph. Now what is the plain man, taking language in its obvious sense, to do? Either he must give up the doctrine of the virgin birth, or he must hedge and qualify his statement that the Holy Scriptures are absolutely free from error, or he must say, as the liberals do: "Such material discrepancies mean nothing to us. We interpret Scripture, not by the letter, but by the spirit. Anyway, we believe that Jesus Christ is our God and Saviour."

It would be easy to go on showing, in the same way, that the five points of the literalists are neither self

1 See p. 21.

consistent, nor adequate as statements of the truth taught in the Bible, nor binding as "essential doctrines." But to what purpose? It would only make confusion worse confounded.

The second unhappy feature of the Fundamentalists' strife is its tendency to delay and obstruct the practical work of the church. This conflict diverts attention and effort from Christian service to dogmatic definitions. Christ said, "By their fruits shall ye know them." St. James said that faith was proved by works. Doing good in obedience to Christ is the ultimate test of orthodoxy.

The third unhappy feature of this literalists' attack upon the liberals is the distraction and anxiety which it causes in the mind of very simple Christian folks. They are my folks. With all who can sing "Jesus, lover of my soul" from the heart, and then rise up to do good in the world, I am in fellowship. Let us not be dismayed. Christ will save us and give us the victory.

The friend who asked me to write this paper requested me to imagine myself "standing on a soap-box, addressing a mixed crowd." Well, I have often done practically that very thing, and in each case have found it necessary to speak directly to the people who were there, according to their various human needs and desires of soul.

But three things seem to me to belong to the Everyman Gospel, and somehow or other the Christian preacher, on the soap-box or in the pulpit, ought to try to get them over to his brother-man, rich or poor, learned or simple.

First, God made us all. We are not the children of chance, the offspring of senseless matter and blind force. The Great Spirit is the framer of our bodies and the Father of our spirits. Lift up your hearts. Our bodies come from dust, but our souls from God. Let us live bravely, not as mere beasts, but as men and women, children of God.