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THE DEFECTION OF R. J. CANTRELL
ELIGIOU’S thinkers on either side of
the water are just now much disturbed
by the performances of Mr. R. J. Camp
bell, the pastor of the City Temple of
London, a Congregational church that,
under the splendid leadership of the late
Dr. Joseph Parker, was for years a
rival to the Tabernacle under C. 11.
Spurgeon—not an improper rivalry, but
R
there was rather an involuntary rivalry for popu
lar favor. Cordial personal relations must have ex
isted between them in the main, at least if a story
I heard many years ago is true: Some one asked Dr.
Parker to tell what was the secret of Mr. Spur
geon’s power. He replied promptly: “That is
easy. There was a man sent from God whose name
was Spurgeon.”
This anecdote will serve to show also the kind
of religious thought that was used in (building up
the City Temple of which Mr. R. J. Campbell is
now the pastor. It is important to know’ this, be
cause without it we can not understand the signifi
cance of Mr. Campbell’s defection, nor how deeply
it cuts into the religious life of London and the
world.
The City Temple was a Congregational church.
It was evangelical and true to the gospel of our
blessed Lord. It stood out against worldliness and
sin. It stood for a renewed nature in Christ Jesus.
It stood side by side with Spurgeon’s Tabernacle
for saving the lost through the gospel plan. Dr.
Parker died a few 7 years ago and Mr. R. J. Campbell
now occupies the place he filled. Mr. Campbell
must be endowed with some gifts of popular leader
ship, else he could not have misled his people as he
seems to have done.
I am indebted to the Literary Digest for the anal
ysis which I use of the things contended for by
Mr. Campbell. I do not pretend to argue Mr.
Campbell’s case for him, so I content myself with
his brief statements as they are contained in the
article referred to in the Literary Digest.
The conclusions or some of the conclusions that
he has reached are as follows:
h irst. “Belief in the imminence of God and the
essential oneness of God and man.”
There is nothing new in this. It is a kind of
anthro-pantheism, which is slightly modified pagan
ism, albeit it is not an improvement on Paganism.
It is equivalent to saying that God did not create
man in his own image, but in his own substance, or
out of his own substance; when God expressly de
clares that he made man out of the dust of the
ground, and afterward breathed into him the
breath of life, but there went into him no fragment
of the divine substance so far as the record show 7 s.
Second. This New Theology holds that: “Hu
man nature should be interpreted in terms of the
highest. Therefore it reverences Jesus Christ.”
If this language means anything it is something
like this, namely: Human nature is God dis
tributed out in parcels, so to speak, and each hu
man being is one of the packages. Among these
the best package is Jesus Christ. We must, there
fore, reverence him as the most perfect human be
ing. He embodies God in his nature just as we all
do, not any more divine than we are, but is a
better specimen of human nature. The fact that
this view 7 contradicts the New Testament testimony
about the spiritual deadness of the unsaved and the
deity of Jesus Christ does not embarrass Mr. Camp
bell and his sympathizers in the least, because: The
New 7 Theology people, like the higher critics, the
Unitarians and other unbelievers, do not accept the
testimony of the Scripture except as it suits them.
Third. “He holds that evil or sin is negative,
not positive.”
As I understand this contention it is this: Man
is subjected to limitations, that is, there are a great
many things he can’t do, which he wants to do.
It is perfectly right for man to strive to do the
things he wants to do. As Mr. Campbell is quoted
on this point, he says: “Good is only a struggle
The Golden Age for March 21, 1907.
J. L. D. Hillyer.
against limitations.” That is monstrous. Alex
ander Pope has been criticised very sharply for his
line:
“Whatever is, is right.”
But Mr. Campbell leaves Pope far behind be
cause he declares that: “Whatever man does, or
wants to do, or tries to do, is right.” The moral
quality of actions, in the philosophy of these New
Theologians, is that to be) found in the struggle
against limitations. A burglar knows that in a
bank vault is SIOO,OOO. He Hw’ants it. He is lim
ited in his power to get to it by the walls of the
building. He must, in order to be a good man,
break into the building, shoot the watchman, if he
gets in the way, blow 7 a hole in the safe and help
himself to the money. That is a legitimate deduc
tion from some of the postulates of this New
Theology.
Fourth. He, of course, avows his sympathy with
what he calls “Scientific criticism of the important
religious literature known as the Bible.”
That expression denies in effect the divine origin
and authority of the Bible, and leaves the helpless
scientist with no better way to account for the
world and all that there is in it, than to guess it
started out of the “nebula” of La Plas, or the
“protoplasm” of Darwin.
It is amazing how 7 credulous these so-called scien
tists can be. They are like a flock of sheep pic
tured by Carlyle : When a shepherd holds out his
crook to stop a stampeded flock the leader jumps
over it. The shepherd and his crook moves on,
but the whole flock, to the thousandth sheep, jumps
high in air, when it comes to the place where the
leader had jumped. 'So it is with that class of skep
tics falsely sailed “scientists,” who refuse all
testimony except “The Testimony of the Rocks,”
and will jump over the place in space where some
chosen leader jumped and will never look to see
if the shepherd’s crook is still there. Or to change
the figure: They in their stupid credulity are like
a nest of young birds that take every disturbance
as a call to dinner, and will open wide their hungry
mouths and swallow anything that may be dropped
into them. They can not believe in the creative pow
er of Almighty God; but they do believe in the
monstrosity of a cosmos carving itself out of a
cornstalk, and then they can’t tell where the corn
stalk came from.
Fifth. Mr. Campbell believes in the immortality
of the soul, “but only because every 7 individual con
sciousness is a ray of the universal consciousness.”
That is to say:
“God is immortal:
We are God.
Therefore we are immortal.”
That is his alignment, not mine. It presumes that
God was unable to create an immortal soul with
out creating it out of his own substance. And
rather than admit that God did create us immor
tal souls, he assumes each of us is a part of the
immortal God and this he assumes without the
slightest vestige of evidence or the remotest possi
bility of proving. Oh, the credulity of the scien
tists !
Sixth. He believes the story of the fall is un
true in the literal sense.
Os course he does. That story verifies the whole
Bible and the deity of Christ. These things
the New 7 Theology has repudiated, therefore the
story of the fall must be cut out of the Bible.
Seventh. Along with the story of the fall must
go also: The doctrine of the responsibility for sin
and the Atonement, or more properly, the vica
rious death, of Christ.
Eighth. He says: “Jesus is and was divine, but
so are we. His mission was to make us realize our
divinity. ’ ’
This notion contradicts the scripture teaching
that those who sin are dead and must be made alive
by the Holy Spirit or remain forever dead.
Mr. Campbell has organized a band of which
he is president, the object of which will be to advo
cate these wild notions. If he would get off in a
gang with his crowd of religious buccaneers and
let the rest of us alone, there would be but little
harm done. But these fellows insist on staying 1 in
orthodox churches and schools, and teaching their
devilish doctrines, supported by orthodox endow
ments.
Orthodoxy is not invincible because it is histor
ically or traditionally sound. Historical ortho
doxy is destined to be subjected to a severe test
in the near future. In all orthodoxy there is a
dominant rule that must be applied and it will be
applied. It is this: The Bible is our only rule of
faith and practice. Every orthodox creed hangs
to that statement like a bunch of grapes to a
branch of the vine. However historical and tradi
tional usages may have modified or marred it, the
creed itself goes back to that statement.
The Book is supreme. It must be the final ar
biter in every dispute. The New Theology would
minimize and practically abolish the Book. True
orthodoxy will exalt and enthrone the word of
God. If in the contest, that orthodoxy which
stands on its historic integrity alone is lost from
sight the devil will gain little and the truth will
lose nothing, because the Word of God is the Light,
the Power, the Giver of everlasting life —“To
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of ever
lasting life.”
Expert Testimony.
We have had a siege in Cactus, with a high-browed
legal sharp—
By now he should be able to perform well on the
harp —
He figgered as a witness in a recent murder case,
And at expert testimony set the court a smokin’
pace.
He spouted ’bout the ego, and he told the dire
effect
When a brain storm had the system of a human
bein’ wrecked;
And he had the jury gaspin’ -with his hifalutin ’
guff
Till Bear Hawkins up and says: “Boys, this is
gettin’ too blame tough!”
So the jury rose en masse, and in strict decoruin
went
And attached a noose of rawhide to the windpipe
of the gent;
And when the work was finished the court, quite
proper, said,
No experts would be needed to decide the sharp
was dead.
(From the Denver Republican.)
Effect of Confidence.
There is nothing which quite bakes the place in a
boy’s life of the consciousness that somebody—
his teacher, brother, sister, father, mother, or friend
—believes in him.
One of the most discouraging things to a youth
who is apparently dull, yet is conscious of real
power and ability to suceed, is to be depreciated
by those around him, to feel that his parents and
teachers do not understand him, that they ’look
upon him as a probable failure.
When into the life of such a boy there comes the
loving assurance that somebody has discovered him.
has seen in him possibilities undreamed of by oth
ers, that moment there is born within him a new
hope, a light that will never cease to be an inspira
tion and encouragement.
If you believe in a boy, if you see any real ability
in him (and every human being is born with the
ability to do some one thing well), tell him so;
tell him that you believe he has the making of a
man in him. Such assurance has often proved of
greater advantage to a youth than cash capital.
There is inspiration in “Ho believes in me,”—
Success Magazine.
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