Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 25, 1909

Infidelity in the Pulpit

THE leaven of infidelity has permeated the minds of so many professedly religious teachers that the departure from old-time orthodoxy can no longer be denied or concealed, and the effect of the wide-spread unbelief in the Scriptures is being felt on all sides. The present situation is well described by the Christian Herald in an editorial from which we take this paragraph:—

In scattered pulpits here and there, and in not a few theological schools, it has become the fashion to flout the old Bible. Some preachers and professors have tried to prove how much superior is their understanding of spiritual things to that of the prophets, the evangelists, and the great leaders of the faith, who lived close to Christ and followed in his footsteps. But souls are not saved by belittling the Scriptures, nor are hearts won from sin to righteousness by undermining the faith of the simple. It would be a charitable conclusion to think that such attacks ordinarily proceed from intellectual vanity or sheer love of sensation. This is doubtless true of a majority of the shallow and superficial assaults on the old Bible and the religion of Jesus Christ. It is surprising how few of the great thinkers and eminent scholars are to be found in the ranks of infidelity. But it is not the open and avowed infidel who is the most dangerous foe of the Christian faith. It is the veiled infidel, the agnostic, the man who subtly slurs inspiration and miracles, who questions Biblical authority and authenticity, who reads into the old Book new and doubtful meanings, who is full of smart suggestions concerning passages that are apparently contradictory, but which have been long ago cleared up satisfactorily by able and reverent scholarship.

It is not possible to deny the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures and at the same time to maintain intact the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Those who commenced by attempting to interpret the plain teachings of the Bible to make them harmonize with the claims of modern science have yielded one thing after another until they are now openly denying the doctrines of sin, of the atonement, of the resurrection, and of the second advent. A speculative philosophy has largely taken the place of revealed truth, and is being taught from many pulpits of the land.