A recent treatise entitled "Luther and His Work" (Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin), written by a Catholic priest, Joseph Clayton, has of late attracted considerable attention. It typifies the substance of contemporary Catholic contention concerning Protestantism's dismal failure, her grave responsibility for the present situation, and the steps in her collapse. It is, in fact, so typical and so cogent that we quote from its charges as representative of Catholicism's present attitude—stressed last month in our "Religious World Trends" section:
"Into what Promised Land, after the years of wandering outside the Catholic unity, are now brought the Protestants who date their emancipation from Martin Luther? Four centuries of journeying since Luther started the exodus, and yet the Promised Land of the Lutheran evangel, so often emergent, fades from sight. It is the wasteland of doubt that Lutheran Protestants have reached—a wasteland littered with abandoned hopes and discarded creeds.
"First the papal authority was repudiated ; then episcopacy and the priesthood given up ; next the doctrine of the unity of the Christian church abandoned; after that the Bible itself, on which all Protestants had once built their creeds and catechism was, bit by bit, examined by Protestant professors and declared to be for the most part, of no historical value."
Then the author's pointed discussion ends with this peroration:
"Wasteland of Lutheranism, city of dreadful night that Calvin built—thus the liberation of the soul proceeds. The free will that both Luther and Calvin denied to man has thwarted and diverted the plans for the conquest of the world and for the subjugation of its inhabitants. . . . Over vast areas and in the uncounted numbers of great cities it has undermined and brought to destruction belief in the Christian faith. A 'liberal' or free Christian, tracing his religious ancestry back to Lutheranism or Presbyterianism, will today give no definite assent to the divinity of Christ, will openly question the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and, pragmatist in philosophy, will allow no reality to objective faith nor admit the existence of unchanging and universal moral laws. . . . The Catholic Church remains, with its old creeds, its sacred Scriptures of Old and New Testament, its priesthood and its mass, unchanging and unchanged, yet ever developing its doctrine and enlarging its devotions, ever carrying its faith to far-off mission fields, ever subject to persecution. Given up for dead by what seemed to be the exuberant, triumphant Protestantism of the sixteenth-century Reformation, not the Catholic faith but the Protestant creed it is that has died."
The pertinent question that is thus created for us is, What is our relationship to such a portrayal, and to the situation as it is pictured? We offer these observations: This advent movement, brought into being in these last days to herald the third angel's message, warning against specific apostasy, constitutes virtually the only genuine Protestant voice left in the world today. Starting forth auspiciously in the sixteenth century with what were then great strides away from Rome, the original Reformation bodies failed to go on to perfection. Professing to reject tradition, they nevertheless still clung to indisputably Roman tradition relative to the Sabbath, natural immortality of man, everlasting torment of the wicked, sprinkling as a substitute for baptism, and other papal innovations. Professing at the outset to take the Bible as their sole guide and authority, they have now largely succumbed to the emasculating inroads of higher criticism and evolution, and to a destructive liberalism that has, for them, stripped the Bible of all reliability, and hence of all authority.
Having no longer Rome's historic, authoritarian positions and traditions to which to tie, and now without the divine authority or guidance of the Word, Protestantism is indeed left to the uncertainty of human reason, and the bewilderment of clashing opinions and conflicting ecclesiastical organizations. Without the enabling certainties of divine prophecy and the indispensable guidance of the Spirit of prophecy thereupon, Protestantism stands helpless, powerless, and confused in the face of Rome's antiquity, her consistency, and her solidarity. Rome patiently waits, for the centuries have been hers. She plans and makes adroit advances as she watches the breakdown of real Protestantism, and recognizes this as her golden opportunity for gathering again to her fold a disillusioned and disintegrating Protestantism. But from this strange unity we must and do stand isolated and apart.
Formidable are the contrasts! Note them: Rome's boasted basis and bond of unity rests upon her impressive, historic traditions and sovereign decrees; whereas the unifying element of the remnant movement lies in the guiding counsels of the Spirit of prophecy. The former is of human, while the latter is of divine, origin. The former darkens and perverts the intent of Scripture; the latter throws increasing floodlights of vital meaning upon the Sacred Page. The former turns and twists both Scripture and history to her own required advantage; the latter strips away all distorting pretense and reveals in infallible outline the fundamental conflict of the ages and the Papacy's actual place and condemnation in the divine category. The former—specifically, the claims of Roman tradition—becomes incontrovertible to the human mind that refuses, and is therefore deprived of, the indispensable light brought by the latter,—the divinely given Spirit of prophecy.
Rome's impressive assumptions alone explain the relieved surrender to her claims of such great minds as John Henry Newman. Men seek the relief of assurance and the refuge of certainty in Rome's voice of authority amid a world of spiritual uncertainty and chaos. But apart from the remnant church, true certainty is not to be found. Popular Protestantism does not and cannot possess or offer it, and Rome's is spurious. This therefore leaves the advent movement in a unique relationship to both Catholicism and Protestantism. Thus Catholicism and Adventism stand forth in sharp antithesis—this movement being recognized by Rome as the one really Protestant body extant, and her real spiritual antagonist. We face a foe with uncanny insight, and a shrewdness that is more than human. Thank God, we, too, have guidance that is more than human—it is of heavenly origin. This is manifestly the hour for us to speak, tactfully, winsomely, faithfully. Rome's aggressions and Protestantism's recessions not only provide the opportunity, but constitute the inescapable challenge. Wonderment is abroad in the land. This is our time to witness.
L. E. F.
Subtle Pressure
There is a ceaseless pressure—a subtle, ofttimes almost-unrecognized, pull—ever tending to draw us away from our distinctive position and program as a people. Just to the degree that we yield will this minimize, if not indeed neutralize, those separating principles and practices that, when adhered to with fidelity, make inevitable our isolation from all other religious groups. Never for a moment are we to forget that we are not merely a church, but a movement, that we have a unique, specific, Heaven-appointed task which places us in clashing contrast to all other religious bodies and objectives in the world today.
The natural tendency is for us to become just another church—the true church, of course—with its stated worship, its marvelous institutions, its elaborate program, its intricate machinery, yet with a stereotyped and increasingly blurred and modified vision. But that would be fatal. The tendency is for pressure of time and circumstance to drive us and so to consume and control our time and strength as to direct rather than to follow our bidding, thus making us the servant, yes, the slave, of the organization and policies of our own creation.
This constitutes a very real and persistent peril that is not always recognized or reckoned with. We must never forget the wreckage of Protestant bodies strewn all about us. These historic churches have, without exception, lost the concepts and abandoned the noble platforms of their founding fathers. Thus have they drifted into their present apathetic state. The question comes to every candid, solicitous thinker in the advent movement: Where would we as a people drift if time were to last, and present trends were to continue and intensify ? A genius for organization may allot to every man his task and make us very efficient. Our united accomplishments may be astonishing and gratifying in their totals. But the true and only purpose in it all may become tragically obscured. Let us guard our denominational heritage and commission as our very life. Let us hold organization in its allotted place—the servant and not the master in our task.
L.E.F.
