The Emmanuel Movement

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

The Emmanuel Movement

Its Founder and His Theology

The ancient Athenians, who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing,” must have had their time fully occupied in discussing the latest developments in science and theology if the air was as full of strange claims, striking interpretations, and advanced theories as it is in our day. Some new claim of speculative philosophy, some new school of advanced theology, or some new movement based upon new theories is being constantly exploited in the public press, upon the lecture platform, or from some liberal pulpits. Those who depend upon others to do their thinking for them must be kept in a state of constant uncertainty, and must feel that they are walking in a labyrinthian maze without any definite idea as to where they will come out, or whether they will come out at all.

Among the new things which have recently attracted attention and been the subject of general discussion is what has been styled “The Emmanuel Movement.” This movement had its origin somewhat over two years ago in the city of Boston, famed as the home of culture and philosophy, and at the same time having the reputation of being good soil for erratic thought.

The professed purpose which finds expression in this new school of thought is to carry out the divine commission to preach the gospel and to heal the sick. The nature of the gospel which is preached, and the methods employed in healing the sick, indicate that a new interpretation has been placed upon familiar words of scripture, and that ideas unknown to Christ and his apostles have been given a large place in this modern movement.

As the basis for a clearer understanding of what is involved in the Emmanuel movement (so-called because it started in Emmanuel church, Boston) we will state some facts concerning its founder, Dr. Elwood Worcester, and his philosophy. After finishing a course of study at Columbia University and a theological seminary, Dr. Worcester went to Germany to take a post-graduate course. Of his experience there Ray Stannard Baker writes in the American Magazine for December, 1908:—

At once he found himself in the atmosphere of the New Thought; he studied under the eminent psychologists Wundt and Fechner, and he chose for his thesis “The Opinions of John Locke.”

On his return to America, he served for a short time as pastor of a church in Brooklyn, and later became professor of philosophy at Lehigh University. Concerning his attitude toward the Bible, the same writer states:—

He had accepted broadly the argument of the “higher critics;” his volume, “The Book of Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge,” in which he voiced the newest thought on the Bible, was published while he was rector of St. Stephen’s Church in Philadelphia.

From the same article, we learn that when Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey, a most pronounced advocate of the New Theology, was tried by the authorities of the Episcopal Church for heresy, Dr. Worcester was one of those who defended him.

The view maintained by this leader of the Emmanuel movement as stated by himself, concerning the healing of disease and God’s working to restore the sick in answer to prayer, is not entirely new to us, and prepares the way for repudiating any really miraculous restoration to health, by claiming that all recoveries are equally miraculous. In the introduction to his book, “Religion and Medicine,” Dr. Worcester thus states the case:—

Most religious workers in this field have made the mistake of supposing that God can cure in only one way, and that the employment of physical means indicates a lack of faith. This is absurd. God cures by many means. He uses the sunlight, healing and nourishing substances, water and air. The knitting of a broken bone, or the furrowing out of new blood courses in a diseased limb, is just as truly his work as the restoration of a wounded spirit. . . . We have seen the consumptive nursed back to life by rest, fresh air, abundant food and kindness, and we have seen more spectacular recovery from other diseases through confident expectation and the spoken word, but we have never felt that the one was necessarily more an act of God than the other. . . . We believe God has power to cure all disease, but we do not believe that God cures all disease by the same means. At all events, an authentic instance of recovery from organic disease through psychical means is what we are waiting for.

The practical application of these principles, and the real interpretation placed upon them, are shown by the following statement:—

In our practise we neither look for nor desire sudden or spectacular cures, partly because of the publicity which attaches

to them, partly because of the moral effect on other patients, which is apt to be bad, and lastly because such cures are seldom permanent.

This plainly indicates that while Dr. Worcester professes a theoretical belief in extraordinary cures, he so far discounts and belittles them as in effect to deny them. This again is somewhat familiar teaching.

That the views of Dr. Worcester are influenced more by human philosophy than by revelation is clear from this statement taken from the same introduction:—

The teachings of modern psychology and physiology as to the essential unity of human nature and the mutual relations of mind and body have sunk so deep into the popular conscience that the church can no longer address men as disembodied spirits, and no scheme of salvation causes the heart to beat with hope which does not include the whole man, and which does not begin now.

But a clearer view of the foundations upon which rests this religio-medical movement may be obtained from some statements made by Dr. Worcester in his latest book, “The Living Word.” We have already found from Mr. Baker’s article that Dr. Worcester “studied under the eminent psychologists Wundt and Fechner,” but it is probable that few of our readers appreciate what is involved in this statement. This, however, can be further developed by quotations from Dr. Worcester’s book. In the preface he says:—

This book owes its existence, its substance and whatever merit it possesses, to one of the greatest and least-appreciated thinkers of the nineteenth century, Gustav Theodor Fechner. It was my privilege to know Fechner in Leipsic shortly before his death. The effect of his personality and of his thought marked a turning-point in my life, and his influence has deepened with the passing years. . . . On reflection, I am not sure that I am more indebted to Fechner for these thoughts than Fechner was indebted for them to the wonderful poet Rückert: Rückert in his turn drew his treasures of wisdom from the East, ransacking whole literatures, and giving back gold for the silver he abstracted from the Brahmans.

Now that we have learned the source of the philosophy upon which the Emmanuel Movement is based, it will be worth our while to go to this source and discover for ourselves the nature of this philosophy. This is made possible by an article in the current number of The Hibbert Journal, by Prof. William James, the distinguished psychologist, who gives “An Account of the Philosophy of G. T. Fechner.” We quote:—

The original sin, according to Fechner, of both our popular and our scientific thinking, is our inveterate habit of regarding the spiritual not as a rule, but as an exception in the midst of nature. Instead of believing our life to be fed at the breasts of the greater life, our individuality to be sustained by the greater individuality, which must necessarily have more consciousness and more independence than all that it brings forth, we treat whatever lies outside our life as so much slag and ashes of life only; or, if we believe in the divine Spirit, we fancy him on the one side as bodiless, and nature as soulless on the other. . . .

The vaster orders of mind go with the vaster orders of body. The entire earth on which we live must have, according to Fechner, its own collective consciousness. So must each sun, moon, and planet. So must our solar system have its own wider consciousness in which the consciousness of our earth plays one part. So has the entire starry system, as such, its consciousness; and if that starry system be not the sum of all that is, materially considered, then that whole system, along with whatever else may be, is the body of that absolutely totalized consciousness of the universe to which men give the name of God.

Speculatively, Fechner is thus a monist in his theology; but there is room in his universe for every grade of spiritual being between man and the final all-inclusive God. In suggesting the positive content of all this super-humanity, however, he hardly lets his imagination fly beyond simple spirits of the planetary order. The earth-soul he passionately believes in; he treats the earth as our special human guardian angel; we can pray to the earth as men pray to their saints; and I think that in his system, as in so many of the actual historic theologies, the supreme God only marks a sort of limit of enclosure of the world of the divine.

These quotations from an account of Fechner’s philosophy, written by a friendly and sympathetic critic, are sufficient evidence that Dr. Worcester was right in saying that Fechner’s views were not original with him, but came from the East. Any unprejudiced reader of these extracts would find in them abundant evidence that Fechner was a pantheist; and in doing so, he would only adopt the view which Professor James himself asserts in the first sentence of his article:—

Fechner and Hegel are both pantheists, and in a sense Fechner writes himself down as an absolutist.

Fechner’s philosophy made little impression upon the men of his time, but clothed in somewhat different language and put forth as a spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures, it meets with more favor to-day. Explaining why Fechner’s words “fell on unheeding ears,” Dr. Worcester says:—

This is probably due to the charming fancies in which Fechner indulged himself as to the souls of planets, and stars, and men, which to a materialistic age seemed scarcely worth refuting, but which we do not find so absurd.

He further gives his own estimate of the value of Fechner’s writings:—

The greater of Fechner’s works can be compared only with the sacred books of the nations. They are inspired, and they contain a true revelation of God.

Such, then, is the theology of the Emmanuel Movement. In principle it is an old theology, dating back from the time of Brahma and Gautama; in form of statement it is a new theology, being clothed in language better adapted to the modes of thought of those who profess to believe in the Christian system.

This pantheistic philosophy as taught by Dr. Worcester is expressed in this way:—

As a matter of fact, we possess in our religion the greatest of all therapeutic agents, if only we deal with it sincerely. The thought of a loving God within us, above us, and about us, who desires our peace, our happiness and salvation, and who has greater and better means than ours to remove our anguish, which he unceasingly employs, is a consolation greater than our greatest need.

It must be borne in mind that when Dr. Worcester uses the expression “God within us,” he does not mean the God of the Bible, whose indwelling presence is assured to the believer through the gift of Christ and his ministry of the Holy Spirit, but rather to “that absolutely totalized consciousness of the universe to which men give the name of God,” according to the philosophy of Fechner.

A sound view concerning the nature and being of God and his relation to his created works is a fundamental requirement in a system of doctrine or in a movement professedly Christian and asking for the support of Christian believers. It is on this basis that we have inquired into the theological views of Dr. Worcester, the founder of the Emmanuel Movement, instead of dealing first with the phenomena of the movement. When we have learned from unimpeachable testimony that the idea of God entertained by Dr. Worcester, and therefore forming the basis of the movement of which he is the founder, is merely a slight variation and adaptation to Western minds of the philosophical speculations of Fechner, who in turn based his idea upon that Oriental philosophy which is acknowledged pantheism, and that therefore the God of the Emmanuel Movement is not the God who has revealed himself to us in the Scriptures, we may be sure that the system which rests upon this foundation can have no proper claim to be regarded as Christian. Its promoters may use the statements of Scripture (interpreted apart from their connection, and in harmony with their own philosophy), they may repeat the formulas of faith familiar to Christian ears, and they may refer to God as the one who heals disease, but they are merely employing these forms of expression as the channel for such a pantheistic philosophy as will be repudiated by all those who accept the Bible in its obvious meaning as an infallible revelation.

We are now better prepared to consider some of the professedly scientific principles which are exploited in the Emmanuel Movement, and the methods employed in the religious clinics conducted by Dr. Worcester and his followers. This will be the subject of our next article.