A Protest Against Modern Theology
[A book has been written by Dr. Robert A. Hume with the title “Missions from the Modern View.” In the December issue of The Missionary Review of the World the editor-in-chief, Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, considers some positions taken in this book. While so much is being published which either openly denies the fundamental truths of Christianity or at best compromises with the “new theology,” it is refreshing to read such a straightforward statement of essential truth. We quote a portion of Dr. Pierson’s article, as follows.—Ed.] DR. HUME, as the title of his book suggests, looks at missions from the “modern view,” reflecting twentieth century notions of religion, as qualified by man’s conclusions as to anthropology and ethnology, psychology, sociology, and especially evolution. Five men of the last century, none of them Christian believers, molded current thought, not only in the scientific, but in the religious realm, more than, perhaps, any other Englishmen since Lord Bacon and Bishop Butler. These were Mill, Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall. Evolution exercises its potent charm even over Christian philosophy and theology; “heredity” and “environment,” “natural selection,” “survival of the fittest,” and “development,” have come to be applied as solutions, even to such problems as the Bible and Christ. Of course, the prosecution of missions and all cognate matters are strongly affected by this “modern view,” and Dr. Hume presents the matter in its most attractive form, so moderately and reasonably as not to repel, while starting not a few doubts and questions which deserve careful answer. Some positions taken by this writer may be considered as fairly representative of this “modern view,” and as illustrative both of its plausibility and possible peril. 1. First of all, the “modern view” gives pre-eminence to Christ’s example rather than his vicarious death for sinners. It shifts the practical center from the “cross” to the “pattern,” and from faith in his sacrificial work to following in his steps. This is a serious mistake, easily made, for it confuses the position of a sinner, before repentance and faith, with the position of a believer, after acceptance of salvation. It is Peter who gives us the familiar phrase, “leaving us an example, that ye should follow in his steps,” yet the same inspired writer, more explicitly than any other in the New Testament, puts the fact that “Christ suffered in our behalf,” in its true order, before the furnishing of an example; and what is meant by such vicarious suffering he more minutely defines—“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” 1 Peter 2: 21, 24, 25. The author of this book fascinates the reader with the popular conception of God’s universal fatherhood and man’s universal brotherhood, representing the divine Father as yearning over his erring human children, leading and drawing all to himself, however unconsciously on their part; and man, as helping his brother man to find and know the common Father. All religions are construed as more or less successful human attempts to reach the ideal; Christianity is conceded to be the best of all religions, but, as other faiths have learned and have yet much to learn from Christianity, Christianity, in turn, is represented as having no little “to gain from contact with the East.” Christianity, in its unique feature of atonement as the basis of a redeemed sonship, certainly is not prominent in this book, though it would appear that Dr. Hume personally holds that the “one central element in the process by which Christ helps men, making sinful men into new creatures, is his suffering and death,” and gives reasons why he does not “try to explain” to the Hindu mind this central element. He considers that the philosophy of this fact, on which even Christians differ, is not a part of the essence of Christianity, and that there may be a saving experience of vital relations to Christ without any such explanation. How consistent Peter was with his own teaching will be seen in his addresses on the day of Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius, in both which the one grand fact emphasized was the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord10Jesus. Not a word was, on these occasions, spoken about Christ as an example. “Know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” That was the arrow of God that, on the day of Pentecost, pricked their hearts and compelled the question: “What shall we do?” And the very words used by the Holy Ghost to bring the whole company at Cesarea to salvation, were these: “Through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.” Is it safe to shift the emphasis from that fact of Christ’s death and man’s faith in the blood, to any other, since God has, from the beginning, set his special seal on this as the grand essential of the gospel? Is not Christ’s death the true focus of the sinner’s faith, and his example an after consideration, the model for the saints’ imitation? Do we learn the same lesson from Philip’s guidance of the eunuch—whose mind was riveted on that greatest picture of vicarious sacrifice (Isaiah 53)—and from Paul’s directions to the Philippian jailer? When a man asks, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer surely is not, “Follow Christ’s example,” but, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” 2. The “modern view” likewise makes much of “the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man”—a fascinating doctrine which it seems very ungracious to antagonize, or even criticize. But the only point of importance is,—not, Is it popular?—but, Is it Scriptural and spiritual? That there is such a natural fatherhood and brotherhood no one denies, for, as Paul said at Mars Hill, “We are his offspring.” But this is a very different word. Impenitent sinners are never called “sons of God.” “Sonship” is a higher term, reserved for regenerate believers. Sin transfers moral relationship from God to the devil; and hence our Lord himself boldly told those who boasted of their natural filial relation to Abraham, and, through the father of the faithful to God, that their practical obedience to sin and Satan made them, morally, “children of the devil.” “Ye are of your father the devil.” John 8: 44. To “modernize” such inspired teaching may involve risk of glossing over, with a polite terminology, the awful moral estrangement of sin, as a virtual denial and forfeiture of the filial relation. Dr. Hume, with strong approval, refers to the modern view that mankind, as such, are children of God, while at the same time, with apparently unconscious inconsistency, he quotes approvingly those words of John: “As many as receive him, even to them that believe in his name, to them gave he the right [i. e., privilege] to become sons of God.” If men become sons of God by privilege and through the believing reception of Christ, is it not misleading to teach a universal fatherhood and brotherhood, apart from such faith? After carefully examining Dr. Hume’s attractive book, we submitted it to the penetrating eye of one of the wisest, most charitable, most Christlike saints whom we know, and his calm verdict is: “Dr. Hume’s standpoint is fundamentally wrong. There is in it no proper acknowledgment of prayer or of the Holy Spirit’s work. He leaves out the vital factors in the problem.” This, in substance, we find to be the judgment of other discriminating judges. The stress of Dr. Hume’s whole argument seems to be that the “consciousness of filial relation to God and of brotherly relations to men” is the “supreme revelation of Jesus Christ, and the supreme achievement to which he inspires men;” and, to his mind, this supplies the main motive to missions, that the Christian is to help his heathen “brother” to find a common Father in God, and elder brother in Christ. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the primary message to men, in their sins, is, “Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, a Saviour, there is none beside me” (Isa. 45: 21, 22); and that the primary motive of missions is to proclaim this one way of salvation and restoration to sonship.