Through all past centuries the clergy have been the custodians of learning. Often they were the only ones who possessed an education. This was as true of Protestantism as it was of Catholicism. And when Protestantism was planted on the shores of America, one of the first steps taken by the early colonists was the creation of centers of learning, so that they might have an educated clergy. The fact that the parishioners had little education seemed to offer no excuse for the clergy's remaining on the same level. Nor did it ever seem to occur to our Protestant forebears that special learning and special piety were other than twin handmaidens of religious leadership. Church history reveals that only eccentric sects have belittled learning and sought to place it in antithesis to piety—as if God has not given men heads as well as hearts.
This historic status of the clergy as regards education, is now the object of considerable discussion by religious writers and others who call our attention to a remarkable change that has taken place in our modern day. The change is from general ignorance to general education on the part of almost all the populace. This is without parallel in history. The parishioner is as well educated as the parson. And what is perhaps even more significant, those who are not parishioners are as well educated.
However, it is not simply the fact of general education today, but the kind of education, that arrests our attention. The populace have not been educated in the schools of the prophets. When the long record of Satan's scheming against God is finally brought to light, we may discover a sinister significance in what appears now as coincidental, that the era of universal learning should have been ushered in when the skeptical, scientific approach to learning had just been securely established. We may deplore the nature of modern education and the godlessness of the intelligentsia, but that cannot obscure the hard reality that the world of men we face today are not ignorant, but educated. Their logic may be bad, their philosophy pagan, and their interpretation of history materialistic; but the point is that their minds have been made acquainted with logic and philosophy and history, and they are not prepared to take much for granted, least of all the claims of the supernatural.
I wonder if we realize as we should that this is a changed intellectual climate in which we live, and that the change has taken place since this denomination was born! And I wonder, also, if we realize how definitely Adventist preaching must be directed to the heads as well as to the hearts of the listeners ! We are not a company of popular revivalists who play only upon the emotional strings of our hearers' hearts. Nor are we a group of mystics who confine religion to a study of the inner light. If we proceed in the Adventist tradition, we will view ourselves as students of the Word who seek to present in logical, appealing fashion, great lines of Bible truth, drawing alternately on logic, history, prophecy, and the true findings of science to establish our points and persuade our hearers. It takes, for example, more than sentiment to make the four ferocious beasts of Daniel's vision march in orderly, meaningful fashion across the platform at an evangelistic service. And certainly we must possess something more than a heart-throbbing collection of revival stories if we are to lead an audience safely down the long, prophetic path of the 2300 days to that momentous destination of 1844.
Whether we will or not, we must touch fields of thought and study and make an appeal to the mind that many preachers of other denominations might consider unnecessary. And whether we will or not, we are called upon to do this at the very time when substantially the whole populace is educated, critically so. Might we not discover in this combination a reason for seeing new significance in the declarations of the spirit of prophecy that all our positions will be challenged and attacked more militantly at the last than ever before? And shall we not also see more concrete import in the exhortations to study and to establish ever more fully the reasons for our beliefs?
Indeed, the burden of my remarks tonight is that we have not sensed as we should the changing intellectual climate, and have not given the amount of time and energy that we should to diligent study. It seems difficult for the sons of men to be wholly balanced in their program of living, either individually or collectively; and our denomination has not been wholly free from this weakness.
The distinguishing mark of the early leaders of this advent movement was their tremendous emphasis on Bible study and their diligent searching for any and all related evidences from history or other sources in support of our truths. A reading of the early volumes of the Review, that faithful mirror of denominational life and activity through the years, provides full proof, if proof is required, for my statement. The same faithful mirror seems to reveal today a definite change in emphasis, with increased reports of business sessions, budgets, resolutions, and discussions of administrative problems, but only rarely a report of a workers' meeting held exclusively, or even primarily, for the study of the Word.
Without question, as the denomination has grown larger there has been an increasing need of applying sound business principles to its financial and institutional aspects. And certainly there is a proper place for campaigns and goals to give stable support to our ever-expanding mission program. But these ought we to have done and not to have left increasing earnestness in the study of God's word undone.
In such a transition as this have we recognized the great danger that our doctrinal beliefs may congeal in the molds of the thought patterns formerly current, and acquire the indelible impression of certain arguments and evidences once popular? Nothing can congeal more quickly than a theological tenet if it is allowed to lie dormant. The result is that today we often hesitate to examine the mold lest we come under the indictment that we seek to shatter it. Our early leaders sought to protect the denomination for all time against just this danger by taking a militant stand against written creeds. And what is a creed but a mold into which the beliefs of a people are poured? We have avoided the stereotyped creed, but let us be sure that we avoid altogether what the pioneers sought to protect us against when they indicted creeds.
Today there seems to exist a certain apathy, or even antipathy, toward any sort of organized study of doctrines as such. But why should this be? What are the reasons? I think of at least five.
1. The first reason consists of the fallacy of mistaking the form of the doctrine for the doctrine itself. It is to this fallacy that I have just been referring. The very phrases in which a doctrine is described seem in time to become the doctrine itself. That is one of the most subtle dangers in a written creed. To many, there seems to be something almost sacrilegious even in restating a doctrine in new language and in new settings, just as some feel that it is sacrilege to translate the Bible into twentieth-century speech. But while the latter is beset with certain dangers, I cannot be sure that it is sacrilegious to set forth the Scriptures in the language of the day when I remember that the New Testament was written in the koine, the common speech of the first century.
2. There is the error of mistaking the proofs of the doctrine for the doctrine itself. Thus, to question a line of proof is regarded equivalent to questioning the doctrine. But we need to make a clear distinction between the basic doctrines which we believe and the arguments and evidence which we employ to expound and defend them. It does not follow that because a doctrine is true, therefore every argument used to support it is also true. Even an argument which is constructed of Bible texts may be faulty, for the texts are one thing and our finite arrangement of them is quite another. The argument does not acquire sanctity or infallibility simply because of its association with an inspired doctrine. Yet unconsciously we are inclined to attach a peculiar value to any line of reasoning which is employed in support of doctrine.
We might state the matter thus: Our primary doctrines, such as the second advent, - the Sabbath, life only in Christ, et cetera, are so many mighty pillars supporting a beautiful edifice of truth. The arguments, the evidence, the illustrations we employ, are so many paths over which we endeavor to bring men to acceptance of these doctrines. Our constant work as guides to truth, should be to discover which paths of approach to a doctrine are absolutely solid and which are not. Nor should the mere fact that the path is well beaten be sufficient reason in itself for continuing to guide men along that way. Time and the weather may cut chasms in a path, or may make really dangerous a bridge that has been only weak. Fortunately there is no necessary relation between the foundation of a highway a doctrine and the foundation of the doctrine itself. It should be possible to examine and correct the one without endangering the other. The doctrinal edifice is built atop the solid rock of Mount Zion, while the paths which lead to it must at least begin as the avenues of the most familiar thinking of men down in the valley below.
3. A third reason consists in the error of mistaking the incidentals for the essentials in our doctrines. There is properly a holy of holies to every doctrine, a sacred precinct which should remain inviolate, which glows with the intense light of revelation, and before which we should give unquestioning, silent adoration. But there is also an outer court where ordinary mortals like you and me may rightly walk and exchange our thoughts. For illustration, there is the revealed truth of the second advent, that the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven to take unto Himself His own, and to destroy the wicked. Before that awesome truth we stand obediently silent.
However, there was a time when some among us insisted that the prophetic declaration concerning the 144,000—a certain special piece of furniture, to carry out the figure—must be enclosed within that sacred inner precinct. But others insisted that it did not belong within. There was much discussion of orthodoxy that centered about this. But happily today we are rather unanimous that a minister may be regarded absolutely sound in the faith in general, and the second advent in particular, without having a dogmatic view on the 144,000.
In the very nature of the case, it will never be possible for finite men always to establish a clear line of distinction between essentials and incidentals in doctrine. My own simple rule is this: Where the Spirit of prophecy, our one inspired commentary on Scripture, is silent or noncommittal on a point of doctrine,
I feel rationally justified in considering that point as hardly vital or essential, but rather, as incidental. I am aware, of course, of the danger in the argument drawn from silence, and I do not wish to be understood as drawing such an argument except when I am examining what is patently a measured treatment of a doctrine by the Spirit of prophecy. Returning to the figure of the holy of holies :
there was very little variety housed within that sacred precinct ; it was not the quantity, but the quality that counted. I believe the same should be true regarding the essentials of our doctrines. I have a feeling that the reason the ark seems at times to need our steadying, protecting hand is that we have made it top-heavy with incidental things.
4. Another reason why there is sometimes aversion on the part of men to the organized study of our doctrines, is the fear that controversies may be engendered. And we are reminded of various unfortunate experiences of former days. I confess there is some point to this reason. But I must also express as my measured conviction that if the fear of controversy had completely inhibited doctrinal study and discussion in earlier decades, we should have been robbed of some very worthwhile chapters in denominational history.
I am aware that church history furnishes us the embarrassing information that the clergy have often lost their religion fighting to preserve it. Surely we ought to be able to discuss questions of doctrine without fear and without antagonism. To confuse animosity with exegesis is to create a burlesque on religion.
Friendly discussion and exchange of views will clarify and stimulate our thinking, and ought to cause the truth to shine more brightly, but to bite and devour will hinder rather than advance the cause of truth. We might well remember the appeal of Cromwell to the doughty, disputatious theologians of Westminster: "I beseech you by tbe bowels of Christ, bethink that ye might be mistaken." I think that at times most of us preachers need to pray for a sense of humor.
5. A final reason includes in part some of the others, and would pervasively envelop and stifle all active study of the doctrines. It may be stated thus : We passed through an initial period of discovering and formufatingour doctrines; but they have long been well defined. All we need to do now is to preach them. The inference here, of course, may be expressed in a double question: Do you think you could rebuild the rugged Scriptural framework of those doctrines ? or do you think that we ought to discard some of them? The questions are doubtless sincere, but wholly irrelevant. Might it not be possible to approach our doctrinal edifice with some objective other than that of changing the basic design or wrecking the structure? Architects inform me that it is often possible to beautify, strengthen, and enlarge, yes, even modernize, in a sense, a stately, venerable structure without disturbing a single supporting pillar or removing one stone from the foundation.
_______ To be concluded in March
