MODERN UNBELIEF by L. H. Christian

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 20, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 25.

MODERN UNBELIEF

By L. H. Christian

BY L. H. CHRISTIAN

A MINISTER of Philadelphia has this to say in a recent issue of the "Standard": "There is another battle on — the battle for orthodoxy shall I call it? But that is a questionable term — the battle for the evangelical. The lines are drawing close. Men are taking their stand for or against. Ranks and trenches are forming. What is evangelicalism? — In a word, the doctrine of the blood, God's sovereignty and grace set over against human work — righteousness. We do not grow into grace. We grow in the grace. Some one said the other day, in our ministerial gathering, that no one has a right opinion of the atonement till he experiences the atonement. Good! There is a wholesome truth there. We all applauded the apt statement. And yet the opposite statement is just as true — no one can have an experience of Christ's saving grace until he has a right opinion of it.

"You hear the mutterings of the conflict everywhere. The New York Presbytery is divided on the virgin birth. What would you think of those queries raised in a men's Bible class hard by the seaboard? 'Would it interfere with our faith in Paul, if that event on the way to Damascus was but a sunstroke? Would the attitude of Christianity be different today if Christ's teachings had prevailed rather than Paul's?' There is the subtle teaching that is in the air disparaging the Bible, minimizing the miraculous, uncrowning the Christ, and exalting human intellectualism."

Some may ask, What is this modern unbelief? Let us quote a few sample sentences from a popular book, "The Theology of an Evolutionist": "The old orthodoxy is right in regarding the new criticism as revolutionary. It is revolutionary in its treatment of the Bible, as the Protestant Reformation was revolutionary in its treatment of the church. It denies the infallibility of the Bible, as the Protestant Reformation denied the infallibility of the church. There is no infallible authority. Infallible authority is undesirable. God has not given it to His children. The Bible is not what it is sometimes called, — the word of God." — Pages 61, 69.

Truly the battle is on, the battle between faith and unbelief in the word of God. The cause of our Master needs strong, sturdy, brave men, who will contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.