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IO THE PRESBYTERIA
THE NEW THEOLOGY.
By Rev. H. W. Burwell.
Its Teachings Concerning Jesus Christ.
Humanity's hope lias always been built upon the enduring
principles of the Gosnel of Christ Hie
late birth, eternal Divinity, atoning merit, advocacy
with the Father and final judgment of all mankind,
stand out as the fundamental truths without which all
hope is a fiction, faith is worthless, and salvation an
absolute impossibility. But what says this New Theology
concerning these precious truths that through
the centuries have blessed our dark world with more
light and joy than all other influences combined?
Dr. Crapsey denied the virgin birth of Christ and
defended this denial, be'eause, he said, it had been
forced upon him "by a knowledge of the facts in the
case." We have long labored under the impression
that this grand event transpired many centuries before
Dr. Crapsey had the goodness to be born. Whence
then, does he derive his knowledge of the facts con
nected with it, facts which have forced upon him
the necessity of denying that Jesus was born by the
I>ower of the Holy Ghost of a virgin mother and not
be ordinary generation? If humanity has been groping
in the dark through all these centuries, and Dr. Crapsey
has the true light that will lead us to the truth, his negligence
becomes criminal when he does not let it shine
for the illumination of his benighted fellows.
Hear, also, Dr. Campbell speak: "Jesus was God, but
so are we. He was God because his life was the expression
of Divine love. We, too, are one with God
in so far as our lives express the* same thing. Jesus
was not God in the sense that he possessed an infinite
consciousness; no more are we. Jesus expressed fully
and completely, in so far as finite consciousness could,
that aspect of the nature of God which we have called
the eternal Son, or Christ, or ideal Man who is the
soul of the universe."
Thus we have it, that Jesus was born as all other
men are born, is only divine as all other men partake of
the same nature.
Naturally, we ask, What of this great fact that we
call sin? The New Theologians describe this nil tii<?
way from '"man's sad misfortune" to "man's quest after
God" with such terms as "selfishness" and "a stage in
man's moral evolution" and the like, thrown between.
If sin be only selfishness, or any of these things, the
very idea of guilt is impossible. Extract guilt and the
necessity for the atonement is gone forever. It sinks
to the simple "realization of the unity of the individual
with the race and of the race with God. It has, essentially
and originally, no relation' to sin, but can only be
realized by giving up selfishness." The resurrection is
declared to be nothing more than the "psychic manifes
tation ol the departed Lord"?the verything that it was
not, if there is the slightest meaning in terms. '
The very idea of a soul-resurrection at once reduces
itself to an absurdity, for it can be no resurrection at
all. The soul does not and can not die, and death is
a necessary pre-supposition to the very idea of a resurrection.
t
lN OF THE SOUTH. March 3, 1909.
Thus, with one fell sweep, everything that could necessitate
man's approach to God, 011 the one hand, or
hinder it, 011 the other, is brushed aside. Humanity
stands out as the equal of its Creator and Savior, a little
more unfortunate than God or Christ have been in the
development of the higher aspirations, but still capable,
uiiuiucd aim aione, not only to work out its own salva-'
tion, but to ascend to the fulness of Divinity. The
terrible fact of sin, with its crushing weight of woe and
condemnation, both present and future, is nothing.
God is the universe, man is God, while Jesus Christ
is but the highest development of man who shows man
what he may be and how to attain to this sublime
ideal. May God pity the poor soul that depends upon
such husks for its'spiritual sustenance.
Its Teachings Concerning the Bible as the Inspired
Word of God.
The very idea of any external authority in matters
pertaining to religious knowledge and outward conduct
is repudiated, and the seat of all authority is declared
to be within the individual conscience, rather than without.
The dear old Bible no longer speaks with the authority
of its Divine Author, but, we arc told, has been
reconstructed upon the principles of evolution. Its declarations
are not binding upon any conscience unless
that conscience sees fit to make them so. It does not,
under the New i heology, retain even the smallest modicum
"of authority, and the Divine accent that has ever
been its life and justification before the world, tliev
eliminate with a lofty flourish as being altogether unnecessary
for the advanced thinker.
What, then, is the source of all authority? The New
Theologian answers, "Christian consciousness." Dr.
Campbell speaks of the same thing under the title of
"Subliminal consciousness." He offers this description
of his lawgiver and judge. "Man is a mode of the infinite.
His true self is a subliminal consciousness, or
rntlinr
. uiiv.uiis?.iuusiicss, wnne mans ordinary surface
consciousness is somewhat illusory, and to the higher
self, i. e., to the subliminal consciousness, no dividing
line exists between it and the surface consciousness, or
between it and God."
I trust that this was a satisfactory explanation to the
mind and heart of Dr. Campbell. For my own part,.
I do not believe that Sister Eddy, even in her palmiest
days, ever pressed more cracked brain nonsense in so
many words as we have expressed here. Here forsooth,
we are offered in the place of our heaven-sent message
as our last court of appeal and one guide, a consciousness
of which we can possibly know nothing until it
rises to the surface, and the moment it does thus come
within the range of things actually conscious to us, it
becomes just ordinary, deceptive, illusory surface consciousness.
The New Theology stands before the world, at best,
with a crumbling Bible in its hand, and even what they
have allowed to remain -4ias been robbed of all authority
as an infallible rule of faith and practice. Man is reduced,
in his search for a spiritual guide, to a condition
that is purely subjective and to the cry of the soul
for light and guidance their only answer comes, "You
have all the light there is within yourself." The denial