A Well-Grounded Suspicion

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

A Well-Grounded Suspicion

In an article in the May number of Unity (Chicago) Prof. Charles B. Clark, of the chair of philosophy and education in Alfred University (Seventh-day Baptist), treats of the subject of religious life in colleges and universities. The lack of restraint which prevails in these institutions at present will, as he thinks, “in the course of evolution give us a higher type of self-control on the part of those who exercise voluntary self-discipline, yet we are purchasing the results at a fearful cost of ruin.” It is a serious question with us, however, whether the seeds of lawlessness will yield a crop of self-control. Professor Clark further says:—

There is a more or less general feeling, too, among a large proportion of our population, that our colleges and universities are hotbeds of infidelity. There is considerable feeling that the average college professor teaches a more or less disguised form of infidelity, insinuating with his regular instruction more or less irreligion and spiritual poison. It is needless to say, here, that the suspicion that the religion of an educated man is bound to be of a questionable character is absolutely unwarranted and unfair. No more genuine or sincere Christians can be found anywhere than among our college professors and instructors. These men are, to be sure, sometimes not altogether orthodox, but that is no reproach to their religion. As a class, our university and college professors are thoughtful, reflective men, and it is their very sincerity in religious expression that gives rise to the suspicion that they are irreligious.

We do not have to seek far to find the reason why the colleges and universities, both in this country and in Europe, are held in suspicion by conservative Christian believers as either encouraging infidelity or at least not exerting any strong influence against it. The marked rationalistic tendency and the growing inclination to adopt the results of scientific research as of more authority than revelation, have furnished abundant ground for such a suspicion. Furthermore, we can not excuse a denial of faith in the fundamental things of the gospel as being due simply to “their very sincerity in religious expression.” There is the sincerity of belief and unbelief, and there is no need of confounding the two. It is absolutely certain that not many modern college professors are contributing anything toward staying the tide of unbelief and infidelity which is sweeping the young men of the country over the bar and out into the sea of uncertainty, agnosticism, and moral ruin. The responsibility for inaction in this time of grave danger must rest where it belongs.