“Modernism” Explained and Condemned

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 18, 1908

“Modernism” Explained and Condemned

THE tendency toward liberalism in theology has not been confined to the Protestant churches. The movement has appeared in the Roman Catholic fold as well, and there it is creating no little stir. What is termed “New Theology” among Protestants has been defined as “Modernism” in Roman Catholic circles, as being the best English equivalent of the Latin word used by the pope in his well-known encyclical upon this subject.

Those who desire to understand both sides of this controversy in the Roman Catholic Church will find a clear statement of the views of the pope and his opposers in a recent book which will doubtless have a wide reading, as it deals with a problem of great interest to all the different denominations. In this book there is a statement of the views of the so-called “Modernists” in the form of a reply to the recent encyclical of Pius X, which is printed in full in English. This document is declared to be a deliberate attempt “to present ‘Modernist’ views to the public under a false and unfavorable light,” and the writers of the reply therefore deem it both their right and their duty “to expose the unfair attack which the encyclical seems to make” upon them, and to present from their own standpoint the teachings for which they have been condemned.

That “Modernism” and “New Theology” stand on common ground in denying the inspiration of the Bible is shown from this paragraph taken from the “Explanation of the Modernist System:” —

The common and traditional notion is that in the Bible we possess an orderly and complete history of the revelation of the Old and New Testaments, guaranteed true in every part by the authority of God, who, as he has inspired the Bible, may be called the principal historian; and also by the secondary historians, who were more or less immediate witnesses of the facts they record—such as Moses and Joshua for the Old Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the New. But this conception has been shaken to its foundations by literary criticism applied to the historical books of either Testament.

As we repudiate this fundamental claim of “Modernism,” we can of course have little in common with the various arguments which are adduced to prove that the “Modernists” are the real conservers of the truth, the truly spiritual interpreters of all times; but we do commend, in a general way, the attitude of these men on the question of church and state. Their views are presented in the following paragraphs:—

Finally, the encyclical reprehends our desire to separate church and state. Here, again, the official church counts as a fault what is one of our best aspirations—one which she herself would welcome, were it not that her vision of facts is clouded by her ties and attachments to the worldly splendor which she enjoyed in a past age that can never come back again.

We quite understand those decisive practical reasons that moved the church in the Middle Ages to take to herself a political power which, however it may at times have hampered her spiritual influence, did, nevertheless, further the

development of medieval Europe in some ways. But the historical conditions which induced the church to assume a political responsibility separable from, if not quite incompatible with, her spiritual power, have long ceased to exist. The modern state is accepted as the instrument designed to regulate the development of the community in material and moral interests, so far as these affect the public life. It has a well-defined program and ample means of government. Things being so, the church should be only too glad to be able to lay down every sort of political preoccupation, and to retire back into the sphere of her spiritual dominion, confining herself to the religious guidance of souls. For her specific aims she has everything to gain from this separation of powers. What sort of sympathy is she likely to win from the best spirits of the age by those wretched remnants of a power that she has lost, or by her vain efforts to re-acquire it? What sort of popularity can these dwindling and decrepit aristocratic oligarchies confer upon her which, in exchange for a little paltry grandeur, would tie her to customs in open discord with modern tendencies? One thing we know, and we say it openly: we know that we are weary of seeing the church reduced, for all practical purposes, to a bureaucracy jealous of its surviving scraps of political power, and hungering to get back all it once had—to a group of idle men, who, having dedicated themselves to a priestly and apostolic calling, and having afterward attained the highest ecclesiastical grade, enjoy the most fabulously wealthy benefices as absentee incumbents. We are weary of seeing her reduced to a sterilized force, which, notwithstanding an apparent grandeur that wins the facile and unintelligent adulation of the multitude, acts as a brake on social progress; to an institution which squanders its vital energy in idly dreaming of what it used to be in ages gone by. We see no other effectual way of ending this miserable state of things than the entire separation of the church from political functions; the return to the simpler religion that will throw open the doors of the church to the excluded democracy, and enable her to pour out upon it those treasured riches of spirituality which the Christian tradition has stored in her bosom. Away, then, with all these empty political ambitions; away with all this plotting to reconstitute, on different but equivalent lines, that civil power which the church exercised in the Middle Ages. Let the church learn to be once more that great moral force which she was in her less imposing but more fruitful periods, and especially in her primitive days, and her history, which to-day traces the course of a parabolic descent, will receive a new and vigorous upward impulse.

Although we can not agree with these claims in behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, yet it is refreshing to read so clear a statement of the benefits arising from the separation of church and state.

In the closing part of the encyclical all the power of the church is invoked against the “Modernists,” and their writings and their teachings are condemned in the strongest terms. It remains to be seen whether these measures will be effective.

The full encyclical in English will be both interesting and valuable to those who wish to understand at first hand the position of the Roman Church on the various topics treated upon in it.