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Clerical Infidelity

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 19, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 3.

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Clerical Infidelity

By F. M. W.

Formerly it was supposed that disbelief in God and in the Scriptures of truth as his revealed will, belonged to the infidel element entirely, outside of, and separate from, the professed church of Christ. However, the times have changed. It does not call forth any great surprise, and is hardly occasion for remark, that men occupying leading positions as clergymen should voice the sentiments of infidel skeptics. At a meeting of the house of deputies of the Episcopal General Convention, held in Music Hall, Cincinnati, recently, A. A. Morrison, a minister of that church, declared his belief that “the Bible is not the Word of God.” According to the Cincinnati Times Star, this “assertion was made in the course of the discussion of the acceptance of the preamble to the constitution of the church at the convention held three years ago, which declares that the Scriptures are the Word of God.” Mr. Morrison declared—
that the adoption of the proposed preamble would place us in such position in the scholastic world that it would be impossible to induce men of education to enter the ministry and subscribe to our doctrines. Such an assertion in the preamble would be out of accord with this age of scholarship.
J. H. MacIlvaine, another minister, from Pittsburg, explained why the preamble had been drawn:— The idea of the preamble was to get a little religion into the constitution of the church. There is nothing in the constitution that says whether we are a Christian, a Mormon, or a Buddhist church. The word “God” appears only in quotation marks, and the name of Christ is omitted. In the Constitution of the United States the name of God was unfortunately omitted, and there is nothing to signify that we are a Christian nation. I expect to see the oath abolished in a few years in the procedure of our courts.
It is not so surprising, perhaps, that occasionally there should be found a minister in any church who should so far depart from the sacred character of his work as to question the source of his call and the foundation of his authority. In every age of the world, men have departed from the faith. Judas fell away from the truth, even while associated with the Lord Jesus. But that which does occasion not alone surprise but grief as well, is that there should be found in some of the great churches at the present time an increasing number of men who openly express such sentiments, and these men are still retained in their sacred work, and are held as representatives of the denomination and of its advanced religious thought. A deathly indifference is benumbing the moral sensibilities of the great church of God. A subtle and wide-spread infidelity is being diffused among her membership. This is a sad, sad situation, a rapidly growing tendency of present-day Christianity. May God arouse faithful men to stem, so far as possible, the great current, and save the honest in heart from going down the great maelstrom of unbelief of the Word, and rejection of its divine Author.
F. M. W.