Doctrines of Demons

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 4, 1909

“Doctrines of Demons”

The extent to which modern teachers of religion have departed from the plain teachings of the Scriptures, and have accepted in their place the conclusions of a speculative philosophy, is shown by the following extract from a recent sermon upon death:—

Physical death is a part of God's plan for his children. It is only transition. It is another name for change. It is as natural as the dawn, as natural as the sunset. It is another kind of birth; it is simply being born once more. It is our next step upward and onward. It is graduation here, and beginning the next stage of life somewhere else. It means going out from this primary school of earth, and entrance into the next higher grade. Death is a necessary incident of our getting on in that career for which God has made us—a career in which the soul shall find scope and range for growth into all that, as a child of the infinite, it is capable of becoming. Not for a thousand worlds would I eliminate the incident of death from my future.

This is an evolutionary philosophy not only unwarranted by the Scriptures, but absolutely contrary to them. That these assertions are simply the conclusions of modern Spiritualism, is shown by a letter approving this same sermon, from which we quote:—

The hour is approaching when the teaching of sane and devout Spiritualists must be examined, proved, and tested. We have too much materialism, and the doctrine of another life close to us is far from now being the living, bright reality. All nature teaches evolution through transition; in other words, life through death. Modern Christianity needs to refocus many of its current beliefs, and to review and remodel many of its accepted “views.” Our death beliefs and views, even among the most devout, are very largely pagan. There is much to be learned from Spiritualism. All Spiritualists are not bad, and, as we only too well know, all Christians are not good. There is a Spiritualism which is of Christ, for the church, the practical manifestation of that much neglected article of the Christian faith—the communion of saints.