"In this swift day of unmatched opportunity, the Church is laboring,
perplexed and heavy, over its message." That is true enough. And I think
the secret of the Church being "perplexed and heavy" is, that preachers
must have an inward, unspoken conviction that their message of a limited
salvation is unworthy of God, and unsuited to the needs of the world. No
wonder the Church is "perplexed and heavy!"
Again this author says: "Men want to know that all the lines of diverse
human life converge into one infinite, beneficent hand." But if that
"infinite, beneficent hand" has cast by far the greater part of the
human race into eternal torment, it is no wonder if thoughtful men are
"perplexed and heavy."
Yet the writer of this article believes in universal love. He says:
"Men want to see that their single life, so lost alone, is vitally bound
into the bundle of universal love." So the author's instinct is better
than his creed. He professes to believe in universal love. That is
surely all right. But notwithstanding that, he professes to believe that
untold millions of the human race are in endless suffering.
In another place he says: "Men long to be assured that this is no
universe of short, fortuitous details." He also says: "The Kingdom of
God is too great for less than universal participation." Is this not
universalism? Yet, if the author were asked, would not his creed require
him to repudiate such an idea?
Again, this author says: "A few years ago science and human thought were
accepting an account of life which let a man fall like a beast in the
field, or a tree in the wood. To-day that explanation satisfies no one.
It is agreed that the meaning of life can be complete only in terms of
spirit and immortality." Is not the old doctrine of reprobation here
utterly denied? Yet that old doctrine of reprobation stands in the creed
of the orthodox church to-day.
One more quotation will suffice. Speaking of the divine plan, the author
says that it is "a plan so complete that no sparrow falls beyond it,
that no act falls fruitless, that there shall never be one lost good,
that no living soul made in God's image can ever drift beyond His love
and care." Is not this a flat contradiction of the author's orthodox
creed? We believe that all he claims is absolutely true. But is he
candid? Why has not the church the courage to expunge the old fatalism
from her creed, and present to the world a statement that she really
believes? I am persuaded that such candor is the desideratum of the
world to-day.
To a thoughtful mind, the most evangelical preachers are at times
unintelligible, and even contradictory, on such themes. Take this
extract from a sermon by Mr. Moody, published some time ago. He says
"Christ will return to the earth, for he has bought it with his own
blood, and is going to have it. He has redeemed it; and the Father is
going to give it to him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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