Obsolete Traditions

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 22, 1906

"Obsolete Traditions"

THE work of an evangelist who has made a great stir on two or three continents is called in question by some advocates of an advanced theology because he emphasizes the old-fashioned truths of the Bible in his preaching. One of his critics says: “We are not going to win the great fight which is upon us by clinging to obsolete traditions which have been discarded by the sane, reverent, and constructive scholarship of Christianity; and when these traditions, which are matters of private opinion, are insisted upon as dogmas necessary to salvation, I for one refuse to be allied with any such human perversions of the divine truth.” It was once the boast of Protestantism that it accepted “the Bible, and the Bible alone,” as the source of authority in matters of faith, but now mark the difference. What is termed “the sane, reverent, and constructive scholarship of Christianity,” meaning thereby the learned “Higher Critics,” has reconstructed the Bible on a scientific basis, and discarding as “obsolete traditions” what have been held as the fundamental principles of Christianity for many centuries, and now these original doctrines of primitive Christianity, plainly revealed in the Scriptures and plainly taught by Christ and the apostles, are stigmatized as “human perversions of the divine truth.” How much difference is there in principle between such Protestantism as this and the papacy? Both exalt the teachings of men above the Word of God. The arrogance of modern scholarship has adopted the language of blatant infidelity, and this is fitting, for the “Higher Critics” are infidels under another name. The best answer to all this scientific sophistry is to proclaim the simple truths of revelation “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Finite men may seek to exalt their own opinions above the Word of God, but “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” The so-called “obsolete traditions” will be the science and the song of the redeemed throughout the eternal ages.