Hymns and Hymnwriters of DenmarkAaberg, J. C. (Jens Christian)
History
Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark
Aaberg, J. C. (Jens Christian)
Hymns, Danish -- History and criticism; Hymns, Danish -- Translations into English
He tried to attack Rationalism from new angles. In a carefully written
article in "The Theological Monthly," a magazine that he published in
collaboration with the learned but crusty Dr. G. A. Rudelbach, he argued
that any inquiry concerning the nature of Christianity should distinguish
between the questions: What is true Christianity? and Is Christianity
True? The first was a historical question, and could be answered only by
an examination of the original teachings of Christianity; the second was
a question of conscience and depended on the attitude of the individual.
He was he asserted, perfectly willing to recognize the right of the
Rationalists to believe what ever they choose, but as a historian he had
to protest against the propagation of any belief under the name of
Christianity that clearly denied what Christianity originally affirmed.
His writing, however, produced no evident result. The rationalists either
maintained a contemptuous silence or answered him by their favorite cry
of ignorance and fanaticism. The true teachings of Christianity, they
asserted, could be ascertained only by the trained theologian, able to
read the Bible in the original and trained to interpret it in the light
of current knowledge. Such men knew, it was claimed, that many of the
doctrines formerly held by the church, such as the divinity of Christ,
the atonement and the triunity of God, were not found in the Scriptures
at all or were based on misread or misinterpreted texts.
Although these contentions were almost as old as Christianity itself,
Grundtvig still found that a clear refutation of them was practically
impossible. He could not disprove them by Scripture, for the Rationalists
would claim their interpretation of the Bible to be as trustworthy as his
own; nor could he appeal to the confessions, for his opponents openly
repudiated these as antiquated conceptions of a less enlightened age. His
only hope of giving any real guidance to the confused and distressed
laity of his church thus appeared to depend on the possibility of
discovering an expression of Christianity so authoritative that the most
learned perverter of the faith could not repudiate it and so plain that
the humblest believer could understand it. In his anxiety it even seemed
to him that the Lord had failed adequately to provide for His little ones
if He had not supplied them with such a shield against the storm of
confusing doctrines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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