The Error of Preachers by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 17, 1872

The Error of Preachers.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

That the modern preachers are fast losing their influence and their hold on the people, is manifest to every observing mind. A leading religious paper starts off on this subject as follows:—

“It is a common saying, that the influence of the Christian ministry upon the community is less than it used to be. Undoubtedly this is a fact.”

Now what is the cause of this? The article goes on to state some reasons for it. Here is one which is well stated. It stands more in the way of the truth than any other one cause:—

“Further, a radical difficulty in much of our theological teaching lies here: the object proposed at the outset is to fortify the pupil in a particular mode of belief, rather than to make him a student and lover of truth wherever it exists. What would be thought of a school of medicine in which the professors aimed to convince the student that the existing modes of treatment admitted of no improvement? or a school of natural science, which treated the discovery of new facts as a fault? But theology—in its proper nature, the noblest and most universal of the sciences, the child of liberty, the lover of all truth, the leader of the human race,—theology has been manacled and guarded; and the first and last injunction to its votaries has been to stand still!”

That is it exactly. Young ministers are trained up to think that their fathers knew all the truth, and that what they put into their creeds is to be received as infallible; and what they did not believe and practice is to be condemned. Such will stand still and fight the truth, while God’s providence moves on and leaves them perishing in the dark.

But here follow some truths worthy of the attention of us all:—

“The trouble begins when in the theological seminary the student is principally taught in subjects which, to the mind of this age, have ceased to be living matters. The controversies of past generations last longer within the walls of theological schools than they do anywhere else. What, to the living mind of our time, is the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism? or between the Substitution and Governmental theories of the Atonement? or the discussion concerning Original Sin? or Edward’s theory of the Will? or the Metaphysics of the Trinity? We do not say that such subjects should be ignored. They should be studied attentively, as phases in the mental life of the church in times past, and with a considerable influence on the present. But to make them the chief subjects of study, to equip and drill students with main reference to these, is like dressing soldiers in a mediæval armor who has got to face rifled cannon.

“Modern thought is handling with great vigor and boldness religious questions far more central than these.”

Why is it that uneducated, undisciplined, and inexperienced men, from the farm and the shop, will go out and move men, and do more for them than highly educated and well drilled men? It is not because they have more power in themselves, nor because ignorance is mightier than knowledge; nor because education cannot make a man more useful. No; it is because these simple men have hold of living, present truths, for which the age is ripe; while the others are dreaming over the dead issues of the past. Life is too short, and one man’s brains too small, to learn everything. Let us learn where God is at work now, what are the living truths of our own day, and then study them with all the might we have; get full of them, and then pour them out on the people everywhere. The more we study, the more we know; so much the more useful we shall be if we are only made alive by the energy of the living, present truth.

D. M. CANRIGHT.