Modernism's deadly permeations into the popular churches necessitate an understanding of its underlying spirit and fatal principles. Its frankly non-Christian position on the Christian verities as currently enunciated by leading spokesmen is therefore of concern to us, for contacts with those under its influence are unescapable. A recent declaration of importance appears in the Christian Century (March 30, 1938). Modernism's blasphemous denial of the inspiration, and therefore of the inspired authority, of the Bible, is again displayed in language that cannot be explained away.
"What we call Modernism is a necessary stage for Christian thought to pass through on its way to a positive affirmation of the truth of Christianity. Modernism has been pretty largely an experience of disillusionment with respect to the untenable claims of conservative orthodoxy. . . . It will be a long time before the work of Modernism is done. The rank and file of both our laity and our ministry are still in the period of conflict between conservatism and Modernism. Those who have long since passed through this conflict, and have gone on to other issues, will do well to keep this fact in mind."
The editor then answers categorically the question of .a reader concerning "inspiration," in this remarkable, open statement of repudiation, and its "man of straw—verbal dictation":
"The concept of 'inspiration' does not figure at all in my reading of the Bible. It does not occur to me that its words were dictated or authorized or guaranteed in any way essentially different from the manner in which any other ancient writing on a highly important subject was set down. The writers of the Bible, both of the Old and New Testaments, were men like ourselves—like Stanley Jones and Kagawa, if you wish. I cannot imagine what added authority the Bible would have if it were conceived as having been dictated by God to a stenographer. Its values would be no more precious. Its meaning would be no more clear. Its truth would be no more authoritative. Indeed, I fear it would subtract from its authority if God had so dictated it, for I would be at a loss to account for the obvious errors in it. That there are errors and inconsistencies and ungodly sentiments in the Bible, cannot be reasonably denied. These I am able to account for without strain when I take the Bible as I take any other book, remembering that it was written by actual men who lived at particular times and in particular circumstances, and who had certain empirical promptings and purposes in mind when they wrote."
Comment is scarcely needed. Gone is the uniqueness, the authority, the reliability, the inspiration, so far as the Modernist is concerned. That is why it is so hard to reach those who have become entangled in the toils of Modernism. There is nothing they recognize as authoritative and trustworthy, except as it conforms to their own distorted judgment concerning truth and right. Individual perception is therefore the final judge and arbiter. Inspiration of the Bible is not the question with the Modernist—that is denied. The truthfulness of the portrayal is his measure of evaluation. That is the issue, and each must judge for himself. Quoting further
"The question which I wish answered when I read the Bible is not, Is this inspired? but, Is this a true account of the events and insights with which it deals? No 'inspiration' can make it true if it is not true, nor can it add to its truth if it is true. All this, however, is negative. But I have no space adequately to set forth the positive preeminence of the Bible. What I have said does not divorce God from the Bible—indeed it brings Him more intimately into it. This is because it is a faithful record of a body of human experience in which God progressively revealed Himself. This history culminated in the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth and in the creation of the Christian community. The Bible is the human story and interpretation of these transcendently important events. Its preciousness does not lie in its having been written in a unique or miraculous manner, but in the incomparable importance of the matter with which it deals,"
Such is the position of candid Modernism. There is no longer any kinship to the historic Protestant platform of "the Bible only" as the supreme rule and divine, authority for Protestantism. No wonder Roman Catholics taunt Protestants with bringing about the woes of today—the breakdown of morals, the repudiation of authority, and the drift into the nameless perversions and iniquities of the times. Modernism is a pilotless, compassless, chartless bark on a stormy sea, hoping somehow through human intuition to reach the port. God pity such!
Modernism's New Program
Again we call attention to strange recent actions and emmciations of Modernism. Disillusioned by the futility of its former fallacious positions, it is now shifting emphasis from the social gospel to affirmation of the historical aspect. It has the seeming earmarks of a revival, but it is nevertheless a subtle, spurious one. Note first what the Christian Century (February 9, 1938) affirms in its leading editorial:
"There is now running through the churches of Western Christendom a contagion of affirmation much like that which characterized the primitive church itself. Many Christian leaders testify that a veil seems to have been withdrawn from their eyes, and that they are now seeing the truth of the Christian gospel as if it were a new revelation, in much the same way as the early Christians must have seen it. There is an awakening; to the fact that the church's thought has been led into a wilderness of alien ideologies. But the church is now in the way of discovering that its own historic ideology is not something to be ashamed of, or to be adjusted to the ideology of secular culture, or to be held true only if it is diluted with liberal interpretations, or to be shelved as suitable enough for a prescientific age but not suitable for our sophisticated time. On the contrary, the opinion is gathering force that the church must inscribe on its banner the bold affirmation : Christianity is true!"
These auspicious-sounding expressions about the removal of the "veil," and the "wilderness of alien ideologies" are followed by a frank declaration of a new evangelism:
"If this is so, if there is abroad a new and joyous conviction that Christianity is really true, and if this conviction is grounded in something more than a momentary emotion—that is, if it can give a reason for itself—we may expect a new evangelism to emerge, a fresh presentation of Christianity to the world. But this evangelism must begin within the church itself, for if the world stands in desperate need of faith, no less does the church stand in need of it. There has never been a time when Christian faith was at so low an ebb, when its basic convictions have been so shaken, when its mind has been so cluttered with diverting irrelevancies, and when its local congregations have resorted to so many devices and tricks as substitutes for the essential functions of religion. It will be an enormous undertaking, this, of calling the whole church from its wanderings in the wilderness of secular ideologies back to its historic and essential character.
Speaking of the bewilderment and futility of present popular theological training, the unpreparedness of the product of these modernist centers, and the need of evangelism there, the editorial continues:
"Principal J. S. Whale, of Cheshunt College, Cambridge, remarked in conversation that our theological seminaries are graduating men into the Christian ministry who have not yet learned what the gospel is. Any one acquainted with the student body of almost any high-ranking theological school knows how deep is the intellectual confusion into which these young men are plunged. It is a confusion which in but few cases grows less as the day of graduation and ordination comes. It is plain that our theological seminaries need to be evangelized. They, too, have been seduced by the ideology of science and have lost the power to affirm that Christianity is true—true in the terms of its own ideology. Here, more than at any other place in our system of Christian institutions, the gospel is being eclipsed by disciplines which divert the thought of both teachers and students from the concrete historical reality of Christian faith."
One of the chief elements of diversion has been the "psychology of religion," with "religious experience" and other "psychological piffle" as its subject matter. The factual realities are declared to be thrust aside by "experience," thus :
"The reality and authority of the objects of religious experience are held to be unimportant in comparison with the experience itself. Theology is held at a discount. History is irrelevant. Metaphysics is regarded as old-fashioned. . . . Thus, in comparison with the august realities of the Christian faith, what engages the student preparing for the Christian ministry is too often psychological piffle."
Asserting that "the keynote of the new evangelism is the affirmation that Christianity is true," the disappointing intent of it all is plainly disclosed in these phrases too clear for misunderstanding:
"Some will charge the evangelist with being a reactionary or a fundamentalist, neither of which he is. Others will say that he is reviving the old conflict between religion and science which has been so comfortably resolved by the slow capitulation of Christian faith to the categories of science.
"The great field for the new evangelism is thus Protestantism itself. In sacrificing history, in subordinating the church to the Bible, the creeds, and an inner experience, Protestant ideology must be held responsible for the reign of subjectivism in Western Christianity. The new evangelism must bring it back to objectivity ; that is, to history ; that is, to the Christian church ; that is, to the revelation which God made of Himself in the little community which gathered ,about the person of Jesus long ago and which became in history the carrier of His saving grace for all men in all the ages. . . . Protestantism, especially in America, has neglected this primary Christian function. This neglect was logical enough in the light of its doctrine of salvation by faith alone."
Such are the strange but disappointing movements of a religious liberalism that has cast aspersion on the inspired Bible and the Christian verities, and that seeks, through human reason and effort, to find its way back to God.
Catholicism and the Bible
In certain ways Protestantism has departed farther and more hopelessly from the faith than has Roman Catholicism. This we should never forget. The theory of evolution, for instance, which has made such devastating in-roads upon Protestant theology and education, has found practically no foothold in Catholic literature or teaching, or in its educational institutions. Higher criticism, with its repudiation of the inspired authority of the Bible, has left liberal Protestantism without a chart and compass, but has made virtually no inroads upon Roman Catholicism. Discussing "The Church and the Bible," Our Sunday Visitor (April 3, 1938), makes this telling point that cannot be gainsaid:
"The Catholic Church holds the Old and New Testament, gathered together in what is known as the canonical books of the Bible, not only to be authentic but inspired. She has always defended this teaching, and although Protestants, who long defended the theory that 'the Bible and the Bible only' is a source of faith, have practically abandoned it, the Catholic Church still stands by the Bible in its entirety."
This we do well to remember and to capitalize. And it may safely be said that for this reason it is often far easier to reach Roman Catholics with our message than Modernist Protestants who have lost respect for the Word. Claiming to be the preserver of the Scriptures through the Dark Ages, Rome makes this uncomfortable charge as to present-day attitudes:
"The Catholic Church, often accused of minimizing the importance of the Bible, is actually the Bible's chief defender, if not its only defender in these days."
But the characteristic error that always accompanies Catholic allegiance to the Bible—placing the teaching and tradition of the church above the Bible—is its claim to be the only true and lawful interpreter of the Bible. And here is where we must capitalize upon the former reverence and belief as we show the fallacy and futility of the tradition channel:
"Evidently Almighty God never intended that people should build up their religion by the private reading and interpretation of the Bible. One can defend this theory and at the same time have the greatest reverence for every word contained in the Holy Scriptures."
This Sunday Visitor discussion was engendered by a recent statement of the Anglican Dean of Exeter Cathedral, in England, who is quoted as saying in a speech given in New York:
"'The Bible is a difficult book. To read it and really understand it requires not only intelligence, but time—more time than most of us have.'
"But the point we wish to make is that if most people are not sufficiently intelligent to get their religion from the Bible, then Almighty God would never have compelled them to acquire and build up their faith in that way. God holds no one to the impossible. That God would not do it is clear from the Bible itself, which declares : 'Faith comes by hearing.' "
