Destroyers of Faith by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 29, 1906

Destroyers of Faith

By C. M. S.

For some years past there has been an increasing tendency in the great universities and in some of the theological seminaries to drift toward infidelity. In the universities it is called liberal-mindedness; in the theological seminaries it is called higher criticism. In both cases it is a work entirely opposed to real Christianity and the Bible as the word of God. In both cases evolution is taught in place of the genesis of the Bible, and the law of God, when referred to at all, is given a human origin.

Recently one of the faculty of the great Chicago University declared that “if Mr. Rockefeller knew what blasphemous things are taught in that university, he would be horrified.” He went so far as to declare that if the university retained the present corps of professors, its name ought to be changed to “The Infidel University.”

The writer was surprised a few years ago to learn that there was in one of the Pacific Coast States a university which was openly and avowedly an infidel institution. For a long time its founder struggled to put it on its feet, but without success. Had its founders known what the young men and women who pass through the great universities know, they could have saved themselves their struggle and their worry. They need but have patronized and contributed to the support of some of the great universities already established, yea, even some of the large theological seminaries, paradoxical as it may seem. Such institutions are not merely making infidels; they are making infidel makers, teachers and preachers who will stand in the pulpits and hold up to ridicule the very Book whose teachings have given them a cloak for the naked ugliness of the real character of their doctrine. The work of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is not a circumstance to the work that is being done in every instance where the pulpit of a house dedicated to the service of God is usurped by one whose message is to criticize the Word of God rather than to show men their sins and their Saviour.

From week to week men and women assemble in houses of worship to listen to addresses which treat as a created being Him whom alone men have the right to worship; and the Sunday-schools are now to be taught, and are now being taught largely, that what their fathers believed true of the Word of God are fables, allegories, myths, and traditions. Such teachings seek to make of the true foundation of faith and religious practise a heap of sand, for the winds of one’s inherent doubtings to play with and scatter to the ends of the earth.

Another fact having a bearing upon this matter is that in academies, high schools, and even the common schools, a foundation is laid for the infidelity of the universities and theological seminaries. In most cases the only reference they hear to the Word of God is in unfavorable criticism; and when the only religious instruction they receive on Sunday is so largely tinctured with infidelity, it can easily be seen what a hold the adversary of souls has secured upon the destinies of the young.

With the universities turning out infidels; with the theological seminaries turning out their particular brand of infidels; with the Sunday-schools teaching the theology manufactured in the university and the theological seminaries; with the public schools furnishing fit soil for the reception of such sowings — is it any wonder that Jesus Christ looked down through the centuries and asked: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

In view of these things what a fearful responsibility rests upon Christian parents to-day in the education of their children!

C. M. S.