A Significant Movement
By L. A. S.
Among recent developments in religious and educational matters in this country, is to be noted a call for a convention to be held in Chicago early this year, for the purpose of effecting “a national organization for the improvement of religious and moral education through the Sunday school and other agencies.” The call is issued by the “Council of Seventy,” a body composed of Bible teachers in educational institutions throughout the country. Comprised in this “Council of Seventy” are such noted men as President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University; Rev. C. H. Parkhurst, of New York City; Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, Rev. Francis E. Clark, head of the Christian Endeavor Society, and President W. R. Harper, of the University of Chicago. The Biblical World, edited by President Harper, says that “there can be no doubt that this movement is one of the most important of modern times looking to the increase and improvement of religious and moral instruction in America.” “It is,” says this journal, “a vital step in the development of our Christian civilization.” A glance at the prospectus of the work to be undertaken by this organization, shows that the movement is indeed important. Its scope is very comprehensive. “It may,” we read, “endeavor to define the true relation of religious and moral instruction to other branches of instruction, indicating the part which religion should perform in the development of the individual and of society; it may present and apply the established results of modern psychology, modern pedagogy, and modern Bible study, as related to religious and moral teaching; it may indicate the proper place of the Bible in religious and moral instruction, and set forth the general and specific methods of using the Bible for this purpose;” “it may indicate how this new higher ideal can be worked out in the churches, the Sunday school, the day school,” etc. This attempt to take possession of the religious and moral instruction of the country is indeed an important and serious matter. And it is all the more so because it is an effort to teach religion on a scientific basis, to confine it to a pathway marked out by the human intellect. Christianity, the wisdom of God, is to be made to fit the latest theological, ethical, psychological, pedagogical, and scientific discoveries and ideas of the day. It is to be received by the people only through these channels. It will be seen that this movement is really an attempt to take possession of the religious education of the whole people in the name of the higher criticism. Thus is the enemy of true Biblical knowledge, which comes only through faith and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, at work to occupy the field and to hedge up the way of the proclamation and reception of the final message of saving truth. L. A. S.