Tested by Results

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 25, 1909

Tested by Results

DURING the present generation there has been an attempt to revolutionize religious belief, an effort to substitute for that Christianity which has been the hope of believers for many centuries, a new philosophy of existence and a new religion. Adopting the principle of evolution as a sufficient explanation of all that is, and encouraging man to look within himself in order to find those powers which, when developed, would enable him to rise in the scale of being, the leaders of this revolutionary movement have discarded as unreliable, the plain revelation made in the Scriptures concerning the person and being of God and his relation to all existing things and beings, and by the aid of speculative philosophy and the uncertain guidance of human reason have developed various systems of belief, which, while differing in the details, agree in the one basal principle that salvation (or, as they phrase it, the rise to a higher plane of existence) is to be attained by self-effort and self-development.

Sufficient time has elapsed since these theories have been advanced to make it possible to apply to them the test of results. The Christianity of the Bible has proved its power for good in the history of both nations and individuals. Its profitableness, for both the present world and the future, has been abundantly demonstrated; but in what way has the new religion proved its claim to superiority over the old? This inquiry is developed, and the answer given, in a convincing way by Dr. George C. Lorimer in one of a course of lectures on “Christianity in the Nineteenth Century,” from which we quote:—

But how about the substitutes proposed? Are they more intelligible, more promising, more satisfying than the Christianity they have undertaken to dethrone? What is their value to society? Have they furnished unmistakable signs of fitness to meet the growing needs of the age, and to deal adequately with the permanent longings of the soul? Are they able to console in times of trouble, and to quicken in seasons of spiritual apathy, and to inspire in hours of weariness and trial? Are their fundamental principles more reasonable than those of the gospel? Are their motives to duty higher, their ideals nobler, their sympathies broader, and their hopes clearer and better authenticated? What have they to show for themselves? What lives have they regenerated and reinstated? What griefs have they assuaged? What reprobates have they reclaimed? What problems have they solved, and what solitary ray of light have they shed on the troubled sea of existence? If they bring a more rational and comprehensive view of the universe than is given in the Bible; if they speak with greater distinctness and assurance of a future world than the Gospels; and if they furnish a diviner conception of manhood, and a more certain method of winning the degraded and forlorn back to righteousness and peace than are embodied in the person and plan of Jesus Christ, their right to attention, and, perhaps, to supremacy, may properly be recognized. Between them and Christianity the question at issue is mainly one of comparative worth.

Is any one of them worthy to be the successor of Christianity, assuming for the moment that Christianity is to have a successor? If judged by their fruits, intellectual, spiritual, moral, social, the answer must be in the negative. Their careers thus far have been only remarkable for failures. They have been fruitful in criticisms, in hypotheses, in suppositions and speculations, but not in those solid and definite convictions which are indispensable to religious thought and life. They have failed to illumine the understanding, to purify the conscience, to stimulate the will, to strengthen the hope of immortality, and to bring the creature into close communication with the Creator. Nay, more than this and worse than this, they have allured many minds away from a quiet anchorage, to cast them loose on an ocean of unbelief, where happiness and morality have both been shipwrecked. They have disturbed the head and distressed the heart, and they have darkened the horizon of life and driven many to despair. Considered in the light of what they ought to have done and could not do, and of what they have done and ought not to do, their pretentious claims must be set aside as almost sublimely arrogant. And instead of doubting from their assumptions the continual supremacy of Christianity, we should infer from their failures that the world can not dispense with its ministry, and that everything in our power should be done to render this ministry all that it should be in grace and beauty.

Let no one be deceived or confused by the unwarranted assumptions and the unproved assertions of the new theology. Resting upon an uncertain foundation, built up by the unreliable process of human reasoning, and lacking the power of the living Word of God for its maintenance, it has no sufficient claim on the confidence of those who desire a satisfactory solution of the problem of sin, the assurance of victory over death, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. The inspired counsel of the apostle Paul to his son in the faith, Timothy, has a personal application to every believer in

this generation: “Guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”