Startling Statements Concerning Theological Seminaries — Leading Teachers and Doctors of Divinity Cultivating Doubt and Infidelity — Decaying Moral Power Results
By A. EARL HALL, B. A.
This is the second of Professor Hall’s articles on the reply of archæology to present-day Biblical criticism. His article last week stated the principles on which the higher critics work, and laid a general foundation for this series. His article next week will present the first part of the evidence he will bring before our readers, of the accuracy of Bible history as found in the records of the monuments and tablets of ancient Babylon, and other portions of the ancient world. The story is to be told concerning the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the Behistun Rock, the two great “keys” that have enabled the archæologist to read the inscriptions on monument and tablet, and thus unlock the great store of knowledge preserved by the ancients.
This series of articles is a most valuable contribution to our columns. The readers will not only find pleasure in carefully reading them, but much profit, and the strengthening of their faith in the grand Book, by giving them a careful, critical, painstaking study.
Editor.
The immediate results of criticism are in a high degree disturbing. . . . The plain man who has been used to receive anything in the Bible as a veritable word of God cannot fail to be perplexed, and deeply perplexed, when he is told that much of the Old Testament and the New is unhistorical, and when he is asked to accept the statement that God reveals Himself in myth and legend as well as by truth of fact. . . . More than twenty years ago, the present writer asked Julius Wellhausen whether, if his views were accepted, the Bible could retain its place in the estimation of the common people. “I do not see how that is possible,” was the sad reply.—Comment of Sir W. Robertson Nicoll on speech of Mr. Balfour, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, on the occasion of the Bible Society’s centenary. Quoted by Prof. W. H. Griffith Thomas, “Fundamentals,” volume 8, pages 13, 14.
INFIDELS IN THE BACKGROUND
It is a well-known fact that very little is heard now about infidels. That class of persons has seemingly vanished from publicity in present-day affairs. That infidel scheme of the deceiver was somewhat overworked. It did not quite accomplish his designs. So another plan is now in operation. The same work is in progress, but in another and more popular guise. The following quotation will make this clear:
The Ingersolls of to-day are in the pulpit. Twenty years ago one minister said to his congregation: “You will notice that I conduct these services from Sunday to Sunday, that there are large parts of the Bible that I do not read. I select chapters or parts of chapters from both the Old and the New Testament. . . . Large parts of it I pass by. For what reason?—Simply because I wish to be perfectly frank and open with you in what I believe, and because I do not choose to spend half the morning, after I have read a passage, in telling you that I do not believe it literally, and in explaining to you in what sense I do take it. The time will come, when we have passed through the transient hour, when the results of the criticism of the Bible have been settled, when the thoughts of men have found their place—the time will come, I say, when I shall be able to read any part of the Bible from the pulpit, and not be misunderstood. I shall not be misunderstood to believe a miracle because I read the account of it. I shall not be understood to accept as history an Old Testament legend because I read it as a lesson.”—M. J. Savage, “Beliefs About the Bible.”
EXHORTED TO DOUBTFULNESS
The next quotation, from an instructor in a Wesleyan university, is taken from the North American Review for April, 1900, and shows exactly how Bible statements are approached in the “new” way:
“In every sphere of investigation, the student should begin with doubt, and the student will make the most rapid progress who has acquired the art of doubting well. . . . We ask that every student of theology take up the subject precisely as he would any other science; that he begin with doubt. . . . We believe that even the teachings of Jesus should be viewed from this standpoint, and should be accepted or rejected on the grounds of their own inherent reasonableness.”
DIVINITY INFIDELS
The two following statements, from instructors in the University of Chicago, as reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Chicago Despatch, will show that this method of “Bible destruction” is not local, or confined to a few who are radically inclined:
“Prof. Clyde Weber Votaw, of the divinity school, says, ‘The Bible is not a fit subject for the children of to-day to study.’ . . . He calls the story of creation a myth. He taboos the catechism, and said that the day of judgment is coming, when the people of the world will have to make their choice between old-time religion and modern ethics. The Bible is not connected with twentieth-century life, and we should not be a first-century people. . . . We should make our own Christianity for our own age. Boys who go to Sunday school should not be allowed to study the Bible until they are ready to go to college. . . . It was written by grown up people for grown up people. We do not want our children to think the way the ancient Hebrews did about the creation and other miracles.”—Enquirer, July 21, 1909.
“Prof. William Duncan McMillan says: ‘Biblical chroniclers arranged the story of Adam and Eve from folklore, to explain the origin of man. There can be no doubt that Adam and Eve and the tempter—the serpent—never existed. The story cannot be considered anything but a myth, evolved by the ancients to account for the presence of humans upon the earth. The universally credited theory of evolution smashes the one-man and one-woman story. There never was a first man or a first woman.’”—Despatch, February 20, 1913.
THEOLOGICAL TEACHERS PRODUCE A GENERATION OF INFIDELS
It will be apparent, before this article closes, that the desire expressed in the former quotation is being realized: “We should make our own Christianity,” and, “We do not want our724children to think the way the ancient Hebrews did about the creation and other miracles.” When the instructors in the schools that prepare ministers for supposedly gospel work are not believers in the Scriptures, their pupils will not be; and in a short time, the masses will not believe the Bible. A generation is long enough to bring about such a condition, as can be seen from the next paragraph.
This section deals with a statement made by Dr. F. C. Monfort, editor of the Herald and Presbyter, before the Presbyterian Assembly held in Georgia in May, 1913. He charged, in open session, that the Union Theological Seminary, New York, taught “pantheism and Hindu philosophy,” and that “preachers were turned out who did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible or the resurrection of Christ.” It is said that he was in earnest, and spoke with great emotion.
A few statements concerning Dr. Briggs, mentioned in the article last week, are helpful in understanding this charge. On account of his heresy, the Presbyterian Assembly removed him from the ministry in 1893. He then began preaching for the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Union Theological Seminary at the same time declared their independence of the Presbyterians. His death on June 8, 1913, called forth many comments on his work. The Literary Digest of June 28 of that year declared that the editorials in general indicated “a growing spirit of tolerance in the religious world.” “The New York World, commenting on the ‘progress made in two decades in reading ‘the rule of reason’ into the Scriptures,’ remarks: ‘By a coincidence of interest as affording a basis for comparison in the liberalization of doctrinal tenets, only a few weeks before Dr. Briggs’s death, four graduates of the seminary, one a son of Dr. Van Dyke, were accepted for ordination in the Presbyterian ministry notwithstanding their doubts on such cardinal points of doctrine as the literal interpretation of the virgin birth and the physical death of Lazarus. Dr. Van Dyke in their defense stated that belief in these old fundamentals of orthodoxy “was not essential to the Christian faith,” and he denounced “the new attempt to exalt the letter above the spirit in judging the fitness of men for the Christian pulpit.”’”
WOULD NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE
It may be said here that at the time of Dr. Briggs’s death, he was recognized as one of the “most conservative of theologians.” Convicted of “heresy” in 1893 by the Assembly, and a “conservative theologian” in 1913! The editors were right in noting “a growing spirit of tolerance in the religious world.” So did the apostle and prophet Paul. In 2 Timothy 4 we read: “Preach the word; . . . exhort with . . . doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; . . . and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Verses 2–4.
SKEPTICAL DOCTOR OF DIVINITY
Another article that mentions this seminary and some of its graduates, brings in statements from the Rev. Charles F. Aked, a doctor of divinity of international reputation. We quote from the Ohio State Journal, February 5, 1914:
“In June, 1909, as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in New York, I preached a sermon justifying the New York Presbytery in admitting to the Presbyterian ministry several members of the Union Theological Seminary who hold exactly the same views that I preached Sunday. At the same time, I protested a heresy hearing then in progress against Dr. Foster, of the University of Chicago.”
From the same clipping, we quote further: “Dr. Aked said he would not support the doctrine of the miraculous conception and birth of Christ. ‘My conclusion upon this question,’ he announced, ‘is that the faith of Mark and John and James and Paul is good enough for me. It is good enough for any Christian. These men say nothing about Jesus’ having come into the world in a miraculous way. I prefer to stand with them.
“What do we mean by saying He was divine? It is a question of quantity and not of quality. There is divinity in us, but so much more in Him that I prefer to call Him divine. Perhaps it would be better to speak of the divineness of man and the divinity of Christ.” These statements led to the trouble with the Presbyterian Ministers’ Association of San Francisco Bay, and a desire for Dr. Aked’s resignation.
PRESIDENT CARRANZA OF MEXICO AND HIS STAFF OF SECRETARIES
SHOCKED AT REAL CHRISTIANITY
A strong plea made before the Northern Presbyterian Assembly, 1913, by Dr. Matthews, its retiring moderator, is very pertinent. It is here given, with a reply from an editorial in the Independent, as further evidence of the point we wish to prove in this article:
“We should change the ground of our objection to candidates for the ministry who doubt or deny the deity of Christ. They ought to be rejected, not alone because they doubt or deny per se the deity of Christ, but because their denial is prima facie evidence that they have never been regenerated. No regenerated man can doubt or deny the deity of Christ, because you cannot doubt that which you know, and you cannot sincerely deny that which is to you a living, personal fact. No unregenerated man should be permitted to preach.”
The reply from the Independent is as follows:
“That is a shocking doctrine,—that no man can be regenerated who does not know, by a living, personal experience, that Christ was God. That condemns Isaiah (chapter 6) and John Milton and Edward Everett Hale. It contradicts Paul, who says that love is superior to faith; and Christ, who did not put it into the condition He gave to the young ruler. As an evidence of regeneration, it is not found once in the whole Bible. Dr. Matthews has borrowed it from the cursing and accursed clauses of the Athanasian Creed.”
THE BIBLE’S REPLY TO THE SKEPTICS
With these statements in mind, let the reader think about these texts: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” John 12:32. “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” John 14:6.
Again, from 1 John 4:2, 3: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.”
“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” 1 Tim. 2:5.
THE END OF THE WORLD RIDICULED
A question answered in the Ladies’ Home Journal for January 1914, is of special interest in this article, from the standpoint of the answer of Dr. Lyman Abbott, because of his influence in theological circles:
“Is not the idea of ‘the world coming to an end’ based upon absolute fallacy?”
After acknowledging that there is evidence from the New Testament that an era is to follow the present Christian one marked by an additional manifestation of God to humanity, he says:
“The question whether the physical globe that we inhabit will be eventually destroyed is a question for the scientist. I do not know what the latest scientific information on that subject is, though I suppose there is a general belief that the life of the terrestrial globe will eventually come to an end.”
If the shepherds and the watchmen do not know about the “things which must shortly come to pass,” in what condition will the laity be, regarding those things which pertain to their soul’s salvation?
CONFESSION OF A MINISTER
A confession from a minister, and a great statement from an educator, may be very fittingly used to close this article:
“I was once a victim of ‘higher criticism’ so much so that I lost faith in everything, and stepped down and out of the pulpit for two years or more. A university professor whose teaching I sat under in a supposed ‘Bible college’ was my undoing. By the grace of God and an examination of the facts, I came back to an old ‘fogy’ acceptance of the old Book, cover and all. The public school teachers were teaching evolution. I started a course of sermons, with the result that they quit the work; and friends with children have come to me with thanks.”—F. W. Jackson, in circular of the Gospel Publishing House, New York.725
It is a cause of great rejoicing that some have seen the errors of the movement, and returned; and the primary object of the following article is, to show, by “an investigation of the facts,” the truthfulness of the statement that “the Bible is an anvil which has worn out many a hammer.”
POWER IS LACKING
Prof. G. D. Strayer, in his work “A Brief Course in the Teaching Process,” says, “Whether we like it or not, we are forced to admit that the church no longer exerts the power over the lives and conduct of men that it once did.”—Page 12.
Again from the same book: “Regret it as much as we may, neither home nor church is as potent a factor in the development of morality as they once were.”—Id., page 146.
We here simply add that the cause is not hard to find.
It is manifestly impossible to do more than touch the subject in the compass of one short article. But it is confidently believed that sufficient evidence has been given to show that many of the leaders—ministers, teachers, and others—are in sympathy with the movement of “higher criticism,” and are active in passing the doctrines along. It cannot be long until the masses will be to a large extent and degree permeated with it. Let those whose “feet have not slipped,” thank God, and follow the example of the minister last mentioned—do all in your power to help those who are in danger of being led astray.
